HOOP March/April

Stephen Curry

Tony Allen

Gary Payton

Swizz Beatz

Mar/apr 2013

Super reserves J.R. Smith and Jamal Crawford have their respective teams booked for a possible seat in the Finals. $4.99 USA

H130304-cover-USA.indd 1

2/20/13 3:30 PM

Wieden & Kennedy_Nike.indd 2

1/25/13 4:08 PM

Wieden & Kennedy_Nike.indd 3

1/25/13 4:08 PM

WARM UPS

AL BELLO (3)/GETTY IMAGES SPORT

H130304-Warmups.indd 2

Babies are usually the ones picked up and cradled—except in this instance, it was the opposite. Big Baby, aka Glen Davis, saves Crash, aka Gerald Wallace, from making good on his nickname by catching him mid-air after one of Wallace’s wayward layups.

2/25/13 12:25 PM

H130304-Warmups.indd 3

2/25/13 12:26 PM

WARM UPS

H130304-Warmups.indd 4

2/25/13 12:26 PM

ANDREW D. BERNSTEIN; NATHANIEL S. BUTLER; GARY DINEEN; GARRETT ELLWOOD/ NBAE/GETTY IMAGESRONALD MARTINEZ (2)/GETTY IMAGES SPORT

H130304-Warmups.indd 5

You can debate all you want on whether or not this year’s Slam Dunk Contest (congratulations, Terrence Ross, on taking the crown) was enjoyable or not, but you absolutely, positively cannot say that these stills of aerial majesty are not utterly captivating.

2/25/13 12:27 PM

WARM UPS

SCOTT HALLERAN/GETTY IMAGES SPORT

H130304-Warmups.indd 6

The debate over who’s the best player between Kobe Bryant and LeBron James has been largely resolved with the younger LeBron taking the reins of the League, but the hyper-competitive Kobe will disagree, as he shows during the All-Star Game with a key block on LeBron that sealed the West’s win.

2/25/13 12:27 PM

Pride of the Fleet.

Leader of the Category.

SUV of the Year.

The GL is Motor Trend ’s 2013 Sport/Utility of the Year.®

When the groundbreaking GL was first introduced, it was awarded Motor Trend’s SUV of the Year honors. So what happened when the second-generation GL was recently launched? You guessed it.

The 2013 GL was just awarded top SUV honors again by Motor Trend. Proof that history repeating itself is a good thing. Test-drive the new 7-passenger GL at your local Mercedes-Benz dealer or visit MBUSA.com for more details. And you can take home a two-time winner today.

MBUSA.com/GL

2013 GL 550 4MATIC® shown in Lunar Blue metallic paint. May include optional equipment. No system, regardless of how advanced, can overcome the laws of physics or correct careless driving. First generation GL was the winner of 2007 Motor Trend Sport/Utility of the Year.® Please always wear your seat belt. ©2012 Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC For more information, call 1-800-FOR-MERCEDES, or visit MBUSA.com.

Mercedes.indd 1

11/27/12 2:52 PM

WARM UPS

In remembrance of Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss, who passed away on February 18 at the age of 80, the Lakers erected a wall outside of Staples Center that allowed fans to post a message of gratitude for the 10 NBA Championships that he delivered to the city of Los Angeles during his 34 years of owning the franchise.

H130304-Warmups.indd 8

STEPHEN DUNN/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

2/25/13 12:27 PM

T H E B E S T W AY T O

GE T RID RAZOR BUMPS IS TO GE T RID OF

OF THE

RAZOR NEW

WORKS INN 4 MIN.

LASTS FORR 4 DAYS.

©2013 ©20 13 3 Sof S tSh tSheen een en • Car a son on LL o L C sof softsh tsheen tsh e -ca een carso rso s n.c n.com. om. m

Softsheen Carson Products.indd 1

1/9/13 4:23 PM

Spalding Sports.indd 2

1/9/13 4:33 PM

Spalding Sports.indd 3

1/9/13 4:33 PM

The Gameplan

maR/apR 2013

Features

58 Grit ’n Grind Tony Allen is a dirty player. Not the kind who throws elbows, grabs the jersey or skirts rules, but the kind of dirty that results from a man putting forth maximum effort for an honest day’s work, making Memphis the ideal location for his talents. Allen embodies the city, the Grizzlies and its defense. What makes Allen so effective and endearing to Memphis is how he wears his heart on his sleeve—that is, if you can see it beneath the grime.

38 accept no Substitutes Change your thinking: The first man off the bench isn’t the sixth-best player on the team. He’s the team’s No. 1 option when things aren’t working out. When the team is having a difficult time finding points, it’s his job to get buckets in a hurry. When the other team is scorching, it’s his job to put out the flames. He’s not getting the pyrotechnic-filled introduction (he waits for the referee’s whistle before entering) or the pregame daps (the closest thing is the gauntlet of legs he has to hop over on his way to the scorer’s table), but he’s no less important—and sometimes even more so—than any member of the starting five.

48 Stepback J No one knows better than Jamal Crawford that in order to get where you want in life, you need to deke one way to get to the opposite direction or even take a step back from your destination in order to reach your ultimate goal.

After a dozen seasons where a championship was a mere mirage and his only calling card to relevance was his lethal ballhandling— particularly his devastating crossover— Crawford has the chance to finally play for something beyond simple ohhs and ahhs.

66 Talk the line Including the playoffs, Gary Payton played a grand total of 52,598 minutes during his 17-year NBA career and there was likely nary a single minute of it spent in silence. The man jawed at teammates and especially opponents, conversed during free throws and timeouts, jabbered whether his team was winning or losing—the chatter from Payton never stopped.

Payton expressed himself to opponents, coaches, ballboys, the fans in the expensive seats, really anyone who would lend an ear (or not). As it turned out, Payton talked a good game, but he also played it pretty well, too.

Poster It’s only fitting that we pair the multi-skilled LeBron James with another equally versatile legend, Oscar Robertson.

012

H130304-TOC.indd 12

2/25/13 12:32 PM

LIVE NBA ACTION

ON ALL THREE PLATFORMS BUY NOW AND DON’T MISS A MINUTE! TO ORDER CALL 855-NBA-LPLP OR GO TO NBA.COM/LEAGUEPASS TM & © 2013 Turner Entertainment Networks, Inc. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.Photo: Getty Images.

LeaguePass.indd 1

2/27/13 8:56 AM

ThE GAME PlAn MAR/APR 2013 Departments

2 Warm-Ups 16 The Point 21 Jumpball Numerology: The 123s of the NBA; Celeb Row: Swizz Beatz is so loyal to his hometown New York Knicks that he refuses to step foot into another arena for an NBA game; Peripheral Vision: Ed Downs has been the motivating force behind the likes of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh; First Five: Alonzo Gee, Greivis Vasquez, Evan Turner, Eric Bledsoe, Jordan Crawford; Dance Life: Siobhan of the Brooklynettes; Transition Game: Carmelo Anthony, from braids to Broadway; Head2Head: Athletic big men DeAndre Jordan and JaVale McGee see who gets up higher; Know Your Newb: Detroit’s Kyle Singler on his delayed entry to the NBA; Brack-It: The best player to cop an NCAA title and NBA Championship.

36 24 Seconds: Stephen Curry We know he can beat the buzzer, but can Curry beat our 24 inquiries?

92 Stepback Before he was sharing airtime with Chuck, Kenny Smith was catching air on the court.

77 Check-It Spin Moves: Zach Randolph expresses himself through his musical, cinematic and videogame choices; Goods: We recommend a lawn mower. Yes, a lawn mower; Gear: We think you should lace up the Air Jordan XX8 and adidas D Rose 3.5; Wear: A few picks to add to the spring wardrobe.

94 Call-Out Good deeds that go noticed.

96 Final Exam The test we administered to Jrue Holiday was certainly no holiday.

014

H130304-TOC.indd 14

2/25/13 12:33 PM

Mild Lyrics NBA 2K13 for iOS and Android not rated by ESRB

© 2005-2012 Take-Two Interactive Software and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. 2K Sports, the 2K Sports logo, and Take-Two Interactive Software are all trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. The NBA and individual NBA member team identifications used on or in this product are trademarks, copyrights designs and other forms of intellectual property of NBA Properties, Inc. and the respective NBA member teams and may not be used, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of NBA Properties, Inc. © 2012 NBA Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. “PlayStation” and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks and the PlayStation Network logo is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. KINECT, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE, and the Xbox logos are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies and are used under license from Microsoft. Nintendo trademarks and copyrights are properties of Nintendo. The ratings icon is a trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

2K Sports.indd 1

9/12/12 10:47 AM

The PoinT Starting is overrated.

Starting up a puzzle1 is no fun. Putting in the final piece that completes it is gratifying.2 Starting a to-do list is an exercise that only serves to tell you how much you need to get done.3 Finishing it gives you an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.

Starting a new school is filled with anxiety. Graduating from it offers up fond reminiscence.

Starting a mortgage or car loan means years of interest and debt. Making that last payment means ownership.

Andre Miller has starter ability, but now waits to enter a game.

Starting this column usually involves a few hours staring at the screen trying to come up with something profound4 to say.

Dropping the last period on it means another issue is put to bed.5 It’s no different in the NBA. While it’s nice to have your name blared out on the PA system and run through the gauntlet of teammates into an arena full of cheers,6 I always admired the dudes BONUS POINTS who stealthily enter the game and turn the tide. A few buckets, a dime or two, some 1. it’s been a while, but edges first. heady defensive stops—most importantly, a jolt of energy to the lineup—and 2. i was the guy who stashed a when they would tag out, the starter would come back with a comfortable lead or piece of someone else’s puzzle a chipped-away deficit. At the end of the game, when the coach has the five best so i could be the hero that completes it at the end. players on the floor, it’s not always the starting five. Almost always,7 the sixth man 3. i don’t even bother. mine is included in the mix. never ends.

4. it rarely happens.

Some sixth men are made,8 but the best ones are born.9 They’re able to check their 5. not all the time, but in this ego at the door, take a seat at the bench, observe and analyze the game, and when case, this page was the last page to get done. the coach gives the signal,10 they get up, tear off the warm-ups, amble over to the 6. at the Jordan XX3 launch, scorer’s table with a precise plan of attack to help their team. A gaze at the postgame i was lucky enough to be box score shows the sixth man listed below the starting quintet, but peer down treated to a Chicago Bulls-style intro of myself by ray Clay as the minutes-played column and you’ll see that he got more burn than some of the i got to run out to the united starters. The sixth man might not get the laser-show, pyrotechnic entry,11 but you Center floor. it was indeed amazing. can’t question his presence wasn’t felt.

7. in the case of teams with a Two of my favorite were Michael Cooper and Vinnie Johnson. Each did it his own quality sixth man.

8. Bill Walton was a great way. Coop was the fixer. Pat Riley’s Luca Brasi.12 If Larry Bird13 or some other cat was example. upstaging Showtime, Riley would bring in Cooper to settle him down with his long 9. turn to page 42 for the list. arms and even longer socks. An aggressive defender, Cooper would turn would-be 10. each coach has their signal. some gesture. some points for the other team into fastbreaks for the Lakers. He barely averaged 10 shout. some casually call the points a game, but if you took into account the points he prevented, Cooper was name. some just look over.

11. you have the Bulls to worth much more.14 thank—or loath, depending on Johnson was a completely different beast. Whereas Cooper was long, lean and how you feel—for the standard nBa player intros. nimble, Johnson was short, stocky with thighs15 that bent steel. While Cooper cooled 12. For the youngsters, this is down scorers, the Microwave16 would enter the game and make popcorn for the home a reference to the godfather, a crowd, dropping midrange Js with that unmistakable slinging jumper held high over timeless classic.

13. Bird admitted Cooper was his head. his toughest defender.

Surprisingly, neither were ever awarded the Sixth Man of the Year trophy. To no 14. Probably something like 18 ppg, i’d guess. surprise, both helped their teams to multiple titles.17 15. there might be guys today You can have your five. I’ll plead the 6th. with just-as-jacked thighs, but

Ming Wong #2

016

H130304-ThePoint.indd 16

Johnson played in the era of tight and short shorts.

16. one of the best nBa nicknames ever.

17. Cooper has five rings.

Johnson two.

Volume 41, No. 3

Editor-in-Chief Ming Wong #2 Design Director Kengyong Shao #31 Assistant Editor Phil D’Apolito #14 Online Editor Darryl Howerton #21 Editor-at-Large Jeramie McPeek #4 Copy Editor Trevor Kearney #8 WNBA Editor Lois Elfman #40 Senior Writer Michael Bradley #53 Contributing Writers Ray Bala #55, Russ Bengtson #43, Myles Brown #37, Jon Cooper #10, Jim Eichenhofer #12, Anthony Gilbert #1, Brian A. Giuffra #17, Vincent Goodwill #5, Melody Hoffman #34, Andy Jasner #27, Holly MacKenzie #32, Brett Mauser #25, McG #93, Jeff Min #12, Earl K. Sneed #23, Duane Watson #7, Jared Zwerling #3 Illustrator Matt Candela #52 Retired Numbers #6, #11, #13, #30, #99

Professional Sports Publications 519 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10018 Tel: (212) 697-1460 Fax: (646) 753-9480 Executive VP Operations Jeff Botwinick Executive VP, Business Development Martin Lewis Executive VP, Sales Steve Farkas Executive VP, Sales Mitch Gibbs Executive VP, Team Relations Dave Gerschwer Executive Administrative Director Julie Wong Manager, Marketing Services Aron Sawyer Production Manager Jaime Ziegler Production Assistant Tara Malloy

NBA Publishing/NBA Photos Executive VP, and Executive Producer, Production, Programming, and Broadcasting Danny Meiseles Senior VP, Multimedia Production Paul Hirschheimer Senior VP, Entertainment & Player Marketing Charlie Rosenzweig Senior VP, Marketing Communications Mike Bass Senior Director, NBAE Production John Hareas Executive Vice President, Global Merchandising Group Sal LaRocca Manager, Global Media Programs Felecia Groomster Senior Directors & Senior Official NBAE Photographers Andrew D. Bernstein, Nathaniel S. Butler Vice President, NBA Photos Joe Amati Director, Photos Imaging David Bonilla Official NBAE Photographer Jesse Garrabrant Senior Photo Editor Brian Choi Photo Coordinator Kevin Wright

All NBA photos appearing in this magazine, unless otherwise indicated, are copyright of NBA Entertainment. All WNBA photos appearing in this magazine, unless otherwise indicated, are copyright of WNBA Enterprises. All NBDL photos appearing in this magazine, unless otherwise indicated, are copyright of NBDL Enterprises. HOOP is published monthly, December through June, by PSP. © 2013 Professional Sports Publications. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without permission of publisher is prohibited. To subscribe to HOOP, call (800) 829-3347.

PRINTED IN THE USA

Doug Pensinger/getty images sPort

2/25/13 11:33 AM

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.indd 1

1/3/13 2:27 PM

under armour.indd 2

11/21/12 2:35 PM

MAKES YOU PLAY SUPERHUMAN. The upper’s made of Bionic Fibers that are ultra-light but somehow strong enough to support even your most violent movements. Under your feet, you’ve never felt anything like the mix of lightweight flexibility, stability, and comfort of UA Spine cushioning. There’s never been a shoe this playable. Literally unbelievable.

UA.com/baske t ball

under armour.indd 3

11/21/12 2:35 PM

HoopTroop.indd 1

12/5/12 11:28 AM

JUMPBALL

NUMEROLOGY

15

The number of teams whose win totals (through 1/1/13) were less than the 16 wins the L.A. Clippers accomplished during their undefeated month of December. The Clippers’ perfect month joins them with the 199596 San Antonio Spurs and the 1971-72 L.A. Lakers as the only teams in NBA history to not lose during an entire month.

With a pull-up runner against the Golden State Warriors on 1/17/13, LeBron James, at 28 years and 17 days old, became the youngest player in NBA history to score 20,000 career points. In the same game, James also reached 5K career dimes.

77 Kevin Durant (41 points) and Russell Westbrook (36) combined for 77 points against Phoenix on 1/14/13, a point short of the most recent high set on 4/14/12. The previous dynamic duo to pool for 78 points?

Durant (41) and Westbrook (35).

In his 1,180th game, Kobe Bryant reached the lofty milestone of 30,000 career points. Reaching this peak puts him in a height that only 4 others have scaled: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387), Karl Malone (36,928), Michael Jordan (32,292) and Wilt Chamberlain (31,419).

0-FOR-22 13 The Denver Nuggets set an NBA record for long-distance futility by missing all 22 of their 3-point attempts in a game against the Portland Trail Blazers on 12/20/12. Coincidentally, the previous record holder of 20 missed 3s was set just a week prior by the Blazers, who had gone 0-for-20 from the arc. In fact, if not for a late Ty Lawson 20-foot jumper, Denver would have missed all of its 32 shots outside of the paint in the game.

The number of players on the Bucks and Suns who weren’t even yet born yet when Milwaukee last won in Phoenix. On 1/17/13, the Bucks defeated the Suns in Phoenix, 98-94, ending the desert losing streak at 24 and winning there for the first time since 2/21/87.

021

H130304-Numerology.indd 21

2/28/13 3:36 PM

JUMP BALL CELEB ROW

SWIZZ BEATZ Even when rapper and renowned producer Swizz Beatz isn’t present in body, he’s in the building for every New York Knicks home game. After successfully remixing the Knicks’ anthem, “Go NY Go!,” he has now produced a new track for the team, which is used for the opening video and player introductions each time they take to the Madison Square Garden floor. Beatz, 34, chose a Knicks game to debut his latest single, “Everyday Birthday,” and like the song says, “hit the floor,” there’s nothing better than watching his team in action.

So how much do you love basketball?

Egypt, my 2-year-old son, loves basketball I think more than me. He watches ESPN, TNT and MSG Network. Cartoons are slim around this house.

How are his ballhandling skills?

You might think I’m crazy, but I watched him score 100 points. All he do is shoot basketballs in his little hoop. He’s got like four different hoops that he switches from. He’s a lefty. His form is right.

So eventually he’ll be starting for the New York Knicks.

I wouldn’t think that’s what he would do with his mother’s [Alicia Keys] musical talent and my musical talent. I never played basketball that well. Come to find out, she was a great basketball player when she was younger. One minute he’s on the guitar, next minute he’s on the drums and piano. But as of lately he spends 20 percent doing music and the rest basketball. I guess we’re looking like the Knicks for Egypt. His favorite player is Melo. He thinks he’s Melo.

Beyond your future NBA All-Star, how much do you love basketball?

I was so into music growing up. I didn’t really have time for sports. When a lot of the athletes started acknowledging my music and I started seeing them outside of the court and we became friends, then I started saying, “That’s my friend playing.” Then it started turning into a different thing for me.

Going to the games and stuff like that, it became amazing. What really got me into it was being able to get my kids involved and it being a family thing. So that’s what really, really made me fall in love with basketball even more.

You’ve created music for the games so you’re kind of at every New York Knicks home game even if you’re not able to be there. What does that mean to you?

Man, that’s leaving a legacy. That’s being able to be in people’s lives even when they don’t see you.

That’s bringing your energy to the Garden. It’s legendary being from New York, being from the Bronx, being able to sit down and see my videos being played in there, seeing me interacting with the players. Scoring the music for the Garden, it was a blessing and a gift at the same time.

What’s special about the Knicks for you?

What’s special about the Knicks, especially this year, is that a lot of people—even last year when I came on board officially to do the scoring and be like a curator for MSG and the Knicks—a lot of people was doubting the Knicks. They were going through the different transitions with the coaches. Jeremy Lin excitement happened. Then that went down when [he left]. So a lot people was up in the air and everybody wanted to trade and go to the Nets, which looked very exciting, which is very exciting. It’s cool because it’s still all New York. But you’ve seen how the Knicks fought through and they’re still fighting through, holding that stance and holding that position of the jersey that has New York on it.

What’s the energy like sitting courtside?

I don’t want to jinx it, but I’ve never been to a losing Knicks game. For me, it’s everything. The energy is just like wow. It’s a magical feel, especially when you know all of the players. I threw dinners for all of the players. We got this thing called the Knicks tape where we just express through music, we express through art. We’ve got our own slang. I feel like I’m a part of the team. When I come out there, we all have this look like we’re all in this together. The excitement of winning and being nervous of not winning, the adrenalin is out the roof.

022

H130304-Celeb Row/Peripheral Vision.indd 22

Are you reliving what you missed out in high school?

I’m not only doing that in sports. I’m going back doing that with BMX bikes. Things that I always wanted, but I was always on the move or couldn’t afford. Let me go back and explore some of my childhood that I missed. Basketball is definitely one of them because I was always missing in action during big games that was happening in the parks, things that people wouldn’t go home without seeing. I would be upstairs DJing and trying to figure out how to put out a mix tape.

