Ray Allen

As noted, the Hawks tripped over a splendid opportunity to reach the Eastern Conference finals. But, even had they gotten there, they wouldn’t have been expected to win the Eastern Conference finals. You had to figure Miami’s Big Three would have been too big.

Update: Miami’s Big Three is down to two, and the Heat just lost Game 2 at home to the Indiana Pacers. Meaning: The Hawks might have had a better chance in the ECF than we’d have thought.

By his own admission, Tyler Honeycutt did not have a good day working out in front of the Nets brass Thursday in East Rutherford.

“To be honest, it’s probably the worst workout I’ve had so far,” said Honeycutt, a slender, 6-8 small forward from UCLA. “Just normal, easy stuff I usually make wasn’t going in today, so just a little rest will help.”

His workout for the Nets was his 12th overall, he thought, and third in three days, after performing in Philadelphia on Wednesday and Washington on Tuesday.

“Fatigue is starting to kick in a little bit,” he said. “I’ve just got to suck it up from here on out.”

Not to worry. The Nets understood all that as they watched Honeycutt and five other players — including local products Jeremy Hazell (Seton Hall), Jonathan Mitchell (Rutgers) and Rashad Bishop of Paterson and the University of Cincinnati — play some spirited three-on-three at their practice facility.

“He didn’t shoot as well, and I think he’d tell you that,” Nets GM Billy King said. “(But) talking to other GMs, he had good workouts some places, other places he didn’t. So trust me, he’s in the mix.”

Honeycutt, 20, averaged 12.8 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.8 assists and a Pac-10-leading 2.1 blocked shots as a sophomore last season, and shot 40.6 percent from the field, including 36.2 percent from 3-point range.

“He’s very athletic,” King said of Honeycutt, who was a star volleyball player in high school and credits that with helping him develop his leaping ability and shot-blocking skills. “He had some very good games in college. He didn’t shoot the ball well here today, but he’s athletic. His body’s a little frail (6-8, 188), but there was another guy from UCLA, back in ’87, who had a frail body that lasted 18 years — Reggie Miller.”

It wasn’t the first time someone had compared Honeycutt to Miller, the former Indiana Pacers great who retired as the most prolific 3-point shooter in NBA history, holding that distinction until Ray Allen broke his record for 3-pointers this season. The folks in Indiana brought Miller’s name up after Honeycutt had perhaps his best showing of the pre-draft workout circuit there.

“It’s a great player to be compared to,” said Honeycutt, who has never met Miller. “His name speaks for itself, what he’s done.”

Most of the mock drafts already vary widely, but Honeycutt is generally expected to be a first-round pick at next week’s NBA Draft, most likely going somewhere in the 20s. The Nets have the 27th pick and could definitely use a small forward who can shoot and play defense.

NOTES

The other two players who worked out were power forwards Carleton Scott of Notre Dame and Chris Wright of Dayton.

The Nets’ next and final individual workouts will be Monday.

Bishop, who went to Kennedy High School and St. Benedict’s Prep, was asked about getting a workout by his hometown team.

“It feels good to be back right there in your hometown, home state working out for a team,” he said. “It’s big. It just shows kids coming up behind me that you can do a lot of things from where we come from as long as you work hard.”

For more Nets coverage, follow Colin Stephenson on Twitter at twitter.com/ledger_nets

The New Lost City Ramblers and Folk Music Authenticity, presented by Ray Allen, Brooklyn College, CUNY. (Book Talk)

September 8, 2011, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm

Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

The New Lost City Ramblers were pioneers in the old-time music revival that paralleled the great folk music boom of the 1960s. Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley (later replaced by Tracy Schwarz) were city-born and suburban-bred folk musicians who specialized in recreating the sounds of rural southern stringband and early bluegrass music at a time when the folk music scene was dominated by commercial singers and political singer/songwriters. The Ramblers raised key questions over what constituted authentic folk music, encouraging city musicians to concentrate on instrumental and vocal performance styles gleaned from recordings rather than depending on words and melodies learned from written collections. But as cultural “outsiders” their own status as authentic practitioners of southern mountain music would be challenged by academics and governments folklorists. Ray Allen’s Gone to the Country: The New Lost City Ramblers and the Urban Folk Music Revival (2010) examines the Ramblers music and the challenges they faced as performers and promoters of traditional folk styles.

Reclaiming Lost languages: The Breath of Life Archival Institutes for Indigenous Languages, Thursday, June 16, presented by Leanne Hinton, University of California/Berkeley

Decoration Day in the Mountains, Thursday, July 7, presented by Alan Jabbour & Karen Singer Jabbour

Newslore: Contemporary Folklore on the Internet, Wednesday, August 10, presented by Russell Frank, Pennsylvania State University

New Lost City Ramblers and Folk Music Authenticity, Thursday, September 8, presented by Ray Allen, Brooklyn College/CUNY