What do you think of the Knicks/Nets rivalry?

Shout out to Jay-Z who’s a great friend and partner of mine. Fifteen to 17 years now we’ve been making music together. Now for him to be doing the things that he’s doing in Brooklyn, I think is amazing.

As far as the rivalry, what I think it does is it puts a lot of focus on New York, which I love. If you’re not talking about the Nets, you’re talking about the Knicks. At the end of the day you’re still talking about New York, so I think it’s a great campaign. It puts everybody on their A game.

The funny thing in Barclays is it’s tricky in there. Whoever’s losing that’s who they’ll boo when they go for the free throw. One minute they’re booing the Knicks, the next minute they’re booing the Nets.

They don’t really know who they’re going with yet. It’s funny because at the Garden it’s established who you’re rooting for. But over there, they’re just making the switch so it’s a very interesting contrast of seeing the fans go from one side to the next. That goes back to saying it’s all New York.

Do you enjoy checking out games in various cities?

The only place I go to is the Garden. I’m like that. I’m dedicated. I’m loyal. I’m scared to do a move that I wouldn’t normally do. I like to keep everything how it’s going because everything’s been great. I don’t want to go to any other place. Plus, it’s like my home. I’ve got my own room in the Garden. I get treated very, very well.

The Garden renovations are unfolding, but it still has that classic ceiling from the day it opened. You want to have that authentic ceiling. You don’t want it to feel too futuristic. You want people to still feel like they’re in an original element, but with a modern twist.

I think the new renovations from the locker rooms on down are just totally impressive.

While the NBA lockout was going on last year, did you check out any college hoops action?

I was out with the guys when the lockout was happening. With Melo we traveled a couple of places. It was a very weird moment because you would see people out having a good time, but they also had like a worried vibe going on as well. The lockout was tough. You see one minute the CHRISTOPHER PASATIERI/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

2/22/13 8:59 AM

guys are having fun, the next minute they’re stressed out. It was just a weird time. I happened to see a lot of behind the scenes decisions and stuff like that. I was pretty much caught up into that moment. The lockout meant the lockout. I definitely wasn’t checking any college teams.

You went on Christmas Day 2011 for the season opener. I saw the photo of you, your wife and your son there. Was that a perfect Christmas for your family?

It was amazing. One, it was a great family outing.

The kids love it. My wife loves it. There’s something about going to games together with your family that makes for memorable moments. That was definitely a memorable moment.

Please talk about your Reebok shoes. Does basketball serve as an inspiration?

Basketball is kind of like the blueprint for footwear.

The athletic movement and the sneaker culture is the leader starting from retros going all the way up to new designs. A lot of sneakers got famous from basketball players, which is one of the reasons why me coming on board with Todd Krinsky and some of my other colleagues agreed to reintroduce Allen Iverson, reintroduce Dominique Wilkins. Big shout out to Shaq. We just got Shaq back on the team.

We’re bringing back the Shaq Attaqs. It’s all going around in a full circle to where it began because this generation deserves to experience those sneaker moments as well. The retro business is great.

Any particular players you envision in the shoes?

Not necessarily players unless we’re doing something creative for a player that we have already signed. In design, I’m trying to think of something that’s spectacular, that they never even envisioned, or we give them something that they’ve always been wanting, that they would never get again. Those are my lines right there. Those are kind of like my guidelines to designing. That’s what I give the team. It’s been working.

Do you ever play now?

I remember a celebrity basketball game. I can dribble well. I stole the ball. It was the moment when everything is in slow motion: I throw the ball up in the air. It goes over the hoop, over the whole rim, over everything. I said, “I can never do that again.”

I let the whole crowd down. It would have won the game. I had the opportunity and I messed it all up. I should have just passed the ball.

What about some low-key pickup?

I play at the house if we’ve got friends and stuff like that. I can make a couple of lucky shots here and there. But Egypt is way better than me. LOIS ELFMAN #40

PERIPHERAL VISION

ED DOWNS Ed Downs is the personal trainer to basketball’s elite.

As a fifth degree black belt who has trained Navy Seals, he lists Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Chris Bosh [Downs is pictured at right with the Miami Thrice], Carlos Boozer, Alonzo Mourning and Penny Hardaway as trusted clients who he’s worked thorough his personalized sports fitness programs. Downs recently opened up the TERF Athletic Facility in Miami, where he shares his more than 20 years of experience in functional sports-specific training.

Who was your first pro basketball client?

Ed: My first was Allen Iverson in 1999, I did some work with him on speed and quickness. Then I was hired to work with the Miami Heat. Pat Riley heard about the stuff I was doing and brought me in. Jamal Mashburn was having patellar tendinitis issues that they just couldn’t resolve. I put him on a rigorous stretching routine, to improve his flexibility and take some pressure off his tendons, and it worked.

You’ve been training athletes for more than 20 years.

What’s the biggest difference you’ve seen?

Ed: There are six skill related parameters: speed, coordination, reaction time, agility, power and balance. Those six things, guys have gotten better at. A guy like Dwyane Wade, LeBron, Kobe, on a scale of 1 to 10, they’re like 10 in all of them. A guy maybe 20 years ago, he may have been a 10 in more of the shooing and fundamentals, but he may not have been as powerful. These guys are becoming more all-around athletes so to speak, that’s what I see.

Allen Iverson, he can’t bench 135 pounds, but he was naturally athletic. The Allen Iverson is now Derrick Rose, built and 205 pounds.

How do you develop a routine for your clients?

Ed: When they first come to me, I do an hour-and-ahalf to two-hour assessment. I have them do certain drills for speed, agility and go thorough all those parameters and start addressing those issues. But if Mario Chalmers comes to me and says, “Ed I want to get quicker,” I have to address that first; you got to please the client.

How often do you train your clients?

Ed: If a player’s season ends on April 18, I’ll probably see them in June. But a guy that’s in the playoffs that goes all the way into June, we’ll start up in July.

They’ll take a good two to three weeks off, then we start back light, doing maybe three days a week, then

by August we’re doing four or five days a week, by mid-September it tapers off as they start getting on the court more. During the season is very sporadic,

cause they’re working with the team and I don’t want to interfere with that.

You do a lot of work with children. Are you training any of your NBA players’ kids?

Ed: I worked with Tim Hardaway’s son, Tim Hardaway, Jr., since he was a junior in high school and put 20 pounds of muscle on him before I sent him off to Michigan. Alonzo Mourning’s son Trey, he works with me now, he’s a 6-8 sophomore in high school.

Penny Hardaway’s son Jayden, Juwan Howard’s boys, Dwyane Wade’s boys, so I call them my “secondgenerations.”

You showed Dwyane Wade some martial arts for learning how to fall?

Ed: It was about learning how to keep balance, so when you do fall, you land with a little more control.

Cause he’s airborne all the time, getting bumped in the air and doing all these acrobatic shots. We did a lot of balance training, core training, but at the same time, the martial arts has a little value in there as well, how to land on an awkward angle to break that fall.

Who have you trained that you were most proud of?

Ed: Jamal Mashburn, when I went to Charlotte with him. He worked so hard that offseason, that’s when he made the All-Star team. His first All-Star game after being in the League for 10 years, he autographed his AllStar jersey and gave it to me. He really appreciated it.

The other person I would say happens to be Penny Hardaway’s son, Jayden. I’ve been working with him since he was 3, he’s 13 now. Here’s a kid that was born with autism, has physical and mental things going on...disabilities. Now, he ends up being normal and is able to socialize with the kids, he’s in regular school, and a straight ‘A’ student and he’s balling. His parents never would have thought, but through hard work and dedication, we put in those extra hours. DUANE WATSON #7

023

H130304-Celeb Row/Peripheral Vision.indd 23

2/22/13 8:59 AM

jump ball first five

By Jim EichEnhofEr #12

The vision many basketball fans have of Greivis Vasquez is that of a cocky, brash University of Maryland1 guard. Indeed, Vasquez once pulled off the unthinkable by bringing Duke and North Carolina fans together— in their mutual dislike of the 6-6, 211-pounder.

Three seasons into his NBA career, however, the 26-year-old has matured into a team-first, pass-first2 leader of the young Hornets. These days, he shows no evident signs of having been described as one of the most hated players in college basketball history, but he doesn’t dispute his pre-NBA rep, either.

“I wouldn’t say it was incorrect,” Vasquez offers of the perception of him. “It’s just part of my culture.3 I’m a happy kid. I’m social. I put myself out there. I like to go to a place and say hi to everybody. People sometimes took it wrong, that I was trying to be the center of attention. It’s just who I am.”

The player’s first day as a pro was vintage Vasquez. After David Stern announced his name on draft night in June 2010, instead of the traditional handshake, Vasquez bear-hugged4 the commish. He’s tried to bring similar enthusiasm to the hardwood ever since he put on an NBA uniform.

“If I don’t play with emotion, I can’t be as good,” he explains. “I have to be active5 and going crazy and jumping up and down. That’s the type of person I am, the personality I have.”

21

BONus POINTs 1. He was named atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year in 2009-10, his senior year with the terrapins.

2. Halfway into the season, vasquez ranked third in the NBa in assists, behind only rajon rondo and Chris Paul.

3. the native of Caracas is the second venezuelan-born player to make it to the NBa. Oscar torres was the first.

4. No pun intended. the Grizzlies chose him with the 28th pick of the first round.

5. along with ranking among the NBa’s assist leaders, vasquez is averaging career highs in points and rebounds. He twice came within a rebound of a tripledouble between 12/28/12 and 1/1/13.

024

H130304-First Five.indd 24

Greivis

Vasquez

Guard - New OrleaNs HOrNets

daNNY BOlliNGer/NBae/GettY imaGes

2/22/13 9:43 AM

The Headblade Co.indd 1

1/15/13 5:28 PM

jump ball

By Anthony GilBert #1

first five

The 76ers are one of the more storied1 teams in the League, and in June 2010, they looked to expand their history through the NBA Draft. The result was Evan Turner, a combo guard from Ohio State.2 “I knew I was coming here. It’s a great opportunity; I understood what was going on, what I was getting myself into. Being renowned is really good and really bad, especially in certain situations,” Turner says about his three seasons as a Sixer.

“When I’m doing really good or really bad, I hear it.”

The evolution from his rookie year to this current season is both a natural progression, and an opportunity. He benefited greatly in the Sixers’ offseason trade of Andre Iguodala, opening up a door of opportunity in a starting spot.

When asked about his role with the team, he says: “I’ve been asked to do more things, and be more responsible with the ball. I have the opportunity3 to be more responsible. I’m just going to compete and be a leader, and try to help this team to stay afloat.

“I try to lead by example. We have a lot of veterans on the team, and the first thing is that you have to earn the respect, and then when you have earned respect, then you can become vocal.”

Now the next thing for Turner is to add to the Sixers’ heritage.

BOnuS POInTS 1. the Philadelphia 76ers have three nba titles, and rank in the top five in all-time wins.

2. turner hails from Chicago, and attended the same high school as Isiah thomas.

3. he is currently averaging career-highs of 13.8ppg, 6.7 rpg and 4.3 apg.

026

H130304-First Five.indd 26

12 evan

Turner

GuarD - PhIlaDelPhIa 76ers Jesse D. Garrabrant/nbae/Getty ImaGes

2/22/13 9:46 AM

DANCE LIFE

Siobhan

Wait up, the Brooklynettes can dunk?

Siobhan: Yes we do, we have a dunk team composed of dancers and some of our tumbling members. I think there are a few teams in the league that have dancers that dunk. But you know what? We’re athletes and we’re dancers, so we want to take all of what we have and share that with the fans. It’s great when we get to go out there and dunk and the fans absolutely love it.

A dancer dunk-off could potentially be more appealing than the Slam Dunk Contest.

Siobhan: I’m sure the fans would like that. I’m always game for things like that. It’s fun, we all support each other, but I love to dunk so bring that on, I’m in!

You’ve danced for the Nets for seven years. How challenging was it during the 12-70 season they had in 2009-10?

Siobhan: Its rough when you see the team not doing as well as you want them to, because we’re fans. We’re here for them and we’re here to support them, so no matter highs or low, we’re there cheering them on, supporting them. It may get rough, but at those rough times you see what people are made of, so we keep cheering them on. It’s great now that we’re in Brooklyn, it’s a different vibe, different feel and it’s been amazing so far.

What’s the biggest difference moving from New Jersey to Brooklyn?

Siobhan: It’s been everything: the teams, the fans, dancing, we have to step it up. You’re coming to Brooklyn and the fans have been absolutely amazing. They’re behind us, you can feel their energy and it trickles down to the team. The team is now playing amazing with all the moves we made in the offseason and now the dancing. Stepping up our game and making sure we’re bringing the highest form of entertainment that we can in the NBA. So everything has changed and change is good.

How much impact has Jay-Z had on this franchise?

Siobhan: You can see his influence with the colors and the logo and that kind of thing, and he helped design our logo with the Brooklynettes. It’s nice to kind of see his hands-on involvement in everything.

Does the Knicks-Nets rivalry extend down to the dancers?

Siobhan: There’s really no rivalry, we’re friends with some of

BrooklyNetteS

the dancers on the Knicks team. It’s a friendly rivalry if anything. We support them, they support us, we’re in the dance community so it’s really that kind of friendship.

You’ve performed across the globe representing the Nets. Which was the most memorable experience?

Siobhan: We had the pleasure of going to South Korea and dancing for them and we got to dance on one of their number one shows called Star King. We got to dance and dunk, it was absolutely amazing. Going out of the country on one of my first years with the Nets and experiencing that kind of love from the fans was such a blessing.

You’re a cancer survivor; can you share your experience?

Siobhan: I was actually 18 months old and I was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, which is cancer of the tissue. Although I don’t remember a lot when I was younger, my mom kind of told me a bunch of stories about it. I’m blessed, I was in remission at the age of seven and I’ve been in remission ever since.

What’s the most valuable piece of advice you pass on to the new girls?

Siobhan: I tell them to enjoy every moment.

Not every day is promised and although I’ve been blessed to do this for seven years, everybody goes on to experience different things in their own time. So I tell them no matter what, just enjoy the moment. You’re out here doing something that you love, that other girls have auditioned for and they didn’t get it. So enjoy this moment because it’s yours right now.

What was the moment for you when you knew you wanted to dance?

Siobhan: My mother danced when she was younger and I think when I was about five or six, she took me to see Alvin Ailey and I fell in love. I wouldn’t stop crying, because I didn’t want the show to end. She had to literally take me out of the arena, cause it was over, and then from that point she was like, “Ok we need to put you in dance class.”

What was your first game like?

Siobhan: The very first basketball game I did was so surreal. I’m a huge basketball fan, I grew up on basketball and to actually be dancing on an NBA court, doing something that I completely love was like an out of body experience.

Something I will never forget; it was just pure joy and excitement. Duane Watson #7

TrANsITIoN GAmE

Carmelo anthony

2007

2008

2009

2003

2004

2005

2006

2010

2011

2012

2013 027

NathaNiel S. Butler (3); Victor BaldizoN; Garrett ellwood (4); rocky widNer (2); layNe Murdoch/NBae/Getty iMaGeS; chriStiaN PeterSeN/Getty iMaGeS SPort

H130304-Dance Life.indd 27

2/25/13 12:31 PM

jump ball head 2 head

jaVale mcGee vs. Deandre jordan Besides being a battle between guys who have two capital letters in their first name, JaVale vs. deAndre is also a showdown between two of the most athletic and jovial centers in the game now.

Deandre jordan Center, 6-11, 265 pounds Los Angeles Clippers 01 Scoring: Neither McGee nor Jordan will challenge Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s scoring record. They are both unpolished offensive players who find points off of the trash heap of misses off the glass, and from catching unbelievable oops afforded by their remarkable athleticism. In those two areas, the two are as even as they come as both can pretty much hammer home any miss or lob south of the 24-second clock. As a whole, McGee has a slightly more varied offensive game (at least the propensity to showcase it more); he’ll occasionally unfurl a jumper or hook shot, sometimes to his team’s detriment, but he’s improving on his decision-making. Jordan is still raw, but has made some strides during his five seasons to the point where the Clippers will even go inside to him. Jordan won’t be mistaken for Hakeem Olajuwon in the post, but he has a decent pet move where he spins baseline and finishes well with his right hand (he’s a natural lefty). At the free-throw line, McGee bests Jordan as he shoots more than 100 points better. But before you start making any Mark Price comparisons with McGee, you should be aware that Jordan is shooting a dismal 42 percent from the charity stripe this season. The best reason for Jordan getting the check mark here is his willingness to play within his limited game.

Advantage: jordan

02

Jordan

McGee

PPG

9.4

10.2

APG

0.5

0.4

RPG

7.1

5.0

BPG

1.5

2.0

SPG

0.8

0.3

FG%

61

56

3PT%

—

—

FT%

42

57

PER

17.3

21.7

As of Jan. 14, 2013

028

H130304-Head2Head.indd 28

Floor Game: As 7-footers go...check that, as basketball players go, McGee and Jordan are Ferraris on the open floor. Even the fleet guards have difficulty keeping pace with either. On the break, McGee or Jordan on the wing is a bad look for a backpedaling guard on defense. Once inside the three-point line, both guys are a loping step or an easy lob from making the hapless guard into the wrong end of a highlight dunk. On the pick and roll, neither is much of a threat to pop out for a jumper, but both are effective rolling to the basket, particularly Jordan (having Chris Paul certainly helps, too). Jordan is also the stronger player, holding his own on screens and better equipped at going over and through defenders in traffic. While your center shouldn’t be making decisions with the ball, McGee does have a slight edge in ballhandling and passing. Few centers can block a shot or gather a rebound, run the break and finish like McGee. Advantage: mcGee

Andrew d. Bernstein/nBAe/Getty imAGes

2/22/13 9:48 AM

By Ming Wong #2

JaVale Mcgee Center, 7-0, 252 pounds denver nuggets 03 Defense: Besides standing about three feet below the rim, McGee and Jordan possess a wingspan that seemingly makes it possible for them to high-five their teammates and those sitting courtside across from the bench—at the same time. This length, combined with some bunnies on their feet, enable them to challenge practically every shot. As a helpside defender, McGee is like a young Marcus Camby, able to laterally cover a lot of ground to block a shot. As an on-man defender, McGee can sometimes get overpowered, negating any athletic advantage he holds over almost every other center. Jordan, on the other hand, is more skilled at playing his man, and is almost as good coming to the aid of teammates. While Jordan’s volume of blocks might pale in comparison to McGee, Jordan doesn’t nearly over-pursue either, leading to free points for the opposition in the form of fouls and goaltends. On the boards, Jordan’s strength advantage gives him a slight edge.

Advantage: Jordan

04 Intangibles: Jordan has come a long way since being an often-forgettable second-round pick in 2008. He’s gone from a bit player to a rotation guy, then a starter and now the Clippers’ defensive anchor. Despite the gradual improvement, you get the sense that DJ has about hit his peak. For all his wow factor on the occasional play, Jordan is, for the most part, a steady, heady player. On the other hand, McGee has the potential to be as dominant as any player ever—provided he keeps his head on straight, a challenge George Karl is currently undertaking.

McGee tantalizes nightly (even Wizards fans who tired of him would agree) and if he can somehow put it all together, an All-Star selection or even All-NBA spot in the future isn’t as ludicrous as it sounds. Is potential an intangible?

Being that it’s difficult to measure and harder to predict, I’d say so.

Advantage: Mcgee

05 Leadership: McGee and Jordan both possess a dominant sense of humor, and are just as liable to make their teammates laugh as much as their jaws drop with a crazy play. Both bigs are cut-ups in the locker room, something that goes a long way during a very long and arduous NBA grind. Dating back to his Washington days, McGee is known as a clown (or space cadet, depending on who you ask) who keeps things loose, whether intentionally (a 7-foot man on a Segway is instant comedy) or unintentionally (sprinting back on defense even while the team maintains possession). Jordan serves as the other half to the Blake Griffin comedy duo, appearing in various Internet videos (peep the various ones where he’s playfully pranking unsuspecting passer-bys on Venice Beach) and founder of the #GotEm movement of ridiculous sleep photos on Twitter. What this contributes to leadership is negligible, but in the right moments and doses, humor does have a positive impact on team chemistry, and that goes far.

Advantage: Jordan

The Verdict This was close. The distance right now that separates McGee and Jordan is likely the same as the gap between the highest spot each could touch on the backboard. Jordan is undoubtedly the right—and safe—pick between the two. He’ll grab rebounds and block shots dutifully, score the occasional highpercentage points and make few mistakes, perfect for a contending team like the Clippers. McGee, much like his fellow Nuggets teammates, is able to do a bit everything and has the ceiling to do even greater things. While Jordan wins out now, McGee is good enough to beat all takers on this page in the very near future. You might laugh, but it’s not impossible, unlike the cinnamon challenge.

Rocky WidneR/nBAe/Getty imAGes

H130304-Head2Head.indd 29

029

2/22/13 9:48 AM

jump ball

By Brett Mauser #25

first five

27 JordaN

Crawford

Earlier in the season with Washington down John Wall, Wizards head coach Randy Wittman presented Jordan Crawford with the opportunity he’d been waiting for since entering the League1—to play the point. The move raised some eyebrows. Crawford was a cold-blooded scorer—to a fault according to his critics—but could he pass?

He could and did.

“I always wanted to play the point in the NBA and show people I can do more than just score,” says Crawford, who averaged 19.1 points, 5.1 rebounds and 6.1 assists in December. “It’s a challenge because you have to manage the game and know when to shoot and when not to.”

That’s been a challenge for Crawford, who has been labeled as a volume scorer2 by some. However, the third-year player3 has flourished in his new role. Crawford even exploded for his second career triple-double—27 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists—on Dec. 18 against Atlanta.

“I do like to score, but I’m a natural passer,” Crawford says. “I see things before they happen. I really don’t have a weakness on the offensive end.”

Then on the trade deadline, Crawford was offered up a new role: playing for a contending team as Crawford was dealt4 to the Boston Celtics. The move not only bumped him up into the playoff ladder,5 it also gave Crawford an opportunity to learn from hardened veterans like Kevin Garnett, who he’s looking forward to teaming with.

“Just to see his intensity every game should allow you to bring your best,” Crawford says.

“I’m only in my third year so there’s still a lot to learn [from] a lot of guys who know how to play the game of basketball.”

BoNUS PoINTS 1. Crawford scored more than 1,000 points over two seasons split between Indiana and Xavier, earning atlantic 10 Player of the year honors his sophomore year. the New Jersey Nets drafted him with the 27th pick in the 2010 draft before shipping him to atlanta in a draft-night deal.

2. In the 2011-12 season, of players who averaged 12 or more shot attempts a game, only Crawford’s namesake, Jamal Crawford (.384), had a lower field goal percentage than his .400 mark. However, it was an improvement from his rookie campaign, and through the new year, Crawford had upped his marksmanship to nearly 42 percent.

3. Crawford’s rookie season included a 16-game stint in atlanta. In February 2011, the Hawks dealt Crawford, mike Bibby, maurice evans and a 2011 first-rounder to Washington for Hilton armstrong and Kirk Hinrich. It was a welcome change for Crawford—his minutes per game increased from 10.0 in atlanta to 33.3 in the nation’s capital.

4. Washington traded Crawford to Boston for leandro Barbosa and Jason Collins on 2/21/13.

5. When the trade went down, Crawford moved up from the 13th-place Wizards to the seventh-place Celtics.

Guard - BostoN CeltICs

030

H130304-First Five.indd 30

Barry GossaGe/NBae/Getty ImaGes

2/25/13 1:13 PM

KNOW YOUR NEWB

KYLE SINGLER DETROIT PISTONS

those types of things. When you play against guys night-in, night-out, that’s a moment for sure.

Who’s the toughest guy you went against? Were you in awe?

LeBron. I mean, he’s so tough. I’ve played against him before, but never in an NBA game before. His IQ is far superior to anyone else in the League, just how he’s able to read defenses and make plays for his teammates.

First impression of Detroit?

I really don’t remember, but my impression now is I really love it. Where I live now, I really love it. It’s really warm, you feel like you’re back home [Ed note: Kyle hails from Medford, Ore.]. I really love the fans, they’re really nice so I have nothing but nice things to say.

After a year in Spain, 2011 second-round pick Kyle Singler arrived in Detroit to belatedly begin his indoctrination to the League and has been a pleasant surprise. Singler has been a fixture in the starting lineup at shooting guard and small forward. The former Duke Blue Devil talks about his rookie experience to date.

Are you at liberty to speak about your rookie chores?

I’ve been lucky, haven’t done very many. I don’t want to speak on it because if they read this, they’ll make me. I’ve been busy and liking how it’s been. It hasn’t been too bad.

You ever have a “Welcome to the NBA” moment—like, “Wow, I’m not in Spain, I’m not at Duke anymore?”

The first time I put on my jersey, I know it sounds cliché, but there’s not many people who get to do

What was the moment like in the preseason when you led the team out on the floor during warm-ups and you were the only one out?

Embarrassing [laughs]. I decided that game I was going to be the first guy out there so I really didn’t expect anything of it. They played it to a “T.” They planned it perfectly, I didn’t see it coming. I was really shocked. I didn’t realize it until I turned around and didn’t see anyone behind me. I’d never seen anything like that before.

Do you know who the ringleader of that was?

Tayshaun [Prince]. I think he tried to get someone else after me but it didn’t work.

What was your first start like? Coming out for the opening intros, was it any different?

Of course it was different, I was really excited. I couldn’t remember my exact feelings but I wanted to have a good game. Once the game was over, I was happy, we won so it was a great game [Ed note: Singler scored16 points and nabbed four rebounds in 40 minutes] for me.

When was the first time Lawrence Frank yelled at you?

To be honest, he really hasn’t yelled at me. Coming from Coach K, he’ll really get into you. Coach Frank isn’t the type of guy who is a yeller. I wouldn’t expect it from him. He hasn’t gotten too hard on me yet.

Is there a really big difference from college to the pros? No classes, having to get up early in the morning.

It’s a big jump. I wouldn’t say it’s better because I loved the college life. I loved getting up, going to classes, interacting with my schoolmates. But now, I wake up, come to the gym and spend most of my time here. I’m around guys I like. It’s different but now I’m getting paid to play basketball so I have to do my job.

Anything surprise you about the lifestyle, the travel, the planes and hotels?

The first part of the year we traveled a lot so it was pretty tough, pretty demanding. I didn’t realize how it would take energy away from you. It’s an interesting way to go about playing basketball.

Which rookie besides you has the biggest personality?

Kim [English], for sure. We all have our different personalities and traits but Kim, once you get to know him, he’s like a comic book character that you cut out.

He’s an encyclopedia. Whenever he tells a story, it’s the best kind of story. When he’s talking about a basketball story, he would know the ref, he’d know the number that ref wears. He’s detail-oriented, he’s a crackup.

Any players talk trash to you?

No, but the biggest trash talker is Rasheed Wallace.

Guys don’t really talk, it’s just chatter. Sheed, he talks more stuff to the refs than I’d ever seen a player do.

It’s not bad stuff but once we played him in New York, the whole time he was in there, all he did was talk to the refs. VINCENT GOODWILL #5

NICK LAHAM/GETTY IMAGES SPORT

For your daily HOOP fix, visit

HOOPMAG.COM 031

H130304-Know Your N.indd 31

2/22/13 9:51 AM

jump BAll Brack-It

Eight thiNgs. ONE uNdisputEd ChAmp.

Best player to have won both an NBA and NCAA Championship

miChAEl jOrdAN vs.

Bill WAltON

KArEEm ABdul-jABBAr vs. rip hAmiltON

mAgiC jOhNsON vs. isiAh thOmAs

Bill russEll vs. jAmEs WOrthy

There was a time when Bill Walton was considered the best college basketball player in the country—perhaps the best ever.

Hard to believe, especially seeing that he played for a school (and a coach) that had seen the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar not long before, but Walton was certainly something special. Then there was Michael Jordan, something of a late bloomer who became an immediate sensation at the University of North Carolina. Their NBA paths were vastly different: Walton saw injuries rob him of his prime following a magical championship season in Portland, while Jordan became the most dominant champion since Russell in Boston. Shame for Walton to lose out due to injury, but Jordan—a ruthless competitor—would have it no other way.

Score one for the old guys. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) was the most dominant player in college basketball history, and honestly it wasn’t even close. Not only did his varsity teams at UCLA go 88-2 over three seasons, but his freshman team even handily beat the No. 1 ranked UCLA varsity in November of ’65 — Lew had 31 points and 21 boards. In the NBA, Abdul-Jabbar won his first title with the Bucks in ’71, and his last with the Lakers in ’88. Oh yeah, Rip Hamilton won on both levels, too.

Good job, good effort.

OK guys, just kiss and get it over with. Magic and Zeke were two of the most ferocious competitors in the game when the ball went up, but seemed like best of friends before the tip-off. It made sense— they had plenty of similarities.

Both ran the point, both had infectious smiles and engaging personalities, and both had led their college teams to national championships as sophomores before leaving for the NBA Draft, Johnson in 1979 and Thomas in 1981. In the NBA, Magic won five titles to Isiah’s two, but given the ferocious competition in the East— first from Larry Bird’s Celtics, then from Michael Jordan’s Bulls—and the relative strengths of the Lakers and Pistons, Isiah moves on in an early upset.

Bill Russell first teamed up with KC Jones at San Francisco, and together they would win a whole mess of championships.

San Francisco went 67-1 in two consecutive championship seasons with Russell at the helm, including a string of 55 straight wins. Once he reached the NBA in 1956, Russell just kept winning— stacking up 11 rings as the leader of the Boston Celtics. That’s a lot of titles. James Worthy, who won one with North Carolina (Final Four Most Outstanding Player in 1988) and three as a Laker (Finals MVP in ’88), gets a round of applause and the board game for playing.

032

H130304-Brackit.indd 32

2/25/13 11:59 AM

By russ Bengtson #43

russell vs. thomas To say that both Russell and Thomas endured hardships over the course of their careers would be insulting to Russell — after all, he had to deal with the overt racism of ’50s America, while all Thomas had to put up with was two years of Bobby Knight. Then again, maybe that’s underestimating Knight. Regardless, Russell’s decade-plus of complete and utter dominance on both the collegiate and professional (and international!) levels has never been and will never be matched. He won everywhere he played, and did whatever he had to do to win. It’s nearly criminal that he doesn’t get more consideration as the greatest player ever, but that’s another argument. See ya, Zeke.

aBdul-JaBBar vs. russell And it all leads here. Two undisputed leaders, two exceedingly prideful men, two ultimate champions. They just missed each other in the pros, as Russell’s final season immediately preceded Jabbar’s first. In his first game against the Russellless Celtics, Jabbar scored 43 points. The two colossi spanned much of NBA history, from the late ’50s to the late ’80s, from bus rides to private jets. Jabbar alone stood as a human NBA history lesson, winning rings with both Oscar Robertson and Magic Johnson. But if there can be only one ultimate winner, it has to be Russell. I mean, they re-named the Finals MVP trophy the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Award. From putting San Francisco on the basketball map to embodying the Celtics mystique, no one did it better—or more often—than Russ. All hail.

Best player to have won Both an nBa and nCaa Championship is…

Bill russell

aBdul-JaBBar vs. Jordan It’s a true shame that these two giants were never able to meet while in their respective primes. Jordan, ever the predator, would have gone straight after Jabbar, and Jabbar, ever the prideful star, would have never backed down. If this matchup had occurred early enough in Jabbar’s career, punches may have been thrown. But the two played in far different eras, as made clear by Jabbar’s collegiate success.

In Jordan’s day, Jabbar probably would have left UCLA following his sophomore season—in LeBron James’ era, Jabbar may not have attended UCLA at all. But he did, and his dominance there will probably never be matched. Seeing that his six rings match Jordan’s output—and over a greater period of time—Kareem heads to yet another Finals.

033 Dick Raphael (2); anDRew D. BeRnstein (6); nathaniel s. ButleR (2); JeRRy wachteR; Ray amati (2); nBa photos/nBae/Getty imaGes; ken levine/Getty imaGes spoRt

H130304-Brackit.indd 33

2/25/13 11:59 AM

JUMP BALL FIRST FIVE

33

When you see Cavs forward Alonzo Gee on the floor and wrestling for loose balls—in practice—it’s because he remembers playing four years at the University of Alabama and then going undrafted. He also remembers the grind of the D-League1 like it was yesterday.

“I had to work really hard to get a call up [to the NBA]. I bounced around from team to team2 and I finally got to the Cavs,” explains Gee. “I don’t want to go back...so of course I’m going to do everything it takes. I’m going to give you my effort every day.”

During the shortened 2011-12 season, Gee’s effort and athleticism3 left an impression. The 6-6 Floridanative averaged 10.6 points and 5.1 rebounds in 63 games, starting nearly half of them. Last year he earned a three-year deal with the young team and now the 25-year-old is maturing into a solid role player.4 “My role changed. In the D-League my role was to score. When I got to the Cavs, my coaches talked to me and told me they wanted me to focus mainly on being that defensive stopper. That’s my job I have to do every night no matter if I’m making shots or what.”

Poring over game tape has helped him make the adjustment. “I watch a lot of film of players I have to guard and what their go-to moves are. Either at home or with a coach, I’ll try to figure out the best way to guard the best player—the point, the shooting guard, small forward, maybe even a power forward if I can. I have to be prepared for that matchup.”

Guys around the League better prepare for Gee, too.

BY MELODY HOFFMAN #34

ALONZO

GEE

FORWARD - CLEVELAND CAVALIERS

BONUS POINTS 1. After leading the Crimson Tide in scoring his senior year (15 ppg average) in 2008-09, Gee played with the Austin Toros where he was named the D-League Rookie of the Year after averaging 21 points and 6.6 rebounds during the ’09-10 season.

2. During the 2010-11 season, Gee played in 56 games for Cleveland, Washington and San Antonio.

3. Gee is a regular on highlight reels with his big dunks. Of note were a pair against the Lakers on 1/13.

4. This season, the starter is shooting 40 percent from the field and averaging 11.3 points and 4.2 rebounds. He began the New Year with his first double-double of the season scoring 16 points and pulling down 10 rebounds (8 defensive) against Sacramento. He also made a career high five 3-pointers against Atlanta at the beginning of January.

034

H130304-First Five.indd 34

ANDREW D. BERNSTEIN/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

2/22/13 9:47 AM

By Darryl Howerton #21

first five

The 6-1, 195-pound point guard has the wingspan1 of a small forward (79.5 inches).

He has the vertical2 of a dunk contest3 champion.

He says he has never been timed in the 40-yard dash,4 but he has an on-court speed that makes you say, “He’s faster than anyone on our team.”

Simply put, Eric Bledsoe’s all-around athleticism defies all conventions of the prototypical point guard.

So much so, foes and friends alike have taken to nicknaming the Los Angeles Clipper after the best player in the game today.

“Mini LeBron.”

That’s what fellow reserve Jamal Crawford5 started calling Bledsoe last summer when he joined the Clippers.

“Baby LeBron.”

That’s what LeBron James himself called6 Bledsoe after King James congratulated the kid as they exited the court together after a 107-100 Clipper win in November.

But in reality, Bledsoe is a super-talented pointguard-in-grooming—“a game manager,” he says— tailor-made by two of the best game managers who have ever played basketball in Clipper point guards Chris Paul and Chauncey Billups.

“Playing with them is the best learning experience that anyone could ask for in their career,” says Bledsoe.

The veterans’ tutelage led to surprisingly dominant performances for Bledsoe off the bench in last year’s playoff7 series against both the Grizzlies and Spurs.

Bledsoe carried that stellar play throughout this season as CP3’s understudy, posting a Player Efficiency Rating eight points higher than his 2011-12 score (11.24 PER last season; 19.33 PER through January 25 this season), making him a legit candidate for the NBA Most Improved award.8 “In the playoffs last year, I learned to play with a burst, with aggressiveness and a confident mindset,” says Bledsoe. “And I’ve learned to carry that same mindset through this season.”

Baby LeBron is growing up before our very eyes.

NathaNiel S. Butler/NBae/Getty imaGeS

H130304-First Five.indd 35

12 eriC

Bledsoe

BoNUs PoINTs 1. “my wingspan definitely helps on the defensive end,” says Bledsoe. “it helps me guarding my man off the dribble and also lets me get back in the play quickly if i gamble for a steal.”

2. Bledsoe sports a 40-inch vertical jump, and if you’ve seen some of his dunks, you’d know that.

3. Bledsoe made his dunk Contest debut in February.

4. the 40-yard dash is a benchmark for explosive speed.

5. Crawford and Bledsoe combine for the best reserve backcourt in the NBa. 6. leBron could be heard from courtside telling teammates, “this is Baby leBron right here.” if you’ve seen the 23-year-old Bledsoe chase down a fast breaker for a block from behind, you’d understand the leBron comparisons.

7. Bledsoe had an all-Star-like 22.2 player efficiency rating in the 2012 NBa playoffs, averaging 7.9 points in 17.2 minutes per game on .621 true shooting percentage, with a team-best +20.76 adjusted plus minus score.

8. Bledsoe is averaging 9 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals in 20 minutes per game in 2012-13, with an impressive +0.92 defensive regularized adjusted plus minus through January 25.

Guard - loS aNGeleS ClipperS 035

2/22/13 9:47 AM

JUMP BALL 24 SECONDS

BY JERAMIE MCPEEK #4

with STEPHEN CURRY

HOOP: You just checked into your hotel in San Antonio. Are you going to hit the River Walk tonight?

Curry: We might. Some of the guys will be going out to dinner, but we’ve got a back-to-back starting tomorrow, so we need to rest up.

HOOP: We were going to ask if you popped out the ceiling tile and repelled down the elevator cables. But you probably couldn’t do that while holding your daughter.

Curry: [laughs] No, but that would have been an adventure. Thankfully, I had a set of duplicate keys.3

HOOP: Do you ever go sightseeing while on the road, or do you usually hang out at the team hotel?

Curry: Depends on the schedule. If we have a day off in a city, I like to go out and see what it has to offer. I’m big into restaurants, so I like to sample the cuisine.

HOOP: What are some of your earliest memories watching your dad4 play in the NBA? Curry: In Charlotte watching him, Muggsy Bogues, Larry Johnson, Alonzo Mourning... I remember one playoff series: Alonzo hit a buzzer beater to beat Boston and my dad was the one who inbounded the ball. I was like 5 or 6 and remember getting all excited.

HOOP: Which stop on the NBA road offers the best cuisine?

Curry: Probably New Orleans. I always try to get some gumbo there, and I like to go to Café Du Monde and get some beignets.1 HOOP: How often do you forget your room number when you’re on the road?

Curry: Probably every other city. You get on the elevator and then just stare at the buttons. I have to go back to the front desk2 and try to figure it out.

HOOP: Did you really drop your keys down an elevator shaft?

Curry: One-hundred percent true. I was at my apartment, heading up to my floor. I think I had been shooting the ball too well, because when I dropped my keys they just swished right down there.

HOOP: What was your reaction when you saw them fall through the crack?

Curry: I was holding my daughter at the time, so I was just glad I dropped them and not her.

036

H130304-24 Seconds.indd 36

HOOP: What was it like growing up with a father in the NBA? Curry: It was kind of rough to have a dad in the NBA with the travel schedule, but we got to see him do something he loved. It was neat to see the city rallying around him.

HOOP: How are your games similar and how are they different?

Curry: Similar shooting5 strokes, quick releases. He always says I handle the ball better than he did, but I still can’t outshoot him.

HOOP: We were about to ask how he would break down your game now as a color analyst for the Bobcats.

Curry: He’s actually had to do it six times, when the Bobcats have played the Warriors. It’s always fun to watch the broadcasts afterwards and see how he balances being a professional and a father.

HOOP: He might be calling games your brother Seth plays in soon, too.

Curry: Yeah, he’s a senior at Duke and is playing really well. I think he’ll have the opportunity to make the League next year, as well.

HOOP: What can fans expect from him in the future?

Curry: Well, I don’t think the shooting gene stopped with me. He can light it up from outside.

ROCKY WIDNER/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

2/22/13 8:53 AM

HOOP: Tell us about your daughter, Riley. How has fatherhood changed you?

Curry: It puts everything in perspective. It’s hard to remember what I used to do in my spare time, because now every extra minute, I just want to get back and spend it with her and my wife.

HOOP: You talked about missing your dad while he was on the road.

Now that you’re a father, do you think about that that lot?

Curry: For sure. My daughter is six months, but she’s growing so fast.

You come home from a road trip and she’s doing something different like trying to crawl. Thankfully technology is much better now, so I can Facetime her.

HOOP: What do you enjoy most about being a dad?

Curry: Reading her books. We’ve got this Old McDonald book with a little puppet, so it’s real interactive and I do little voices.

HOOP: What’s your best voice?

Curry: A giraffe. I don’t know what type of sound a giraffe makes, so I made up one [laughs].

HOOP: We saw your tweet about the Baby Brezza.6 Did you buy one?

Curry: Yeah, my wife got one and we use it to make some squash and sweet potatoes for my daughter.

HOOP: Have you tried baby food?

Curry: My wife makes me try it every time she makes something different. Oatmeal cereal,7 I’ve tried some squash, sweet potato, and an apple-and-pear medley.

HOOP: Did you try Baby-Brezzing any of your Chick-fil-A? We saw your Instagram pic of her there.

Curry: [laughs] Nah, the family doctors might be a little mad at us if we blended up a No. 18 with some waffle fries, and tried to feed her that.

HOOP: Is it true you were in a Burger King commercial as a kid?

Curry: Me and my brother were in it, actually. Burger King had a special where every combo meal came with a Dell Curry-signed basketball. So they had a commercial and my dad was in the park shooting. Every time he made a shot, I would drop a line like “Smooth as a milkshake,” or “Sizzlin’ like bacon.”

HOOP: Can we find that on YouTube?

Curry: You can’t. I’ve got two tapes9 of the footage back at my parents’ house, but they’re locked up tight.

HOOP: You’re always tweeting “Lock In.” What’s that mean?

Curry: It’s something some of the guys say when it’s time to focus. So I usually tweet that before I leave my apartment or the hotel. It means: It’s time to take care of business.

HOOP: Let’s talk #DubNation. What do you see for this team down the stretch?

Curry: We’re playing good basketball. Once we get into the grind after the All-Star break, I think we can give the Warriors fans something that they want, which is getting into the playoffs.10 ROCKY WIDNER/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

H130304-24 Seconds.indd 37

BONUS POINTS 1. According to Wikipedia, a beignet is a French pastry. According to Curry, it’s “like a little powdered donut.” According to us, they’re delicious and worth the trip there.

2. Steph says he has an unusual alias, which often confuses the front desk when he asks for a new key. He would not tell us what it is, though.

3. He said he got his keys back a week later, but we didn’t have enough column inches for the full story.

4. The 15th pick of the 1986 draft, Dell Curry played 16 seasons in the NBA, including 10 in Charlotte.

5. Dell shot better than 40 percent from behind the three-point arc for his career.

6. For the non-parents out there, the Baby Brezza is a baby food maker that will cook and puree food fit for baby consumption.

7. Curry says his wife’s oatmeal baby food tastes like Cream of Wheat.

8. The classic Chick fil-A chicken sandwich, waffle fries and a coke is about 1040 calories.

9. Anybody else have a copy of the commercial? Tweet us at @ HOOPmag. We need to see it!

10. Curry was a freshman at Davidson when the Warriors last reached the postseason, in 2007.

037

2/22/13 8:53 AM

Accept No SubStituteS Some view the reServe aS an underStudy to the StarS, but the real talent lieS in coming off the bench to Star in a breakout role for your team.

038

H130304-f-Reserves.indd 38

Ned dishmaN/NBae/Getty imaGes

2/25/13 12:35 PM

BY MCG #93

R

icky Pierce scored more than 14,000 points during his career and was an All-Star.

But for a 16-year veteran who averaged 14.9 ppg, Pierce never made more than 46 three-point field goals during his career.

Pierce knew his role, from his rookie season in Detroit to his peak years in Milwaukee and glory days in Seattle. He was a sixth man and damn good at it. Pierce won two Sixth Man of the Year awards, and was equipped with the talent to start, but was just as comfortable hitting midrange jumpers off the bench.

“When I think of sixth men, I think1 of Ricky Pierce,” says 15-year NBA veteran Sam Cassell.2 “When he got in the game, you know some things was going to happen. It was party time.

“Ricky Pierce’s nickname was ‘Deuces.’ I asked him, ‘Why do they call you Deuces?’ He said: ‘I score.’ He didn’t shoot threes. He just made all twos. That’s why Deuces wore number 22.”

039

H130304-f-Reserves.indd 39

2/25/13 12:35 PM

Lou Williams

Jamal Crawford

Ricky Pierce

Kevin Martin

Sam Cassell

Andrew Nicholson

Of the 15 spots on an NBA roster, only a third of the players can have their names introduced by the home arena’s PA announcer with the lights off.3 Between lottery picks, franchise players and All-Stars, it can be harder to crack the starting five than the VIP line at Tao. After starting (and starring) throughout AAU, high school and college, players take time adjusting to a reserve role or never do at all. But more than ever, a sixth man is a vital cog to a contender and it takes a special kind of player to fit that role.

Cassell, an accomplished reserve early in his career with the Houston Rockets, said he would shoot thousands of jumpers a day to carve out a role as a first option off the bench. “Every day I battled Scotty Brooks, I battled Kenny Smith, Vernon Maxwell,” he remembers. “When I got an opportunity to play, I was ready.”

Cassell says a reserve has to play like he wants to prove something.

040

H130304-f-Reserves.indd 40

“You gotta play with a chip on your shoulders to be successful. All the good players play with a chip. When you play this game of basketball, it’s personal. Mano-a-mano.”

The patriarch of modern sixth men is Manu Ginobili. When Gregg Popovich drafted the Argentine 57th overall in 1999, he never expected to get the kind of production he has relied on for a decade, the kind of production that has been key in winning three NBA titles.

Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs have been successful in producing a line of key reserves. There is a method to the madness. Popovich said prospective players are evaluated by team management and the coaching staff on a variety of factors.

“It’s not just basketball; we want to learn what kind of sense of humor people might have,” says Popovich,4 “As silly as that might sound to some, I think humor is important in any job. You want to find out the intelligence Rob CaRR/Getty ImaGes spoRt; Noah GRaham; dICk Raphael; RoCky WIdNeR; NathaNIel s. butleR; GaRy bassING/Nbae/Getty ImaGes

2/25/13 12:36 PM

Ryan Anderson

Eric Bledsoe

Ray Allen

Dell Curry

Amir Johnson

J.R. Smith

level, commitment level, if a player might be willing to understand a role and let him know ahead of time a lot of what’s expected. If he’s not gonna buy it, we don’t have to waste time bringing him in and getting rid of him.”

Popovich’s rules apply to rookies and veterans. For sixth men, he looks for a “competitive individual who has some sort of skill,” someone who is “a great rebounder, can shoot the three, or is competitive as heck on defense.” Popovich cites Bruce Bowen as an example. When Bowen arrived in San Antonio, Popovich says he, “had no moves whatsoever,” but learned how to shoot a three-point shot in the corner and worked hard on his defense. The result: five NBA All-Defense First Team awards and his retired #12 jersey on the rafters of the AT&T Center.5 Like Bowen, it often takes a player a few seasons to really carve a niche in the League. Sometimes, it comes in places you’d least expect it.

Before arriving in New York, J.R. Smith was the epitome of Dr. Jekyll and Joe Murphy; Andrew d. Bernstein; LAyne Murdoch; Lou cApozzoLA; ron terenne/nBAe/Getty iMAGes; eLsA/Getty iMAGes sport

H130304-f-Reserves.indd 41

Mr. Hyde. One night he’d dazzle crowds with highlight-reel dunks and 30plus points; the next, his head coach could be seen utterly befuddled by the New Jersey native’s shot selection.

In his first season in New York,6 with Carmelo Anthony firmly established as the top scoring option and Jeremy Lin routinely gracing back pages of the tabloids and T-shirts, what room was there for an explosive, yet unreliable scorer?7 A year later, Smith has played like an All-Star8… off the bench. He’s often played as a reserve throughout his career, but this year has been an epiphany. The signs of greatness far outshine his hiccups and he is a key reason for the Knicks grasp on first place in the Atlantic Division.9 Teammate Tyson Chandler says Smith is still a “character,” but is all business when he comes in the game as the sixth man. “That’s an art in our game that you really don’t recognize,” says Chandler. “Like Jason 041

2/25/13 12:36 PM

Terry10 on our team in Dallas. What James Harden11 was to Oklahoma City, what Lamar Odom12 was to the Lakers. You can go on and on—Jamal Crawford13 to the Clippers. Having a sixth man like that that really is a starter, that comes off the bench and gives you the scoring that those guys provide or whatever their attributes are, makes a team. And that piece, that secret weapon, ultimately a lot of times shapes wins and losses and how far a team is able to go.”

Steve Novak, another Knicks reserve who relishes his role as a threepoint specialist off the bench, says the team wouldn’t be successful if guys like he and Smith weren’t committed to the team goal. “J.R., he could be a starter on a lot of teams, but I think coach understands to have weapons that come off the bench is valuable.

“Looking at our team, really right from the start of the season, we knew we were gonna have a deep team and you got guys who can come off the bench and really add something. I think that’s been the key to our success at this point.”

Muggsy Bogues, a solid sixth man in his first four seasons14 with the

Private reserve Relatively speaking, the NBA has only recently started recognizing the role of the sixth man. This season will mark the 30th time the NBA doles out the Sixth Man of the Year trophy, awarded to the top player who comes off the bench more than he starts.

Like the relief pitcher in baseball, the sixth man has been the salve for head coaches when the starting unit is struggling. While he’s not on the floor giving daps to the opposition before the opening tipoff, he’s the first man off the bench and almost always on the floor at the most crucial moments. It takes a special breed of player to do the job, and here are some of the best to ever rip off their warmups midgame.

BoBBy Jones The inaugural Sixth Man of the Year in 1983, Jones was not what most people would view as a traditional scoring sixth man as it’s known now. Jones was the player Sixers head coach Billy Cunningham would signal when he needed somebody to come in to cool down a hot shooter.

Maybe because Cunningham was a pretty good reserve in his own right as a player and understood the role, but Jones flourished as a defensive-minded forward for Philadelphia. Jones used his lanky and long frame to pester opponents, stealing the ball and blocking shots, helping the team earn its first championship in ’83.

Kevin McHale Most people associate Hall of Famer McHale with being one-third of Boston’s power frontcourt during the ’80s, but before he joined Larry Bird and Robert Parish in the starting lineup, McHale came off the bench about 80 percent of the time during his first five seasons. Once inserted into the game, it was like unleashing Bruce Lee upon the Cobra Kai. McHale would have the privilege of dissecting and game-planning on the bench, then the pleasure of up-and-undering, turnaround jumpshooting and jump-hooking the opponent’s second unit to death.

Had McHale not joined the starting five in his sixth year, he could’ve conceivably won more Sixth Man of the Year trophies than the two (1984 and ’85) he has.

042

H130304-f-Reserves.indd 42

Washington Bullets and Charlotte Hornets, is impressed with J.R.’s maturation. “This year, I mean, I’ve seen him grow up to a point where he really is starting to understand what a star player is supposed to be,” says Bogues. “Seeing him play some of the tougher guards and not taking bad shots, it shows his knowledge of the game.”

Bogues says the best sixth man he played with was Dell Curry,15 the 1994 Sixth Man of the Year. “It does take a mature player, you have to understand what your role is, what it means,” says Bogues. “Dell Curry did it the best when I played with him. You need that guy to come in and be that sparkplug. Dell could start on many teams, but when you accept that, you relish it. He just took it to another level.”

Bogues was also impressed with the play of Crawford this season, who has carved a career out of being a sixth man weapon. But Jeff Teague says not every player has Crawford’s luxury of focusing on offense and being reduced to a reserve role can hurt a player’s ego. “It depends what role you got coming off the bench,” says Teague. “If you got Jamal Crawford’s role, I’m fine. But if you’re a starter and coming off the bench, there can be

JoHn HavliceK Havlicek never won the Sixth Man of the Year trophy, but only because it didn’t exist while he played. Had it existed, Hondo would have likely garnered as many of those as championships (8). Famous for his high-octane motor, Havlicek would be unleashed upon winded starters or not-on-his-level reserves and wreak havoc on the court with his multidimensional game. One of the ultimate glue guys, Havlicek combined his skills with undying heart and hustle. The results would have been the same had Havlicek started games, which he was clearly capable and deserving of, but credit innovative head coach Red Auerbach for cleverly using Havlicek as a bench weapon and inventing the sixth man role.

MicHael cooper Showtime evokes visions of Magic Johnson leading the break and zipping no-look dimes as he flashed his highwattage smile, but a big part of the Lakers’ success was defense, and a big part of that was none other than the wiry, high-socked Cooper. If a player was stealing the Great Western Forum spotlight from the home team, head coach Pat Riley would sic Cooper upon him. Offensively, on patented Lakers’ fastbreaks, Cooper was pretty good at filling in the lane and finishing with Hollywood gusto. An eight-time (consecutively from 1981-88) All-Defensive player, Cooper never took home the Sixth Man of the Year award, but his efforts earned him five championship rings. So rabid a defender was Cooper, even Larry Bird conceded that Cooper was the toughest defender he’s ever faced. Pretty lofty praise.

vinnie JoHnson Curiously enough, one of the NBA’s most famous supersubs of all time is also a player who has never been voted as Sixth Man of the Year. Known as the Microwave for his ability to start out the game cold off the bench and immediately heat things up, Johnson backed up the Hall of Fame backcourt duo of Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars DicK rapHael (3); otto Greule Jr.; anDrew D. Bernstein/nBae/Getty iMaGes

2/25/13 12:37 PM

limited things you can do.”

Teague says he was talking with teammate Lou Williams earlier in the season about the difference in starting and coming off the bench. Williams has played both roles this season, with varying success.

“He told me coming off the bench, you come in, you know your role, but as a starter you have more availability, more freedom, I would say,” says Teague.

It is not uncommon for a player to take a hit to his ego when taken out of the starting lineup. David Fizdale, a Miami Heat assistant coach, says: “It’s probably harder for a starter to go back to a reserve role. You get used to starting games.“ Fizdale adds that a bench player constantly has to have motivation. “It’s more goal-oriented, they see something at the end of the tunnel. It’s not easy for someone to put their ego aside and come off the bench, but the true pros, they do it.”

In Miami, Fizdale has seen 10-time All-Star and career starter Ray Allen do exactly that in becoming the Heat’s sixth man.

“We have a Hall of Famer coming off our bench right now,” says Fizdale.

“And that helps young guys too, to see a guy of his talent level, his kind of career, willing to sacrifice for the betterment of the team, that’s a good example.”

When Allen met with Miami, the Heat coaching staff said he had no requests for minutes and no hesitations of taking a lesser role.

“Not a lot of guys do that,” says Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra. “He was a starter for 16 years.16 It says a lot about him and his character.”

Dwyane Wade thinks Allen could be the key for a repeat championship: “Having a guy who can step in, play a lot of minutes at different positions, it gives us a dynamic we didn’t have last year.”

Players do like to clock as many minutes as possible off the bench to stay in a groove, but that can often be unpredictable.

“I think the mentality is you have to be ready to go in the game at any second,” says Fizdale. “Sixth men, it’s not a typical situation that you go in and start the second quarter. Somebody could pick up two fouls and he’s in there immediately.”

during the Pistons’ run of titles and contention during the late ’80s. Johnson defined the modern sixth man, the guy who could come off the bench and just get buckets with abandon. In Johnson’s case, his weapon of choice was the midrange jumper.

Although he stood just 6-2, he was built like a compact tank, with muscular legs that looked 6-2 wide. Despite his reputation as a scorer, Johnson also adequately managed an offense as a point man, but make no mistake, the man liked to put the ball in the hole. Quickly.

it looks like Ginobili will finish out his career as head coach Gregg Popovich’s first man off the bench. A smart and heady player who knows exactly how to exploit a defense, Ginobili can shoot from downtown, flummox a defender off the dribble and score in transition. While not a brute defender, Ginobili is excellent at reading a play and reacting to it, leading to steals and more transition buckets. Even no less an authority than Kobe Bryant has sung Ginobili’s praises, but three championships and a Sixth Man of the Year trophy in 2008 say even more.

Ricky PieRce With the exception of two seasons in Seattle, Pierce usually found himself seated on the bench when the game began—and that was fine with him. He thrived in entering the game and taking over offensively. One of the best midrange shooters (career 49 field-goal percentage) ever, Pierce had a buttery stroke and an overlooked post-up game that would batter reserve units 10-18 feet from the basket and even more so at the line. Pierce took home Sixth Man of the Year twice, first in 1987 with 19.5 ppg.

Pierce won the award again in ’90 and was so lethal a scorer that season, he led the team in scoring with 23 points per game (playing just under 30 minutes a contest), the only SMOY to ever do so.

Detlef SchRemPf A consecutive Sixth Man of the Year in 1991 and ’92 (the only other to do so was McHale), Schrempf was a do-it-all forward who would enter a Pacers game and keep the scorekeeper busy with the myriad of stats he collected.

During that two-year run, Schrempf started only 7 out of 162 games and averaged 16.7 points, 8.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists, while making 52 percent of his shots. Like Havlicek, Schrempf’s genius was his ability to analyze a game from the sidelines and because of his varied skill set, be able to provide whatever his team needed on any given night.

manu Ginobili In his career, Ginobili is about split down the middle when it comes to games started vs. games off the bench, and with the development of Kawhi Leonard in San Antonio, Dick RaPhael; nba PhotoS; layne muRDoch JR.; tim heitman/nbae/Getty imaGeS; anDy lyonS/Getty imaGeS SPoRt

H130304-f-Reserves.indd 43

Dell cuRRy Some might say Curry was a specialist over his 16-year career, a guy who came off the bench just to launch threes, but look deeper and you’ll see a deadly shooter who provided much-needed points to his teams. Unlike his son, Stephen, who’s been a starter most of his still blossoming four years in the NBA, Curry never started more than 29 games in any given season, and started just 99 times over 1,083 regular season contests. Curry was a knockdown shooter whose quickrelease shot burned defenders 46 percent of the time. Coaches also loved Curry’s three-point marksmanship (career 40 percent with a blistering 48 percent in 199899) to get them back into games or stretch out opposing defenses.

JaSon teRRy Primarily a starter during his first eight seasons in the League, Terry was a pretty productive combo guard for the Hawks and Mavericks. It wasn’t until Terry embraced his new role of coming off the bench during his fourth year on the Mavs, though, that people took notice of his clutch shooting. In his first full season coming off the bench, Terry was a beast, averaging almost 20 points a game and earning Sixth Man of the Year honors. Since then, he’s been a sixth man extraordinaire. Dirk Nowitzki deserved every bit of the Finals MVP trophy during Dallas’ title run in 2011, but if it wasn’t for Terry’s big shots down the stretch in the series and throughout the playoffs leading into the Finals, Nowitzki would still be among the greatest players to have never won a championship.

043

2/25/13 12:37 PM

Then: Pierce

Now: Smith

Fizdale also mentioned how an opposing player can get hot early on and a sixth man can be called on to “shut somebody down,” or try to at least throw the opposing star off his game by adding length or speed to a defensive strategy.

When a team is evaluating prospects each year for the roster, there are a few franchises at the top of the lottery who need an instant star, who won’t have the luxury of watching a game develop in a minimal role for a couple of years. But the majority of rookies find the bench as a place to prove to coaching staffs, teammates and the rest of the League that they can stick around for a long time.

“You definitely pick up the pace of the game watching on the bench,” says Kemba Walker.17 “You see the game differently. It gives you a good opportunity to go in and adjust to the pace of play.”

Walker, who didn’t start in his rookie campaign last season, says his mindset once he checked in was to take what he observed and, “get everyone involved” and be an “energy guy” to keep the momentum in his team’s favor. This season, Walker is averaging more than 17 ppg.

Rookies, no matter how high their draft status might be, usually start out learning the NBA ropes an arm’s reach from the sideline Gatorade jugs.

This is a tough adjustment for them. Before stepping foot into the NBA they were usually the best player on their respective teams, and with it, the lion’s share of minutes and shots went to them. Tyler Zeller, the Cavs’ 2012 first-round pick who started the first 22 games of the season on the pine before earning the starting center spot says that when he was a reserve, he tried to “pick up the flow of the game,” how referees were “calling the game” and the common plays opposing teams would often run so he’d be better prepared when he would enter a game.

“You want to watch the game offensively and defensively in case the coach does call your name,” says NBA newbie Andrew Nicholson.18 “You can see how you can go in and positively impact the game. If you see a team shooting a lot of jump shots, you go in trying to take that away.”

Nicholson said he has devoted time to watching as much film as possible before and after games, to pick up tendencies of his next opponent, but also improve on his individual game. Another on-the-job trainee, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, says he pays close attention to how people move off the ball.

“For some kids, it’s difficult personally because they’re used to starting their whole lives and they have to come in and make that adjustment,” says Fizdale.19 “But the bottom line is they all have to keep working and keep getting better. Because there’s another generation coming behind them and there’s a bunch of guys in the NBA now that’s already established that they have to catch up to.

Some veterans, too, never stop learning while watching the game from the bench. Matt Bonner, who’s never quite been a sixth man in San Antonio—thanks to the presence of the immovable Ginobili—says he is always trying to evaluate an opposing team’s schemes, “how they guard down screens, pick and rolls” and other minute details.

“When you come in, you’re prepared to take what the defense gives you and take advantage of how the defense is playing,” he says. “Myself, personally, sometimes being a stretch forward I’ll come in to shake the game up and force the other team to change how they’re guarding pickand-rolls.”

Contrary to Teague’s assessment, some players said there are other advantages for reserve players, particularly the ability to not worry about pacing or the pressure of the game. “It’s totally different,” says Chris Paul’s understudy Eric Bledsoe. “As a starter, you gotta try to maintain, think, lead—a lot comes with the starting position. Off the bench, you can just come and play as hard as you can and get tired because you know you’re coming out.”

“You definitely want to bring energy every game,” says Nicholson.

“Energy has to be a constant.”

As the role of the sixth man continues to evolve, it’s not uncommon

044

H130304-f-Reserves.indd 44

Jonathan Daniel; Bruce Bennett/Getty imaGes sport

2/25/13 12:37 PM

Konami Digital Entertainment.indd 1

10/24/12 2:27 PM

Jarrett Jack

Manu Ginobili

BONUS POINTS 1. Cassell also listed Kevin McHale’s early days in Boston and Detlef Schrempf as archetypes for ideal sixth men.

2. Cassell averaged 9.4 ppg and 4.2 apg off the bench in the playoffs during his rookie season, as the Houston Rockets won the 1994 NBA title. He is currently an assistant coach with the Washington Wizards.

3. Virtually a mainstay of almost every NBA team now, the dramatic lights-out starting lineup introductions to music were first done by the Chicago Bulls in 1990.

4. Popovich said when Tony Parker was a rookie, he was “merciless” on the 19-year-old. “I wanted to find out very quickly if he was gonna be able to run the show or not,” he said. “I wanted him to be thrown into the frying pan and just melt or be stronger.”’

5. Bowen is joined by: Johnny Moore (#00), Avery Johnson (#6), James Silas (#13), Sean Elliott (#32), George Gervin (#44), David Robinson (#50) and soon enough, Duncan (#21), Parker (#9) and Ginobili (#20).

6. Smith was also coming off an abbreviated season in China during the lockout.

7. The “unreliable” Smith averaged a reliable 12.5 ppg in 2011-12, right in line with his 12.8 career scoring average.

8. Smith voiced his frustration on Twitter after being left out. He averaged 16.2 ppg and 5.0 rpg without starting once before the All-Star break.

9. The last time the Knicks won the division was 1994, when Smith was 8 years old.

10. Terry won the Sixth Man of the Year award in 2009.

11. Harden won the Sixth Man of the Year award in 2012.

12. Odom won the Sixth Man of the Year award in 2011.

13. Crawford was the 2010 Sixth Man of the Year winner and is likely Smith’s biggest competition for the crown this season.

14. During the 1990-91 season, Bogues was third in the League in assists per game (8.3), despite starting only 46 games.

15. Curry started only 99 of 1083 games played. His son, Stephen, has started all but six games in his fouryear NBA career with the Golden State Warriors.

16. Entering this season, including playoffs, Allen had been a starter 1261 out of 1276 games.

17. Walker started only 25 of 66 games in 2011-12 as a rookie. This season so far, he has been a Bobcats starter in every game.

18. Nicholson has averaged about 8 ppg in only 16 mpg in a largely reserve role this season.

19. Fizdale is also the Heat’s director of player development.

20. McHale didn’t become a full-time starter in Boston until 1985, his sixth season in the League.

21. Both the 2008 and 2012 USA Men’s Olympic basketball team both came home with gold.

046

H130304-f-Reserves.indd 46

to see current or former sixth men become All-Stars. Hall of Famer Artis Gilmore, who saw the concept really take flight with McHale20 in Boston, says the role was not emphasized as much during his playing days, but thought it’s possible we will soon see a sixth man in the Hall of Fame since no NBA Champion has been crowned without the help of contributions off the bench.

When it comes to winning gold medals, USA Basketball has recognized the need to build a team of not just five dynamic players, but a unit of parts that fit cohesively, where players six through 12 are just as important as one through five. No one understands that more than Jerry Colangelo, director of USA Basketball and the architect of the recent two iterations of Team USA.21 He knew role players were key to revitalizing USA Men’s basketball. “We definitely said we were not going to have just a team of All-Stars. We were looking for people who had specific skills who could fit in and be blenders. We knew we had a lot of scorers. But to have unselfishness was a key criteria.

Colangelo says: “The skill sets are so much elevated today compared to how it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, that the caliber of player at the sixth man is off the charts.”

To Colangelo, that’s what made Harden such a vital ingredient to the 2012 team. “Harden last year, coming off the bench, he was offense personified. He really got things going. I think as a sixth man in the last few years, James Harden comes to mind of what the position could be.

“Of course, I believe James Harden could score sitting on the bench, let alone getting on the floor.”

Ultimately, it’s not about being one of the five players surrounding the opening tipoff that matters. Watch any close NBA game during the closing minutes, and almost always, you’ll notice the remaining five players on the floor, during the game’s most pivotal moments, aren’t the starting five, but the five best players. Among them, almost always: the sixth man.

D. CLARKE EVANS; LAYNE MURDOCH/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

2/25/13 12:37 PM

The NY Times.indd 1

10/4/12 12:01 PM

stepback Jamal Crawford knows a thing or two about taking a few steps back in order to get to where you need to go.

048

H130304-f-Jamal Crawford.indd 48

photo Noah Graham/NBaE/GEtty ImaGEs

2/22/13 9:34 AM

By Holly MacKenzie #32

049

H130304-f-Jamal Crawford.indd 49

2/22/13 9:34 AM

F

or most NBA veterans, joining a star-studded roster usually means fading into the background.

Jamal Crawford is not like most NBA vets.

Whether shaking your head at his killer crossover and four-point plays1 or hitting the rewind button to try to figure out exactly which combination of moves he pieced together before dancing his way to the hoop, Crawford raises eyebrows because his career path has been everything but typical.

In his 13th year, the 32-year-old swingman is playing for the Los Angeles Clippers and enjoying every second of it. Escaping from a disastrous2 season in Portland a year ago, Crawford turned the page and is in the middle of writing another chapter of his NBA career. In a journey that started in Chicago and zigzagged through New York, Golden State, and Atlanta before the year in Portland, Crawford made his reputation as a creative scorer.3 050

H130304-f-Jamal Crawford.indd 50

Thanks to his unorthodox game, Crawford is as known for how he scores his points as he is for how many he scores.

Understanding Crawford means going back to the beginning. No, not Chicago.4 Not even Michigan.5 To understand Crawford, both his game and his personality, you have to go back to his roots, to his home: Seattle. Growing up amid the rich basketball culture, Crawford fell for the game early on and he was hooked immediately.

“I loved basketball before I loved anything else in the world,” he says. “When you’re two or three years old, you don’t really know what love is but I’ve had a basketball in my hands ever since then so I knew that was my first love.”

From that point on, it was a wrap. Playing basketball every day after school, all day every day and night during summer breaks, Crawford’s love was both influenced and inspired by his surroundings.

“It’s everything,” he says of his hometown. “It’s everything to me. It helped shape me. It helped mold me. It’s always been a place I could be myself and always felt most comfortable there no matter where I was in the world. Michigan, Chicago, whatever, Seattle was always home. I’m not sure I’d be the person I am today if I didn’t grow up in Seattle.”

Seattle shaped more than Crawford’s personality and temperament. The dizzying handle, impeccable footwork and freestyle combinations that leave defenders on their heels, heads turned on a swivel trying to figure out what happened— they originated from those summers in Seattle, too. Free and happy, Crawford honed his skills at home, eschewing typical drills and practice sessions for actual games and scrimmages.

“I never like practiced the ballhandling stuff,” he says. “I just played. I don’t know why, I think that’s what keeps people off guard. It doesn’t look like a drill, it’s instinctive, it’s all off what the defense does.

“It’s kind of like a player being hurt, they can ride the bike and do sprints, all that stuff, but there’s nothing like being in basketball shape. For me, I can do drills and all of that, but there’s nothing like being against a defender who is trying to send you a certain way. I’ve always just done it— practicing while I play.”

Crawford recently admitted to only adding traditional shooting drills to his summer routine this past offseason.6 Throughout his career, Crawford has made plenty of defenders play the role of fool, but in Los Angeles, the final score has been in Crawford’s favor7 and the prospects of an NBA Championship8 are real. Averaging almost 17 points per game in under 30 minutes per game off of the bench, Crawford is sandwiched in between All-Stars Blake Griffin and Chris Paul as the Clippers’ second leading scorer. While Paul immediately becomes the most important player for every team he plays for and Griffin is the emerging forward that captivates fans with his otherworldly aerial game, Sam Forencich/nBae/Getty imaGeS

2/22/13 9:34 AM

outside of the two All-Stars there hasn’t been a player more integral to the Clippers’ success this season than Crawford.

Crawford doesn’t do compliments well. If there was a list of characteristics that define him, humility would be near the top.

What you might not know: You will be hard-pressed to find a more genuine or genius person in the League than Crawford. Despite a baker’s dozen years of living a life that the rest of us can only dream about, Crawford retains the excitement, appreciation and starry-eyed gaze of a kid attending his first NBA game, talking about his NBA career as though he still can’t fully believe that he has made it.

“One of the greatest people I’ve ever met,” gushes Sacramento Kings guard Isaiah Thomas when describing Crawford. “A guy that doesn’t think about himself in any decision that he makes. He thinks about others and what he can do to make other people happy. This is a guy, when I first met him back in seventh, eighth grade, we’ve talked every day since that day.

He’s just always been genuine to me.

He’s helped me in so many ways. Just being from Tacoma, near Seattle, you see what he does in the community, how he treats people he doesn’t even know. He treats everybody with respect. He’s a guy I respect off the court and he’s a guy I want my kids to be like.”

Heady praise, but Thomas isn’t the

only guy in Seattle that Crawford has made a big impression on. When Nate Robinson was drafted by the Phoenix Suns and traded to the New York Knicks on draft day, he was reunited with his former high school teammate9 and friend. From his first days as an NBA player, Crawford was there to ease Robinson’s adjustment to a new life.

“Growing up, I wanted to be just like him, I looked up to him since I was 13 years old,” recalls Robinson. “He made it easier for me when I was a rookie in New York. He let me stay with him for like a month before I was even getting paid, before I had anything. He’s very generous. He made sure I had everything I need and I never had to ask. He’s been a great guy. My rookie year when I wasn’t really getting paid, he’d give me things without me asking for it, always made sure I was cool, like I was his little brother.

I’m the oldest so I never had a big brother before. For him to be there and step in the place that he knew I needed, it was a blessing from God.”

“For me, being a good basketball player was never, ‘Oh, I’m special because I’m a good basketball player.’ I think you’re more special because of how you treat people and the way they treat you.”

Noah Graham/NBaE/GEtty ImaGEs

H130304-f-Jamal Crawford.indd 51

051

2/22/13 9:34 AM

Crawford’s generosity extends well past emerging basketball players, though.

Robinson adds: “He’s always been that guy who is always giving. I remember one time we went somewhere and a homeless man wanted money for something to eat so Jamal asked him if he wanted something to eat and we took the man with us into a Subway. He bought him food, sat down, ate and talked with him like he knew him. He’s always been a great guy.”

Ask Crawford where he learned these life lessons and it doesn’t take long for him to answer.

“Honestly, my dad,” he says. “He used to play basketball, but after that he was a security guard for TV shows like Family Matters and stuff like that. I would always ask him what this person was like, what that person was like and he would always tell me, ‘Oh they were really humble, really cool’, or ‘No, they were kind of stuck up and didn’t have time for anybody.’

I just remember that and knew if I ever was blessed to be in this position how I would want to be and how I would want to treat people and have them receive me.

“Being around the NBA guys when I was 16, I saw how I wanted to be, how I would want to treat people and how they did events. For me, being a good basketball player was never, ‘Oh, I’m special because I’m a good basketball player.’ I think you’re more special because of how you treat 052

H130304-f-Jamal Crawford.indd 52

people and the way they treat you.”

Over the years, Crawford has made sure to pass this message on to the younger players following his footsteps.

“He respects people,” says Thomas. “That’s the first thing he always taught me: To respect everybody.”

That’s not the only lesson that Crawford has taught Thomas. Thomas couldn’t say enough about the impact that Crawford has had on his life.

“He’s taught me everything,” Thomas says. “Other than my father, he’s taught me everything. He’s taught me a lot. Not just on the basketball court. Being a man, looking out for my kids. He’s just taught me to raise them how you would want to be raised and make them become the men you want them to become…It’s a blessing. It’s such a blessing to have a guy like that in your corner.

“Even the situation I’m going through this season—playing, not playing, starting then not starting, whatever it is—I go to him and he tells me how to be a professional, how to go about things. He tells me it’s going to be a long season and it’s going to come back around.”

Crawford knows all about those long seasons. He’s able to speak with younger guys about their struggles because he has been there. While he’s earned his keep and been a valuable sixth man10 for many teams, his first few years in Chicago were a different story.

“At first, the first, like, three years11 I didn’t play much and I didn’t get Andrew d. Bernstein; noAh GrAhAm/nBAe/Getty imAGes

2/22/13 9:34 AM

Craw’s-over

Take an impromptu poll in any NBA locker room on the best crossover in the League. Jamal Crawford’s name will pop up early and often. What is it that makes Crawford’s crossover so lethal? Who better to learn from than the man himself?

“What makes a good crossover is that you really have to sell that you’re going in a certain direction,” explains Crawford. “Who I grew up watching was Isiah Thomas and Tim Hardaway. Tim Hardaway had a killer crossover, and then Allen Iverson just came and took the world by storm with his crossover. I basically watched everybody and then tried to put my own together. And then once people start hitting on, ‘Oh, okay, he goes left, he’s going back to right,’ I had to make it so I could go right to left, and then between the legs and behind the back. Keep everybody guessing.”

“A.I., he had probably the best crossover, but it was left to right. Once people were like, ‘I’m not going to get embarrassed by this crossover,’ I started to do it to the left and then the behind the back stuff. I always try to use what the defense is doing against them because they have to give you something. They’re either going to send you right, they’re going to send you left, they’re going to play you straight up. You have to make them pay for what they do.”

Crawford has spent 13 years making NBA defenders pay. Even the great ones. Currently holding the NBA record for most four-point play opportunities, he has a knack for making incredibly difficult shots under pressure.

“I think I shoot it when people least expect it,” he said. “They’ll think, ‘He ain’t going to shoot that,’ and I’ll shoot it and already be in the shooting motion when they’re fouling me.”

Even more impressive? Crawford became just the fourth player in NBA history to score 50 or more points for three or more different NBA teams, a feat that only Wilt Chamberlain, Bernard King and Moses Malone have pulled off. Crawford has crossed the 50-point mark with the Bulls, Knicks and Warriors.

In addition to his ability to get points on the board in a hurry, that ridiculously tight handle comes to Crawford naturally.

“He doesn’t even know what he’s doing out there,” Sacramento Kings guard Isaiah Thomas says with a smile. “We joke around with him, he doesn’t even know what move he’s going to do. It’s so freestyle with him. That’s why he’s so dangerous. You can’t really scout him. You can’t really tell, ‘OK, we’re going to force him left or right.’ Whatever way you force him, he’s going to go the other way. That’s why his crossover is the most dangerous in the NBA.” Nate Robinson agrees with Thomas.

“He has a counter to everything,” says Robinson. “He’s like a counter boxer. He does his moves and if you make him do something else, he counters. His crossover is so deadly because once he’s gone, if you don’t go for it, he’s going to go by you. If you do go for it, he’s going to cross over. It’s deadly because he doesn’t time it. It just happens.”

While Crawford is quick to downplay his go-to move, he does think his Seattle guys are onto something. Told what Thomas said about his freestyling on the fly, Crawford goes further.

“I think that’s why it works, honestly. I’ve always been able to do that. I don’t know what I’m going to do until I do it. If I don’t know what I’m going to do, there’s no way the defender could know.”

With a crossover that has been perfected over time, which players are on Crawford’s own list of most dangerous crossovers?

“Isiah Thomas, Tim Hardaway, Allen Iverson,” he says quickly. “Ooh. I think Steve Francis had a wicked crossover for sure. That’s four and then... I’m stuck on four. That’s probably the fab four as far as crossovers go.”

Too humble to say it himself, his peers around the League have already spoken up for him. When speaking of active NBA players, Crawford’s crossover tops the list.—#32

normal minutes until my fourth year,” he says. “At that point, you know, you’re upset. You want to establish yourself, you want to be out there.

Now, looking back, it may have been the best thing for me. I might not have been ready physically or mentally at that time to compete against the best players in the world but now I can definitely say at this point in my career...I feel like I’m in my prime and I’m 32. It’s my 13th year and I feel like I’m moving just as good from day one. It’s unbelievable how things worked out.”

Crawford tore his ACL before his second season. The time away from the game only strengthened his love and appreciation for it. More than 11 years later, he still speaks in amazement at the support he got from superstar athletes around him during that difficult time.

“Michael Jordan actually gave me the best doctor’s names for the knee

surgery,” he remembers. “I even talked to Bo Jackson at the time because the doctor I ended up picking, James Andrews, he had helped him put his hip back together.”

“I’m talking with Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan, like, come on,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t think those things honestly will ever really hit me until I retire one day and look back like, wow. Michael gave me his first pair [of sneakers] he ever wore against the Bulls with the Wizards and the last pair he ever wore against the Bulls. Like… that’s the coolest thing right? That’s my favorite player ever—that’s Michael Jordan.”

While Jackson and Jordan were shoulders for a young Crawford to lean on, he has had plenty of people in his corner and in his ear over the course of his career.

“I’ve had some really good mentors from different places,” he says.

053

H130304-f-Jamal Crawford.indd 53

2/22/13 9:34 AM

”Early on, guys like Greg Anthony, Charles Oakley, Rick Brunson12 and Pete Myers,13 they were all really good. Doug Christie14 did a good job of taking me under his wing as well as Gary Payton did from the Seattle area.

Those guys treated me like a little brother. I was able to get some guidance and tutelage from those guys as well. I think from there, I’ve met some great people along the way. Isiah Thomas15 when I got to New York, Allan Houston, Penny Hardaway, guys like that were really good. Those guys were really good at showing me the right way to be a player.”

Crawford’s appreciation for great players isn’t limited to those who are retired, though. A self-professed NBA League Pass junkie, his Twitter16 timeline is filled with random observations and tweets about games every night he isn’t on the court. He is also still trying to get over the amount of talent he gets to share the floor with each night. In a pregame conversation in the Clippers locker room, he will point around the room and shake his head at the names on the roster. He called the Clippers the “funnest” team in the League “without a doubt” and said that this is absolutely the most close-knit group of guys he has ever played with in his career.

“In September, that’s when it really hit me,” he says. “We were in the training room, hanging around and Willie Green walks in and Matt Barnes

054

H130304-f-Jamal Crawford.indd 54

walks in and DeAndre [Jordan] walks in and Blake walks in and Chris walks in and Grant [Hill] walks in and Chauncey [Billups] walks in and Lamar [Odom] walks in and I’m like, ‘Hold on, hold on, we’re really on the same team? Like this is for real?’ Ryan Hollins walks in and [Eric] Bledsoe walks in and I’m like, ‘This is unbelievable,’ I think that’s what makes it special. Guys who have been in the League for a while and we know this isn’t normal. It’s really special.”

As the team adjusts to being the best basketball squad in Los Angeles, the camaraderie is evident to anyone watching. Showing up in matching Christmas sweaters, hanging out at each other’s houses to watch movies or have dinner together and having one of the most enthusiastic—and deepest—benches17 in the League, Crawford is very aware of the special opportunity this team has.

While some professional athletes can lose sight of the uniquely powerful platform that their job gives them, Crawford is not one of them. Instead he considers the type of power that comes with being an NBA player to be the thing that has allowed him to help those around him most.

“I think the greatest gift, you’re in a position where a lot of things come your way,” he said. “You accumulate a lot of wealth, not just with money, but with knowledge and meeting different people, I think being able to connect

Ned dishmaN/NBae/Getty imaGes

2/22/13 9:35 AM

Own all of your favorite moments from all your favorite seasons.

Award-winning HBO and Cinemax Original Series, now available on Blu-ray , DVD and Digital Download. ®

®

TM

© 2012 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved. HBO® and related service marks are the property of Home Box Office, Inc.

Home Box Office.indd 1

9/25/12 3:42 PM

BONUS POINTS 1. Crawford owns the record for career four-point plays. As of press time he has 34.

2. Crawford played the lowest number of minutes (26.9 minutes per game) in eight seasons and shot 38 percent from the field and 30.8 from three.

3. He’s been instant offense throughout his career, averaging 15.4 points in 31.7 minutes per game.

4. The Bulls selected Crawford with the No. 8 pick in the 2000 draft.

5. Jamal played for the Michigan Wolverines for one season (1999-00) before entering the NBA Draft.

6. Pretty amazing for a guy with a scoring reputation like Crawford’s.

7. In his 12 seasons prior to this current one, Crawford has only experienced a winning campaign twice (2009-10 and 2010-11).

8. During his only two winning seasons, Crawford’s Hawks teams never made it beyond the Conference Semifinals.

9. Robinson and Crawford shared a backcourt for one season at Rainer Beach when Crawford was a senior and Robinson a freshman.

10. Crawford took home the Sixth Man of the Year award in 2010 with the Hawks by posting 18 ppg in 79 games off the bench and is a favorite for the award again this season.

11. During Crawford’s first three seasons, he averaged 21 minutes and 8.2 points a night.

12. Anthony, Oakley and Brunson were all members of the Bulls during Crawford’s time in Chicago.

13. Myers, a former nine-year NBA veteran, was an assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls for nine seasons and is now an assistant on the Golden State Warriors coaching staff.

14. Like Crawford and Robinson, Christie starred at Rainer Beach, leading the team to its first Washington state championship.

15. As team president, Thomas brought Crawford to the Knicks via a trade.

16. @JCrossover also tweets about music and will randomly do Q&A sessions with his followers.

17. Along with Crawford, the Clippers second unit is comprised of Barnes, Bledsoe, Odom and Hill.

people who have dreams of doing something with other people who are in that position and seeing those people connect, I think that’s the greatest gift. After helping kids with my foundation, that’s really, really cool.”

Although he feels great and in his prime still, Crawford knows he is closer to the end of his career than the beginning. Through lessons, the tough times and the happy ones, he is keenly aware of how much the game of basketball has enriched his life. It’s part of why he is so adamant about giving back both now and when he is finished.

“You only play basketball a short amount of your life,” he says. “If you’re lucky, you play 10 years. Some people, I’ve seen them come and go. A lot of people, when they get in this position, they treat people not so good sometimes. I think people have more respect for you being in this position and having access to a lot of things when you still have time for people, for their advice, to get and give advice. Always humble yourself. Treat people how you want to be treated.”

Crawford says that the most precious gifts he has been given in this life are his children. After that, it’s been being able to accomplish his 056

H130304-f-Jamal Crawford.indd 56

lifelong basketball dream.

“All of these blessings have come because of basketball,” he says. “I wouldn’t be talking to you right now if it wasn’t for basketball. I wouldn’t be traveling and seeing the world, talking to kids if it wasn’t for basketball.

I’ve never taken that for granted. For me, having this dream since I was a kid and living it out, it still like it never really hits me. Like, I sit on the plane next to Grant Hill,” he says laughing. “He’s one of the all-time greats.

That’s crazy. This is crazy. Being a student of the game, just…basketball. It never gets old to me. I could go into any gym and just watch people play.“ At the end of the day, you can take away the contracts and the money, fancy hotels and countless flights. What remains is a guy who just wants to put the ball in the hoop. When there isn’t an NBA game to play, head to Seattle. Check out some gyms. Crawford will be there, just like he’s always been. And if there isn’t a basketball in his hands, listen carefully. You’re likely to hear words of experience and wisdom leaving his mouth as he does his part in helping another young basketball player to follow in his footsteps.

That is, if they can follow after his wicked crossover.

ROCKY WIDNeR; NOAH GRAHAM/NBAe/GeTTY IMAGeS

2/22/13 9:35 AM

PASSION

CHANGES THE WORLD

@nbacares

NBACares.com

NBACares.indd 1

2/27/13 8:56 AM

058

H130304-f-Tony Allen.indd 58

JOE MURPHY/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

2/22/13 2:28 PM

Grit ’n Grind

BY TREVOR KEARNEY #8

THERE’S NOTHING LUXE ABOUT TONY ALLEN’S GAME, BUT IT’S CERTAINLY A LUXURY FOR THE MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES TO HAVE THE HARDESTWORKING AND BEST PERIMETER DEFENDER IN THE LEAGUE.

059

H130304-f-Tony Allen.indd 59

2/22/13 2:29 PM

T

ony Allen can’t just turn off his motor.

You can see that when he walks anxiously around the huddle during timeouts, or darts downcourt during a free-throw break to walk off the foul he’s just committed. He might miss two shots in practice that nag at him until he drives back to FedEx Forum to put up 100 more jumpers, or hire a personal coach to run some extracurricular drills if it might get him more burn in games. The Grizzlies’ play-byplay announcers lament his habit of earning “delay of game” warnings for playing after the whistle—and for good reason, considering he once tore his ACL and MCL on a deadball dunk.1 But it’s his relentless mentality that’s made Allen the player he is, and connected him to the fans who love that player. It’s the groundwork,2 as he calls it, that’s made Allen the League’s best perimeter defender.3 “Be ready, outwork ’em,” he recalls his coaches and teammates urging him during his lowest moments. “Out grind ’em” is what he’s done, and it’s made him, quite literally, the face of the Memphis Grizzlies.

“All heart. Grit. Grind”—it’s an often-repeated quote around Memphis, his response to how the Grizzlies beat Oklahoma City in February 2011, months before the two upstarts met in the playoffs and about the time these Grizzlies officially arrived. The quote’s become the team motto, and has sparked a connection between a defensiveminded shooting guard from Chicago and the hard-nosed city of Memphis. A local radio show host added his mug to a T-shirt with those four words, and before you knew it, the Grizzlies were a growling squad with a defensive identity. “He’s become a cult-slash-folk hero here,” says Chris Wallace, the Boston GM who drafted Allen 25th out of Oklahoma State in 2004 and the Memphis GM who went hard after the tough defender in 2010. “Winning is what ultimately brings people in through the turnstiles and gets them to turn on the television and watch your team, but they also have to have personalities to get behind and support.

“Tony clicked with this town.”

The bond between Allen and Memphis starts with his gritty perimeter defense, which makes sense in a town that’s constantly defending itself. Plenty’s gone wrong in Memphis, annually ranked one of the country’s most dangerous cities, but beneath it all there’s unquestionable heart and soul, and even more, there’s hope. An anchor of 060

H130304-f-Tony Allen.indd 60

the “Midsouth” that escaped major damage during the Civil War, Memphis had a bright future before its population was decimated by a deadly yellow fever outbreak in 1878, leaving the city to reinvent itself. It did, several times over, alternately becoming America’s “cleanest and quietest” city, the birthplace of rock-and-roll and home of the blues, and a key player in the civil rights movement before Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated downtown. The history of high highs and low lows hasn’t always been pretty, but Memphians are quick to defend their home court.

It makes perfect sense, then, that a guy who’s overcome a reputation and reinvented himself has settled in a city that’s done plenty of that. “I think about everything I’ve overcome…I saw how I stuck myself in the foot,” Allen says.

“I just look at how hard I worked, and yo, that’s what got you here, so that’s your groundwork. Always get back to your groundwork.”

“The people in Memphis, man, they recognize the real.

They know I ain’t no Hollywood type of dude. They know I’m a grinder, I get it out of the mud. I’m just gonna go get it.

They respect that, and I love being in this city.”

Formerly the leading scorer on a Final Four-bound Oklahoma State team, an explosive if unpredictable slasher and a back-up point guard in Boston, Allen now hangs his hat on hounding a team’s leading scorer, almost regardless of position, and playing superb help defense, knowing exactly when to stick his man and when to cheat and assist a teammate. Watch him off the ball: It’s mesmerizing, the way he slips around and through screens and sticks his man as if he’s attached magnetically, and even when he gets caught JOE MURPHY (2)/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

2/22/13 9:36 AM

by a big he can wiggle away to get a hand in his guy’s face.

Memphis head coach Lionel Hollins regularly just assigns the 6-4, 213-pound Allen a team’s best scorer and that’s his job for the night with little or no help. In football, when a cornerback has no help against a wide receiver, they call that being “on an island.” Allen is routinely a castaway with guys like Milwaukee’s Monta Ellis or former teammate O.J. Mayo for the entire game, or he’ll juggle minutes between guys like 6-10 forward Danilo Gallinari, 6-6 guard Andre Iguodala, 6-2 Andre Miller, and 6-9 forward Corey Brewer.4 “If I made it tough in all those categories and I know he hasn’t been making gestures to the crowd—you know how scorers get: When I know they haven’t done none of that, that’s when I know I’ve done something,” Allen says. “You gotta look at it like this: I’m sitting next to Mike Conley, Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol—they are pretty much going to fill up the scoring.

“I’ve just got to be that glue guy, who does the things that’s not expected

from those guys. That’s my role.”

He’s a shooting guard who’s not expected to shoot much, but is expected to guard just about anyone, from shooters like Mayo to superstars like Kevin Durant—Allen’s last-minute assignment in that defining Grit-and-Grind game.5 Allen earned a spot in the Grizzlies’ starting lineup that day, in part because he made every one of Durant’s buckets a contested one. “I was so upset, because my whole thing is focus,” Allen recalls. “I was focused on James Harden. I got film on him and I was focusing on James Harden, because I knew I was coming off the bench. Right before the game they told me I was starting … and I was like, ‘Damn, now I gotta refocus and get my mind set on Kevin Durant.’ I went out there and I just went off my instinct.”

“Tony came here and we were not very good, and he saw the difference between a winning team and a losing team,” says Doc Rivers, Allen’s coach in Boston for six seasons. “He got to physically see it. He saw the change in culture in our locker room. Guys all kind of came in and gave themselves to the team, and understood that when you give yourself to the team, the more you’ll get out of it.

“His last two years here, he was phenomenal for us. We don’t win anything without Tony Allen.”

That winning instinct is exactly why Wallace went hard after Allen in the summer of 2010.6 Wallace recruited Glynn Cyprien, then a University of Memphis assistant who’d recruited and coached Allen at Oklahoma State, to help him convince the Grizzlies’ top target. Cyprien told Allen he was the piece missing from the Grizzlies’ puzzle, giving Wallace the chance to present the free agent a plan that included the recent acquisition of Randolph’s low-post scoring and rebounding, the emergence of pivot Gasol, the development of point guard Conley and the no-nonsense coaching of Lionel Hollins, with Allen being the final piece of the puzzle: defensive toughness.

“Chris Wallace came with a blueprint that just threw me out of the water,” Allen recalls. “He told me he didn’t need me to come in to try to score 25 or 30 points a game, he just needed me to come here and be solid and be that tough-nosed guy I was for Boston.”

It took him a while to become that tough-nosed guy, though. The playoffs in 2010 earned Allen his Memphis contract;7 he had guarded Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Vince Carter as the Celtics beat the Heat, Cavaliers and Magic, and checked Kobe Bryant during the Celtics’ loss to the Lakers in the Finals. He’d finally cracked Rivers’ rotation for good in April of that year, when he played 27-plus minutes in a Celtics loss, but his effort and energy earned a shout-out that became one of Allen’s “a-ha” moments: “Basically I went out and told the team, ‘We need more Tony Allens. We need more guys like that,’” Rivers recalls of the meeting. “I also told Tony, from that day, he was playing. It was a moment for him, but it was also a moment for our team, where they watched a guy who was not playing work, and then take advantage of it.”

That was a culmination of a lot of hard work, and the reward for listening to the right people. Allen endured many DNP-CDs in Boston, and played plenty of meaningless minutes when his number was called, but Rivers and Paul Pierce were constantly in his ear: “Be ready, be ready, 061

H130304-f-Tony Allen.indd 61

2/22/13 9:36 AM

be ready,” Allen recalls Rivers repeating, and he can still hear Paul Pierce telling him “outwork ’em, TA” in practices.8 “I was hard on Tony all the time, because you saw that defensive instinct that he has, and you wanted to get the best out of it,” Rivers says. “He was always disappointed he wasn’t playing. What I loved about him, the next day in practice, he was ready. Tony wanted to compete the next practice.”

But even when it looked like Allen was catching the hang of things, things changed: The Celtics inserted past-their-prime stars, like Michael Finley and Stephon Marbury, who took away minutes Allen could have played. Not exactly confidence-boosting moves for Allen, but “this time I already knew couldn’t nothing break me,” Allen recalls, “because I was doing everything right.”

And that hadn’t always been the case: “Playing when the whistle was blown … that’s my biggest regret in the NBA,” Allen says of the deadball dunk injury, pausing and adding quietly “and off the court, basically hanging around the wrong people.”

His reputation for that exact bad habit culminated in an all-out brawl at a party in Chicago that resulted in criminal charges in 2005, the summer after his rookie season. “Again, I got in trouble, and I’ve got to dig my way out of it,” Allen recalls. He stresses again because he’d found trouble at nearly every stop.

He blossomed into Oklahoma State’s best player, but before he’d ever played a minute there, he stuck around for a melee at a Whataburger.

Cyprien, an assistant to Cowboys head coach Eddie Sutton at the time, had told Allen straight up, “You know you’re a pro, right?”9 when he recruited him from Wabash Valley Junior College, but he didn’t project like a pro 062

H130304-f-Tony Allen.indd 62

when he had to cut out from his first college, Butler Community, because he’d gotten in trouble. And Allen never would have made it to any of these places had Detroit Piston guard Will Bynum10 not bumped into him at Chicago’s summer pro-am league and convinced him to give school another shot at Crane.11 “I was looking at all the holes I dug myself, and I was like ‘Yo, never again. It’s time to change my circles, it’s time to realize what’s more important—I’ve got a family12 in this. It ain’t about all this extra stuff that’s going on in my world,’” Allen said of the 2005 incident. “Pretty much, I just turned it around.

“My groundwork is just working hard, man, and all of the obstacles I’ve overcome, I look back at all of that. Opportunity is hard to come by, and if you get it, you should take advantage of it. That’s what I’m basically doing now, in contract season, just trying to take advantage of it the best way I can, showing these people that I am a force. I do believe I’m the best defender in the League. I am a work-in-progress, but I’m gonna keep working. Everybody has flaws.”

Memphis signed him to be its defensive stopper, but Wallace didn’t factor in the transformative role Allen would play in Memphis. “I didn’t think it was a big gamble,” Wallace says of Allen’s modest three-year deal. “We felt it was a very appropriate move from a risk-reward standpoint, and it’s worked out for us. Put the basketball part of this aside—the winning, proving your defense, having a player who’s the first Grizzly ever to make the All-Defensive Team, and he made it two years in a row—it was very important for us to have a fan base become so excited about Tony. I didn’t JOE MURPHY/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

2/22/13 9:37 AM

#GNG Tony Allen earned the nickname “Gucci” in Boston, but he’s “The Grindfather” in Memphis—the protector of the Grind House, aka the FedEx Forum, and the patriarch of the GNG hashtag.

“This is the honest-to-God truth: I didn’t know nothing about Twitter until I got here,” says Allen, who decided to launch the Twitter app preinstalled on his phone after the Grizzles’ win over Oklahoma City in 2011. “Right after that game, I got on Twitter. I was just tearing it up with ‘all heart grit and grind, all heart grit and grind.’ And before you knew it, that was the trend in Memphis. People started interacting with it, and playing with it, and whoever talked to me at the time, I was talking back. I didn’t care who it was, whether they had a fake page, or if it was a parody—I was talking to everybody, and everybody got to noticing ‘Dang, TA is just a regular guy,’ which I am. I ain’t Hollywood, so...say something to me—whether it’s bad, I’m going to comment back, or whether it’s good, I’m going to comment back.

I’m going to voice my opinion, because I’m a talkative guy anyway.

“Before you knew it, I had almost fiddy thousand followers.”

To be more precise, it’s 52,656 followers as of this writing. Oh, and his at-first-glance odd @aa000G9 Twitter handle? The first two As are his first and last name (Anthony Allen), the triple zeroes represent his fresh start in Memphis after his first six in Boston, the G stands for Grizzlies and the 9 his jersey number.

From when he gets up (“GM World”) to when what he’s watching on TV (often sports), you get a pretty good glimpse into Tony Allen from following his twitter musings. A typical day in the life of TA goes something like this mashup: 3:15 a.m.: Flight canceled! guess we can go Grab some Breakfast!!

11:36 p.m.: “U rather look good score 40 and lose than score 10 and win!!!! What the League Coming 2 ///// smh” 10:31 p.m.: Wheels down!! In the Windy!!!

8:50 p.m.: She told that’s a Good song , so I should let ms keys sing it, Kids lol” 8:49 p.m.: Just. Got off the Phone with my daughter singing Alicia keys, “some people want it all,but I don’t want nothing at all, if it ain’t u baby” 8:36 p.m.: Grub Time!!! Stomach in my Back!b 8:29 p.m.: Why did they just have that camera!! So close 2 jared dudley face!! Lol” 8:04 p.m.: Just leaving the Gym !!! They got some concert going on!!” (Carrie Underwood in the background at FedEx.) 7:22 p.m.: I wonder why they don’t count blocks after the whistle?, but will give u an attempt ! If u make the basket!!

5:34 p.m.: Now that Nap was “mean” 5:24 p.m.: Do kenny smith have on sweats or slacks!!

4:17 p.m.: I think I’m late 2:20 p.m.: Who watching the Worlds strongest Men? These guys! are the Kind of guys! u don’t want problems with!!!

1:17 p.m.: Boy u Look Like Tony Allen” My response “I hear that all the Time Killa” lol” 12:57 p.m.: Sitting in, at&t about 2 get another Line for my Dad.. And they wanna be all in my Buis asking these personal ... ?s 11:41 a.m.: “Losing my phone is the worst!!! Currently tweeting from my daughter phone.”

7:23 p.m.: “Rise n Grind”—#8

JOE MURPHY/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

H130304-f-Tony Allen.indd 63

have that in the equation when we brought him in.”

“You don’t just want him on your team, you need a Tony Allen on your team to be a good basketball team,” Rivers says. “He’s just one of those guys, his numbers will never, ever show his importance to a basketball team. He’s better than a role player—he’s a star at playing his role.

“I just love the guy. Love ’em. I love everything about him. I love the fact that he did struggle and didn’t give in, the fact that he had to find his way off the floor, and found it, and that now he’s a leader.”

Allen’s more likely to credit teammates13 and rarelymentioned team staff than talk bad about other players.14 He’s been infectious on defense, helping to turn the Grizzlies into a group that grinds out wins even when their shots aren’t all falling. And when he’s not playing,15 he’s still a presence on the court: He’s first off the bench to wave a towel and cheer teammates, and his facial expressions and body movements tell you everything you need to know about the game—questionable calls get winces, opponents garner mimicked defensive postures, and momentum shifts in the Grizzlies’ favor get two fingers to the ceiling. He’s not a sit-on-the-bench type of player; he’s into the game even when he’s not in it.

“He worries about the team before himself,” Randolph says. “If guys are down, he keeps us together. Ain’t nobody perfect, so sometimes if we get erratic, he calms everybody down. He’s that type of guy.

“When he talks, guys listen … and he talks all the time. He never stops talking.”

Not to teammates, not to fans, not to Twitter followers. “Kateeeeeeeee!” he called out at an autograph signing after spotting in line one of his most faithful Twitter followers, whom he’d never actually met. “I’m a genuine guy,” Allen says. “Everything is official, everything’s authentic. I ain’t afraid 063

2/22/13 9:37 AM

to be regular. There ain’t no Hollywoodness in me. Come get a hug, come get a handshake, whatever the case may be. It’s just open to the public.”

Indeed, he’s about as approachable as any NBA player, and that’s part of why he works so well in Memphis, a city that’s more BBQ on a deck than seven courses on fine china. “C’mon, killa,” he says, tapping an elbow and leading the way to a group of chairs away from the Grizzlies’ practice court. “My role is basically to be the glue guy,” he starts out, boasting that he’s the best defender in the League before admitting he’s hired a shot coach that he met at one of the kids basketball camps he sponsors, deciding on his guy in classic nonchalant TA fashion. “I was watching the guy shoot and his shirt said ‘The Shot Doc’ so I was like, ‘I’m going to test this guy out.’”16 That low-key, hug-and-a-handshake persona is a hit with Memphians, from his Twitter followers who eat up some of his musings to the kids he bearhugs at team events. “You know why they embraced me so much?

You know why those shirts hit like how they hit?” Allen says of the Grit and Grind phenomenon. “I wasn’t playing as much at the beginning of the [2010] season. People were wondering why I wasn’t playing.

“Once I got more opportunity, the preparation I put in beforehand, even when I wasn’t playing—no pouting, no crying, no talking bad amongst the players or saying this person shouldn’t be playing—wasn’t none of that,” continues Allen, who is in high gear now. There’s no stopping him at this point: “It was just me in that gym all night by myself working on my game and getting myself ready for when my opportunity come, I’m going to rise to the occasion. I took that mentality. My opportunity came, and I played 064

H130304-f-Tony Allen.indd 64

Kevin C. Cox; Andy Lyons; JonAtAhn dAnieL/Getty imAGes sport

2/22/13 9:37 AM

BONUS POINTS 1. After a innocuous non-shooting foul by Indiana’s Stephen Jackson at the three-point line, Allen continues with the play after it’s ruled dead, goes up for the one-handed dunk attempt and lands awkwardly on his left leg, leading to the knee injury.

2. “Your groundwork is grinding,” Allen says, as much to himself as anyone. He’s a fascinating, unfiltered, almost too honest interview: “Your groundwork is working hard, your groundwork is going to the gym, your groundwork is getting those shots up, your groundwork is studying film—it’s all that.”

3. For the second consecutive year, Allen was named the League’s top perimeter defender in the annual preseason survey of league GM’s. He beat out a guy named LeBron James (33 percent to 26).

4. In a sample of back-to-back games, he held Ellis to 1-of-14 shooting, then played Mayo nearly minute-forminute, holding his former teammate to just three field goals. Two nights later, he called a home game against Denver a “must-win” and did whatever it took – including juggling all of those assignments in the same half – to deliver it.

5. Allen scored 27 points filling in for Rudy Gay, and guarded the much-taller Durant, who had 31, in the Grizzlies 105-101 OT win on 2/8/11.

6. That was the summer that the entire in the basketball universe, except Grizzlies management, had its gaze on LeBron James’ free agency.

7.After meeting with the Grizzlies, Allen flew out of Memphis without a contract, but Wallace made sure there was one waiting at his Chicago condo when he landed. “I do not want him to go unsigned to Turks and Caicos, and I definitely don’t want the Boston Celtics to know he’s unsigned heading to Turks and Caicos,” Wallace recalls of the tense moments before Allen went on vacation with a teammate. “That thing could have unraveled on us.”

8. “Playing six years along Paul Pierce, coming to practice is a heavy duty every day,” Allen says. “From a guy that’s going to taunt you all day, from a guy that’s going to let you know he’s giving it to you, the best thing I can do is try to keep him quiet. If I keep him quiet two out of the five practices, I did a great job that week.”

9. Another “a-ha” moment in Allen’s career: “I had that buzz going in,” he recalls of his start at Oklahoma State, “but when he told me that, I actually believed.”

10. “If it wasn’t for Will Bynum, I wouldn’t be trying to hoop. I’d probably have a nine-to-five right now, or be doing something I’m not supposed to be doing,” Allen says. “I always credit Will as much as I can.” To get back on track at Crane and show that he was serious about school, Allen had to take zero period, an extra after school class, and practice with the football team.

11. Allen’s high school in Chicago.

12. Allen’s engaged to Desiree Rodriguez, has custody of his 12-year-old daughter, and regularly hosts events important to the Bluff City, like the Staxtacular! fundraiser and an annual Valentine’s spa day for single mothers.

13. On Randolph’s selections as an All-Star reserve and not a starter: “He’s just an underrated power forward— let’s just keep it funky: He’s an underrated power forward. His numbers don’t lie, but he’s underrated.”

14. When he held Mayo to just three field goals, he publicly thanked the Grizzlies video coordinator rather than boast about shutting down the former teammate he once shut up on the team plane in a dispute, which has obviously been left in the past: The two hugged and laughed together when Mayo returned, and Allen credited the former Grizzly with providing much-needed depth in the playoffs the past two years.

15. Allen says he noticed Memphis coach Lionell Hollins would sit him on the bench down the stretch because of his shooting, but Hollins didn’t agree. “Tony has a high motor,” Hollins says. “He’s a great competitor, and he likes winning. He’s hung his hat on defense because he’s a good defensive player, and he’s trying to improve in other areas of his game. That’s what you want out of a player. He may have come in to play a certain role, but he wants to expand that role without short-changing the role that he excels at.”

16. “I used to shoot with one hand, so I’m trying to keep both hands on the ball to guide it,” Allen says of his shot curriculum. Each session is about 45 minutes, he says, with 30 minutes dedicated to drills, and 15 minutes to his form.

good. People were wondering ‘Why hasn’t he been playing? I need a [Tony Allen] jersey.’ Well, you couldn’t buy no jersey, because don’t nobody want to buy no jersey if I’m not playing. They’re not selling them. They weren’t even selling my jersey.”

So, the T-shirts became the official uniform of the unofficial Tony Allen fan club. Some players don’t really fit in the relaxed surroundings of Memphis; some are too high-profile, too hands-off or not “gritty” enough for Memphians, and it takes some serious soul to capture the heart of fans in “Hoop City”—one of the city’s latest personalities, thanks largely to the success of the UM Tigers. But Allen has helped change that. “You look at Memphis over the years, they’ve never really been known for winning nothing,” Allen says, no so subtly choosing the words he uses to describe signing his contract in 2010. “That was a challenge for me, to come here and pretty much make a name for myself, take my talents down to Memphis and pretty much show them that we can win.”

“These last three years have been the best time of my career, and best part of my life. I’m enjoying the NBA. I’m happy. You can see it as you watch me play and interact with my teammates and all that. I just love being around all these guys. It’s a great feeling.”

STEPHEN DUNN/GETTY IMAGES SPORT; JOE MURPHY/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

H130304-f-Tony Allen.indd 65

065

2/22/13 9:37 AM

066

H130304-f-Gary Payton.indd 66

2/22/13 9:28 AM

re

ly

E e

w

as

ra

LIN E

LK

TH

ev hen er it ca a m lu e ll in to th Ga e co ry nv Pa er yt sa on ti , th on er .

W

TA

I

t’s hard to tell what the man’s motivation was. Come on, what possesses someone to rise from his seat in an arena, walk down the steps and onto the court to confront an NBA star as he is about to inbound the ball? Perhaps the spirit moved him. Or, maybe it was the spirits that moved him.

Whatever the case, when Gary Payton was playing for the Sonics, he was set to pass the ball in from the sideline in the middle of a regular-season game in Philadelphia,when said patron decided he wanted an impromptu meet-and-greet moment. Instead of displaying any shock or alarm at the incursion,1 Payton merely stood there with his trademark cocked head and half-smile. Yeah, what do you want? That2 look.

Within seconds, the gendarmes had descended upon the interloper and ushered him to a more secure location. Payton returned to the fray, completely nonplussed by the incident.

Afterward, a reporter asked him if he had been afraid when the man had confronted him.

Payton regarded his interrogator with the same cocked head and half-smile that he gave the fan. “Do you know where I grew up?” he asked rhetorically. “I’m not afraid of anybody.”

By Michael Bradley #53

ANDREW D. BERNSTEIN/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES

H130304-f-Gary Payton.indd 67

067

2/22/13 9:28 AM

There can be no better way to describe Payton’s 17-year NBA career3 than that sentence. The man from East Oakland played the game without fear. No opponent, no injury4, no challenge, no coach, no media member and certainly no wobbly fan could scare him. He took the toughness that grew inside of him as he made his way through his early life in Oaktown and unleashed it whenever the balls bounced. Payton spent every night in some opponent’s face, daring him to take a shot at the title. And he did it while providing a soundtrack of trash talk that set new standards for the genre. He got into the heads of so many NBA players, you would think he was a brain surgeon.

Actually, Payton was a psychologist. He understood the science of competition so well that he could defeat some foes without hitting a shot.

The thought of spending 48 minutes dealing with Payton’s substantial physical ability, unparalleled toughness and frantic motormouth was enough to make some guys call out sick. Payton didn’t just want to win the game; he wanted to break some people down along the way.

“It was very important for me to be tough,” Payton says. “That’s how I grew up, and that’s how my father taught me how to play. People would get tired, because they couldn’t keep up talking with me. That’s why I did it, to get people out of their games. By the second or third quarter, they 068

H130304-f-Gary Payton.indd 68

were done. I was in their head, and you were just worrying about me.”

Payton’s cocksure approach and seemingly unlimited supply of swagger led some to believe he was just an arrogant punk. But you don’t get to nine All-Star games, earn two First-Team All-NBA honors (and three secondteam berths) and become the only point guard ever to win the Defensive Player of the Year award5 just by talking. You have to play relentless basketball at a high level, and that’s what Payton did.

“I played with a lot of guys who talked trash,” says Shawn Kemp, who along with Payton formed the duo6 that powered Seattle from 1990-97.

“The difference between them and Gary was that he could back it up.”

Payton did it with defense first. That was always his primary weapon.

But his ability to run a team, score well and even rebound completed the picture and made him an all-around terror. He helped lift Seattle to prominence during his prime and then served as an elder statesman to help Miami get its first championship. Payton would hang around until the last elbow was thrown or hard foul was committed. That’s how he grew up, and that’s how he played.

“I thought Gary was a competitor, an intense, angry, combative competitor,” says Denver coach George Karl, who coached Payton for seven years in Seattle and part of one season in Milwaukee. “That’s how Andy HAyt; Bill BAptist/nBAE/GEtty imAGEs

2/22/13 9:29 AM

he played in practice, in a three-on-three game7 or playing cards on the plane.

“He likes winning. That’s the only reason he played.”

In Payton’s East Oakland youth, there were no AAU travel teams with free gear jammed into giveaway bags. He and his friends played ball on the blacktop courts8 with the chain nets. Payton’s family moved out of the projects when he was 5, so he doesn’t really remember that horror show.

But there were enough other ghastly diversions available that could have turned a future Hall of Famer into just another neighborhood menace.

Thanks to Al and Annie Payton, that didn’t happen.

Their youngest son never had worry about money, even if it meant Al worked three jobs to put some bucks in his boy’s hand. With a little cash available to him, Payton wasn’t lured by the ills of the street that NBA Photos; ANdy hAyt/NBAE/GEtty ImAGEs; BrIAN BAhr/GEtty ImAGEs sPort

H130304-f-Gary Payton.indd 69

accounted for much of his neighborhood. But that doesn’t mean he had it easy. He played ball on the streets and navigated the treacherous world around him. And when it came time to move beyond the asphalt to the big time, it was Al who formed the team—“The Family”—and made sure it stayed together.

“It was nice to have it,” Payton says. “It kept guys off the streets. And after the game, my father would buy some pizza and cookies, and the guys would come over and stay at my house.”

Al, who had the well-earned nickname “Mr. Mean,”9 would make sure the team had enough money to make trips to Vegas, San Diego and Phoenix to play in summer tournaments. That’s where Payton began to attract attention of recruiters. Mr. Mean also saw to it that his son would not follow his friends to violent Fremont HS. Instead, he sent Gary up the hill to Skyline High School, where life was safer, and trouble wasn’t so easy to find.

“My best friend I grew up with is serving 35-to-life in prison,” Payton says. “He went in in 1988.”

While his parents did everything they could to keep Payton from joining his friends in their ultimately tragic pursuits, his basketball game was attracting big attention. Impressed by how he could dominate games from the point guard spot by scoring, passing and defending—all with the East Oakland edge—St. John’s wanted him. Payton was ready to sign with the school, in large part because he loved watching Chris Mullin and Walter Berry play for the Johnnies. But legendary then-coach Lou Carnesecca called to revoke the scholarship offer, because according to Payton, he was afraid that bringing in a West Coast guard might jeopardize his ability to recruit New Yorkers.10 069

2/22/13 9:29 AM

Guarded Points There’s perhaps no other era in the NBA where the depth at the point guard position is so high. A random stop on League Pass and there’s likely a topflight point guard wreaking havoc on a defense.

Traditionally, the point guard is the bouncer of any defense, the guy who’s the first to greet the opposition at the door and the one who decides who can and cannot enter the paint. But when it comes to point guard defense today, let’s just say almost anyone can enter the “VIP section” these days.

As the sole point guard to ever win the big-man-skewed Defensive Player of the Year honor, Payton was the best at putting the shackles on his man.

Where does he rank among the top 10?

10. Rajon Rondo To be completely transparent, Rondo pushed Chris Paul to the 11th spot. Not that we have any issue with Paul’s guile on defense. We were just that enamored with Rondo’s raw ability and plastic-man arms. Like an elite cornerback, Rondo might gamble at times, but even when he gets burned, his length and speed can undo some mistakes. At just 27, Rondo has time on his side to elevate himself on this list if he can fully recover from his knee injury.

9. Dennis Johnson Some would rank DJ higher and we wouldn’t argue that point. Johnson was a big reason that those ’80s Celtics teams won three championships. A blue-collar defender, Johnson would dictate the action on defense and throw the opposing offense off its rhythm. Not taking anything away from Johnson, we ranked him lower since he benefited from playing with four other quality defenders that made the Celtics team defense formidable.

8. John Stockton Stockton is the runaway leader in assists, but many forget he also holds the record for steals, making him every bit the defender that he was a passer.

Thefts aside, Stockton was renowned for his moxie on defense which belied against his clean-cut image. Never afraid to mix it up against anyone, Stockton was a pesky guard who was equally comfortable slapping balls away from the passing lanes as he was sticking his nose into the paint to knock away a ball.

7. Mookie Blaylock Also known as Daron Oshay Blaylock, Mookie made good on the last part of his last name by locking up dudes on D. A relentless ballhawk from end to end, Blaylock topped 200 steals for five consecutive seasons from 1993-97 and found himself on the AllDefensive Team six times (twice on the First Team and four times on the Second Team).

6. Maurice Cheeks Like the rest of his game, Cheeks’ defense was nothing spectacular but every bit effective. Cheeks is almost the standard for textbook point guard defense: disciplined, under control and rarely ever makes a mistake. Cheeks once led the NBA in steals before being eclipsed by four others (three of them are on this list).

070

H130304-f-Gary Payton.indd 70

“I was upset, but then the word got out, and a lot of schools sent letters to me,” Payton says. “I let my mom pick the school, and she liked Oregon State. [Coach Ralph] Miller had been recruiting me since ninth grade, and [assistant Jim] Anderson was great.”

Payton was tough and talented when he reached Corvallis, but he wasn’t anything close to the defensive demon he would become after four years with the Beavers. Miller told him he would be a great defensive guard, but Payton was more concerned about scoring. Slowly, that changed. By the time he was a senior, Payton averaged 3.5 spg – to go with his 25.7 ppg and 8.1 apg. OSU pressed relentlessly, and Miller made Payton the “Deion Sanders of the press.” When the Beavers scored, they picked up opponents man-to-man fullcourt. Payton would start on the man trying to inbound the ball, aiming for maximum harassment.

Oregon State reached the NCAA tournament three straight seasons (1988-90), and though the Beavers lost in the first round each time, it represented the program’s apex. (OSU has not returned.) Anderson took over for Miller before Payton’s senior season and remains grateful for the energy and commitment Payton brought to the team. He remembers the ’89-90 season, when Oregon State clinched a tie for the Pac-12 title at Arizona State and had the chance to claim it outright two days later against Arizona. The Beavers lost and settled for the deadlock. Payton was furious with his teammates, because he felt they were satisfied with just a share of the championship.

“He never had a bad practice,” Anderson says. “He loved basketball, and he loved competing. Every day, he came with his work clothes on and wanted to get better.”

Payton improved enough to be named a first-team All-American as a senior and impressed the NBA enough that he was chosen11 second Andrew d. Bernstein; BriAn BABineAu; dick rAphAel; Mitchell lAyton/nBAe.Getty iMAGes; ken levine; otto Greule Jr./Getty iMAGes sport

2/22/13 9:29 AM

5. Jason Kidd A bit like Cheeks, Kidd won’t wow you with attention-grabbing defense, but at the end of the game, you’ll look at the boxscore and realize he more than dominated his man most times. At 38, he’s lost a lot of the quickness and speed he once used to shut his man down, but his unsurpassed basketball IQ still makes him a defender (nine-time All-Defensive Teamer) that coaches want on the floor when a stop is needed.

4. Clyde Frazier It’s a shame that Frazier keeps getting overlooked during his career. Because of Willis Reed’s memorable limp down the tunnel in Game 7 of the 1970 Finals, people forget that it was Frazier’s 36 points, 19 dimes and 5 steals that iced the Knicks first title. Defensively, Frazier was a tough matchup, pick-pocketing his man in lightning-quick fashion. It was Clyde who would usher in an era of defensively focused players at the 1 spot.

3. Sidney Moncrief Supremely underrated (we wouldn’t make that mistake), Moncrief was one of the best defenders ever. With the nickname “The Squid,” Moncrief stretched his tentacles to harass the opposition.

While he didn’t compile gaudy steals, Moncrief was all about making things uncomfortable for his man. It looked like early on the NBA would be renaming the Defensive Player of the Year award after Moncrief, as he won the hardware the first two years (1983 and ’84) the League started handing out the trophy.

overall by Seattle (behind Derrick Coleman). Even though he started from the minute he put on the Sonics’ uniform, Payton’s first two seasons in the League were not easy. He struggled offensively as he tried to develop a serviceable outside shot and got used to a climate where he was not completely in charge on the court, as he had been at OSU. “The first two years12 were a big adjustment for me,” Payton admits. “I came from a place where the coach let me do anything I wanted to a coach [K.C. Jones] who had won NBA Championships. He wanted me to be like Larry Bird and be right every time. When I messed up, he would pull me out of the game. He would start me and play me in the third quarter, but I wouldn’t play in the second or fourth.”

One part of Payton’s game that had no difficulty translating to the pro game was his defense. Upon entering the NBA, Payton was a pitbull unleashed upon opposing point guards. As an overaggressive, brash rookie, Payton would need time to earn the respect of referees and opponents, but it was clearly evident early on that the “Glove” moniker13 was a matter of time.

After the ’90-91 campaign, things changed dramatically in Seattle.

NathaNiel S. Butler; aNdrew d. BerNSteiN; FerNaNdo MediNa; dick raphael; BriaN drake; JoN Soohoo/NBae/Getty iMaGeS; StepheN duNN/Getty iMaGeS Sport

H130304-f-Gary Payton.indd 71

2. Alvin Robertson The Michael Myers of this list, Robertson would enter the psyche of opposing point guards and terrorize them. Robertson, who was also a very skilled point guard who had triple-double nights fairly often, was an unrelenting defender who would take it as a personal affront if you’d try to get past him. He averaged 3.7 steals per game in 1985-86 (2.7 over his 10 seasons) and even after a three-year hiatus, averaged 2.2 a game in 1995-96.

1. Gary Payton There are certainly more efficient and proficient defenders on this list, but no one quite intimidated like Payton. Not that he was all talk. Payton would be inches from your face from the inbounds pass, let you know that he was going to dominate you during the laborious journey of advancing the ball, and then proceed to make good on his word. That combined with his sneering defensive demeanor and fearlessness (even Michael Jordan didn’t cause him to blink)made for an opposing point guard’s worst nightmare. Physically, Payton was as wiry strong as he was cat quick and blanketed his man from opening tip to final buzzer, the end result usually being his man suffocated within the confines of the Glove.

071

2/22/13 9:30 AM

Karl took over and began a tempestuous but successful relationship with Payton, who was on the verge of stardom. The two struggled their first year together. A point guard himself who had played five seasons with San Antonio in the ABA and NBA, Karl was not without an ego. When his 1970s-style swagger mixed with Payton’s ’90s version, the resulting concoction could be incendiary.

“Our first couple years together, we would go nose-to-nose,” Karl says.

“He would yell at me, ‘You’re not my father. I have a father.’”

Eventually, the waters calmed. A big reason for the peace was the influence of assistant Tim Grgurich, whom both Karl and Payton trusted.

Grgurich had been on Jerry Tarkanian’s staff during the freewheeling UNLV days of the ’80s and knew a little something about relating to players who had a healthy dose of confidence. “He always told me, ‘You should have played with us at Vegas,’” Payton says. One can only imagine how that show would have played throughout the NCAA. A level of harmony prevailed throughout the next several years,14 although don’t kid yourself, with two strong personalities like Payton’s and Karl’s, there were some lively exchanges. “Gary wasn’t a Boy Scout,” Karl says. “He was a little high maintenance. That combativeness sometimes spread to his coaches and teammates.” To his credit, Payton understands that he wasn’t the easiest athlete to direct. He would argue, fuss and court drama, but he never stopped wanting to win.

“Maybe I didn’t have the best attitude, but I never quit,” he says. “You never saw me miss games. If I could run, I’d play. I might have not had the best attitude out there, but I always gave it my all.”

From 1991-95, the Sonics experienced moderate success, advancing to the Western Conference Finals in ’93 but winning only one other playoff series. There were whispers throughout the League that Seattle had talent but was unable to win big. With Payton, Kemp on the interior and do-everything forward Detlef Schrempf, the Sonics were considered formidable. Also not to be overlooked were the dependable veteran contributions of Nate McMillan, Sam Perkins and Hersey Hawkins. But as 072

H130304-f-Gary Payton.indd 72

they approached the seventh game of the ’96 Western Conference Finals against the perennially tough Utah Jazz, many wondered whether another failure15 was on the horizon, or if Seattle could finally break through. But the Sonics took care of Utah, 90-86, to win the West.

“That was a big hurdle,” Kemp says. “It was me and Gary Payton against John Stockton and Karl Malone.16 They had beat us down a couple years, and we had to embrace the situation, not just as individuals but as a whole team.”

Payton was piling up the individual honors from 1994-96, playing in three All-Star Games, earning a trio of First-Team all-Defensive Team honors, and in ’95-96 becoming the first—and even to this day, only—point guard ever to be named NBA Defensive Player of the Year. That was all impressive, but greatness in the League was defined by championships, not personal success.

“In ’96, we were more together,” Payton says. “At that time, we wanted to make a statement. We had been together four years. It was time to win.”

The Sonics advanced to meet Michael Jordan’s Bulls in the Finals. Seattle believed it was ready to launch a strong challenge for the title, but a combination of poor shooting, too many turnovers and injuries conspired17 to put the Sonics in a 0-3 hole. Payton had hurt his calf in the Utah series and was compromised, while defensive specialist McMillan was laid low by back spasms and needed cortisone to get him back on the court, albeit at a limited level of effectiveness. Although Seattle rallied to win games four and five, it couldn’t get all the way back and lost in six.

“We had a good swagger and good players going into the series with the Bulls,” Payton says. “If Nate hadn’t gotten hurt, we could have beaten Chicago. We would have figured it out.”

Payton continued to thrive over his next six-plus seasons in Seattle, but the Sonics never advanced past the Semifinals again during Payton’s Sonics days. Karl left after the ’97-98 campaign. Paul Westphal took over but couldn’t replicate the success of Karl, who won at least 50 games in each of his last six seasons coaching the Sonics. By the 2002-03 NathaNiel S. Butler/NBae/Getty imaGeS

2/22/13 9:30 AM

NocheLatina.indd 1

2/27/13 8:55 AM

campaign, Payton was ready to go and requested a trade to Milwaukee, where he had a brief reunion with his former coach. It was the beginning of a stretch of four-plus seasons, during which Payton went from a Seattle fixture to an itinerant player in search of a title.

“That was my choice,” he says. “I didn’t want to be [in Seattle].”

Pat Riley stood there and stared. Dallas had just blasted his Miami team, 112-76. Three days earlier, the Nets had whipped the Heat by 13. The locker room was quiet. “We were at a sort of a crossroads as a team,” Riley says. So, who finally spoke up?

Speak? Take a guess.

From the back of the room, Payton had a question.

“Okay, coach, what are we going to do?”

Riley had the answer. “I told him, ‘If you just follow me, we’ll get there,’” he says. “I meant that I could keep everything organized and keep the infighting down and selfishness down.”

Payton’s query had allowed Riley to convince his team to let him chart the way. And that turned out to be a good idea, since the Heat won 10 in a row and 15 of 16 after the Dallas debacle. By June, Miami had the franchise’s first NBA title. Seems Riley—who had won four championships as coach of the Lakers—knew what he was talking about.

And Payton played a perfect complementary role on the team. After being traded to Milwaukee, he signed with the Lakers18 for a season, hoping to gain a ring. He came close—the Lakers reached the Finals—but couldn’t accomplish the goal. After a year with the Celtics, he came to Miami, clearly at the very end of his career.

“I didn’t know what he was like when he was younger,” Riley says.

“I had heard some of the stories. He was a very competitive guy, and he would test you as a coach.

“I remember flying to Las Vegas during the summer before the season and visiting with him. He was gracious and forthcoming. He talked about how he used to be too hard. He had been around the block.”

Payton played a reserve role with the Heat, and though Riley was “a noisy coach” like Karl, the two men got along. Payton could talk back, according to Riley, “as long as he was teaching me something.” Payton started 25 games in ’05-06, played about 28 minutes a night and scored 7.7 ppg. He deferred to Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade and helped the Heat reach the Finals, where they promptly fell two games behind Dallas. With 9.3 seconds left in the third game, Payton drilled a long twopointer that gave Miami a 98-96 victory, starting a run of four straight wins for the Heat.

Unlike Payton himself, the shot was fairly mundane. After receiving a pass at the three-point line from Jason Williams on a kick-out, Payton pump-faked, sending Dallas’ Josh Howard flying out of the play. Payton then took a single dribble to his left and calmly wetted the 21-footer.

You would think dropping the biggest shot of his long-winding career would be cause for some yapping, a swagger-filled strut or even a patented Payton head bob? There was nothing, not even a glare. Payton casually walked back to the bench on the ensuing timeout. Other than acknowledging the congratulatory daps from teammates who were clearly more excited than him, Payton just made his way to a seat. It was as if Payton knew what the shot meant even before the next three games and one more NBA season would play itself out.

Payton could finally call himself an NBA champion.

“I didn’t take a shot all game, but Pat Riley had the confidence in me to have me on the floor at the time,” Payton says. “That gave us momentum.

“It was a great moment.”

And one that was certainly worth talking about.

074

H130304-f-Gary Payton.indd 74

BONUS POINTS 1. Payton showed more annoyance at the disruption in the game.

2. If you know anything about Payton, that look needs no further description.

3. Payton averaged 16.7 points, 6.7 assists, 3.9 rebounds and 1.8 steals for his career.

4. In his career, Payton played in 1,335 games out of a possible 1,362 games.

5. In fact, he’s the last guard to ever win the hardware.

6. Payton and Kemp were the first tandem to really turn the alley-oop into the weapon it is now on the court.

7. If you were lucky enough to catch Payton during pregame warmups, you can see him challenging teammates to shooting contests of short games of one-on-one.

8. Fellow Oakland native Jason Kidd would sometimes frequent the same courts, leading to some legendary battles.

9. Al Payton even drove around Oakland with the license plate bearing his nickname.

10. In hindsight, Carnesecca admitted that he regretted the decision.

11. Since Payton, NBA players from OSU included: Brent Barry, Corey Benjamin and Jared Cunningham.

12. During his rookie and sophomore seasons, Payton averaged 8.3 ppg on 45 percent shooting.

13. Legend has it one of the NBA’s best nicknames was born during the 1993 Western Conference Finals when the Sonics squared off against the Suns. Payton was, according to his cousin, guarding Kevin Johnson so tight, like a baseball in a glove.

14. Under Karl, Payton averaged 18.5 ppg, 6.8 apg and 2.4 spg with five All-Star berths.

15. In 1994, the 63-19 Sonics were big favorites to win the title as the retired Michael Jordan was pursuing a baseball career, but they lost in the first round to the eighth-seeded Denver Nuggets in five games.

16. At the time, many saw the Payton/Kemp duo as the next-generation Stockton/Malone combo.

17. Also working against Seattle was a record-setting 72-10 Bulls team and a very motivated Jordan coming off a playoff loss in ’95.

18. The Lakers formed a power quartet for the 2003-04 season, inking former perennial All-NBAers Payton and Malone to join up with a Kobe and Shaq Lakers team that was coming off three straight titles.

STePheN DUNN/GeTTy IMAGeS SPOrT

2/22/13 9:32 AM

TheDirectTV.indd 1

10/10/12 10:19 AM

Teva.indd 1

9/25/12 3:40 PM

CHECKIT 78 SPIN MOVES 80 THE GOODS 82 GEAR 86 WEAR

REEL GREEN

Pursuing the green life might mean getting rid of your gas-powered lawn mower, but it doesn’t mean your lawn goes brown as a result of it. A reel mower, like Fiskars’ StaySharp Max (page 80), can do the same upkeep that makes your outdoor patch the envy of the block, just without the noise, fumes and hassle of the old fossil fuel-burning, carbon-emitting clunker. So do your lawn and Mother Earth a favor and junk—actually, recycle (keeping it green, remember?)—the gas mower for the reel deal.

077

H130304-check it opener.indd 77

2/22/13 4:15 PM

CHECK IT SPIN MOVES

BY MCG #93

Zach Randolph

The difference between Zach Randolph, Grizzlies All-Star, and Zach Randolph, 19-year-old rookie, is like night and day. Randolph’s game has always been on point, but he’s elevated himself to a level where he is one of the hardest players to stop in the entire League night in and night out. These days, Z-Bo is also more of a homebody, relishing the moments he has with his family. We caught up with Randolph recently and he gave the scoop on what the Indiana-native digs off the court.

Movies

I definitely like watching TV a lot, spending time in front of the TV in the living room. My son, my daughter, all my nieces and nephews, I got a bunch of little youngsters with me, that’s what it’s all about. We just watched Madagascar and I watched Flight.

Music

I’m listening to some Yo Gotti, Future, some Lil Boosie. I got a nice little playlist. [Ed note: Z-Bo has hosted mixtapes featuring Yo Gotti.]

Videogames

In the summertime I might play NBA2K, Max Payne and Madden. I don’t play as myself in 2K though, they don’t got me good on there. If I was in Madden, I’d be a wideout or tight end.

078

H130304-Spin Moves.indd 78

Hobbies

I like dogs. I got black Russian terriers, I show them.

I got four—I just got two puppies from Russia last week. I just got a thing for dogs. It’s definitely a comfort thing. They say they’re man’s best friend. It’s the truth. [Ed note: Earlier this year, Z-Bo appeared on Pit Bulls & Parolees. He later donated $10,000 to a Rescue Center after learning of a pit bull trapped in a drainpipe. He is also a spokesman for the Memphis Humane Society.]

ILLUSTRATION: MATT CANDELA

2/25/13 11:34 AM

BIG GAMES. BIG MOMENTS. TM & © 2013 Turner Entertainment Networks, Inc. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. © 2012 NBA Properties, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Photo: Getty Images.

NBATv.indd 1

2/27/13 8:57 AM

cHEck it the Goods

01

Fiskars StaySharp Max

Lawn season is here. Do the planet, your wallet and your health a favor and swap the craggy, gas-guzzling, temperamental lawn mower for a reel mower. The StaySharp Max is a proper pick. The heart of the you-powered mower is an easy-to-push StaySharp reel cutting system that gives the grass a clean cut (traditional mowers chop at the blades) with little hassle of blade sharpening. Best of all, you won’t be forced to suck up the noxious fumes and motor noise in the wake of a gas mower. The other key features are one-touch height adjustment (from 1-4 inches) and the cutting reel that spans the entire width of the wheel base, making for easy edging.

01

$249.99

03

02

Drift HD Ghost

Don’t be the fool who straps a smartphone to his helmet in order to capture his latest action stunt lest you want to wind up with unwatchable video due to a broken phone. A proper action cam like the HD Ghost will ensure the camera can take a lick and when you’re recovering from the experience in the hospital, be able to replay good watchable video to re-live the moment. The combination of a solidly built camera (it’s got a very nice heft to it) encased in a rubberized exterior (waterproof to 3 meters) and a lens protected by Gorilla glass means the Ghost won’t become one when abused. The Ghost has a photo mode (including a burst mode) for 11-megapixel stills, but the crown jewel is the video capture. The lens can capture 1080p video at 30 fps with a viewing angle of an impressive 170 degrees (the peripheral vision does drop to 130 degrees when you slow it down to 60 fps). Granted, run-of-the-mill videos from the Ghost won’t impress. It’s when the Ghost is strapped on with the included mounts (goggle, curved and flat mounts, along with a remote) and taken to extreme conditions that it really shines. Now if we can only convince LeBron to wear one during a game.

$399.99

02

03

Epson MegaPlex MG-850HD

Armed with your iPad, iPhone or iPod and the MegaPlex, you have an on-the-go, big-screen movie experience. The MegaPlex boasts 720p resolution (1280 x 800, to be exact) and has built-in speakers that do a good job filling a small radius of space. There’s a slick slide-out port for an iOS device (Ed note: it’s the old connector; the newer Lightning connector will require an adapter) in the rear. Once connected, the included remote handles navigation and the dock will even charge your device. Not relegated to just “i” devices, the MegaPlex comes equipped with a HDMI, USB, VGA and composite video ports for connecting other smartphones, DVD and Blu-ray players, computers, cable boxes and videogame systems. The handy pull-out handle and integrated lens cover makes the MegaPlex very totable.

$799 080

H130304-Goods.indd 80

2/22/13 4:13 PM

07

The North Face Bedrock 4 BX

A good tent should check off as many of the following characteristics as possible: lightweight, ease of assembly, ventilation, weather resistance, usable space. The Bedrock 4 BX ticks off all five boxes. Even the most novice outdoorsman can pitch the Bedrock, thanks to its color-coded clips that match the light aluminum poles (total weight of tent is about 10.7 pounds). Once set up, the tent opens up to 54.9 square feet of space with a ceiling of 60 inches and taped seams to keep out rain. The mesh walls of the tent reduce weight and condensation while providing adequate ventilation for four, and dual doors means not having to hop over as many people during entry and exit.

$359

06 07

06

Blunt Umbrella

Umbrellas are one of the most neglected devices. You either forget to bring one when it rains or you forget it somewhere when you do remember to carry one. And even when you do manage to break it out in the rain, the old standby invariably comes apart from an unsuspecting gale. The Blunt umbrella ups the portable rain shelter game. Built like a modern bridge, the umbrella sports a Radial Tensioning System that is made of quality brushed metal that would look at home on a racecar. The end result is a canopy that has its own suspension system that makes the umbrella able to withstand winds up to 70 mph. That ingenuity—coupled with a handsome look and high price tag—will ensure that the Blunt won’t be misplaced and will survive a few storms.

$79

05

05

04

Leatherman Wave

For the regular crowd, the Wave is a great all-in-one wonder, handy to have in the car or on an outdoor outing. An avid doomsday prepper would see it as a valuable life-saving tool to have in every bugout survival bag. Both would be right. The Wave features 17 tools—most notable the handy pliers (needlenose, regular and wire cutter), 4-inch knife and saw—in a very compact 4-inch, 8.5-ounce package. Multi-tools are a dime a dozen, but what sets the Wave apart is the fine details: the sharp edges on the cutting tools, the ease of use in accessing each tool and the comfortable grip while wielding each one. So good is the Wave that Leatherman provided one to all 33 rescued miners in Chile after the 2010 accident that left them trapped underground for two months.

$89.95 04

Logitech TV Cam HD

Video-calling is great to connect with those far away, but the problem arises when it’s a group of people and everyone squeezing into the picture—or taking turns—makes things awkward.

The TV Cam HD brings the call to the living room, in front of the television, so everyone can see and be seen while taking part in the conversation. The 720p video and Carl Zeiss optics (with 2x zoom) captures a wide swath of crystal clear video that we can vouch on, and the ringer (which goes on whether the TV is on or not) alerts you on incoming calls. The TV Cam HD installs easily to any television equipped with HDMI, has Skype preinstalled and connects via WiFi (or wired Ethernet). In fact, installation was so easy, we never even referred to the instructions, making it perfect for the tech-challenged and stubborn, don’t-need-the-instructions set.

Where to Buy: Fiskars StaySharp Max: fiskars.com; Drift hD Ghost: driftinnovation.com; epson MegaPlex MG-850hD: epson.com; Logitech tV Cam hD: logitech.com; Leatherman Wave: leatherman.com; Blunt umbrella: bluntumbrellas.com; the North Face Bedrock 4 BX: thenorthface.com

$199 081

H130304-Goods.indd 81

2/22/13 4:13 PM

CHECK IT GEAR

Jordan

The tongue is part of the internal bootie made of breathable mesh.

Air Jordan XX8 Weight: 14.25 oz.

Price: $250

The upper of the shoe is a Hyperfused material that comes up to form five straps that flow into the laceloops, cradling the foot like fingers when tightened.

On the forefoot, the Zoom Air unit comes up slightly, serving as a launching pad on takeoffs.

The exterior shroud is the most striking element of the XX8, as it wraps the entire shoe and zips up to the top. From a performance standpoint, the shroud doesn’t provide much, if anything, to the shoe. It’s a thin nylon material and doesn’t add any protection or support to the shoe itself. It does, however, repel water. We were curious and dripped some water over it and the water beaded up and bounced off. It won’t save you from wet feet in a downpour, but it will disperse the water hazards on the court, namely sweat droplets and errant splashes of Gatorade.

Like the water repellant shroud, Jordan decided to go with a taped seamed zipper that shields the opening from water.

The zipper pull is a braided paracord that can actually be unwound for use.

Also made of carbon fiber, the heel counter locks the foot in place during cuts. The minimal bulk and placement of it ensures weight reduction.

The carbon fiber Flightplate de-couples the forefoot and heel, making the XX8 more track spike than basketball shoe. This was done since Jordan sees the game as more a series of sprints (where speed and explosiveness is key) than a marathon, despite the average NBA player logging between two to three miles per game.

OUR TAKE: The Air Jordan XX8 is not for the faint of heart. As labeled by the architect of the shoe itself, Tinker Hatfield, the XX8 shouldn’t be viewed as a “now” shoe, but rather like concept cars, a glimpse into the future, something that pushes the boundaries of technology and design. If that’s the ethos of the XX8, then they absolutely nailed it. As crazy as the previously reviewed Under Armour Charge BB was, with its ski boot-like look, it still looked like a basketball shoe as we currently know. The XX8 throws any basketball shoe pretense out the door, at least on the exterior.

Based on stealth (not the first time as Michael Jordan once famously said: “By the time you see me coming, it’s too late.”) the XX8 is covered by a synthetic shroud that serves ultimately two things: To cover the more traditional guts of the shoe and to offer up a blank canvas for expression.

We expect the shroud layer to offer up new possibilities in the form of colorways, patterns, NikeID (upload your own image and have it “printed” on the shoe) and aftermarket customizers. As it relates to the pictured launch colorway, the shroud is a nod to stealth fighters. Further military inspiration besides the obvious military boot-like look is the braided paracord zipper pull and slight water repellency that the shroud offers. We tested it with the shroud down as we had some difficulty pulling it all the way up (those with wide feet should be forewarned), but we also think the shoe looks more pleasing with it down.

While not fully visible like in the Melo M9 or LeBron X, there is Zoom Air in the forefoot and heel for responsive and lowprofile cushioning.

The icy blue translucent outsole gives a blurry peek into the front and rear Zoom Air units in the midsole. The traction pattern is a two-tiered wave pattern.

The XX8 indeed feels quick and light. Although not the lightest shoe on the market at 14.25 ounces, it feels as light, if not more, thanks to the thin shroud material. Where it shines best is the low-profile combination of the outsole, midsole Zoom and the Flightplate. Running with the XX8 gives you a feeling of a few hundredths of a second shaved off your 40-yard dash. As soon as you rock your foot forward for a step, the Flightplate and forefoot Zoom give you a “push” off the starter blocks. The advantages in lateral movement aren’t as noticeable, but the XX8 does an excellent job locking foot to shoe. Jumping is aided by the forefoot “launchpad” on the bottom, but upon return to the ground, we do wish it had more shock absorption, especially in the rear.

As purely a basketball shoe, the XX8 isn’t perfect, but you can tell it was designed and engineered differently. Like any shoe in the market, it’s a subjective thing, but you cannot question Jordan Brand wanting to solve the basketball shoe in an innovative fashion. Aesthetically, it’s growing on us with each wear. It’s definitely more striking with the top down and the “engine” exposed, but we can see how someone adverse to change might be leery of it. Off the court, we can’t envision many ballers keeping the XX8 laced (or zipped), but future editions, especially with the potential array of possibilities the shroud offers, might change our mind. Whatever the case, let’s not forget the Air Jordan line, as legendary as it is as an iconic shoe, is still all about performance first and foremost.

082

H130304-Gear.indd 82

2/22/13 4:12 PM

NBAStore.indd 1

10/10/12 9:40 AM

CHECK IT GEAR

adidas

The ergonomic collar nestles the ankle into the shoe and the ankle pocket (on both the medial and lateral sides) provides extra lateral support.

D Rose 3.5 Weight: 13.1 oz.

Price: $160

The same tightening spiral pattern is found on the tongue that once again serves to remind us that everything revolves around Rose’s family, represented by the D Rose logo.

The striking spiral pattern of the overlay might look like a basketball net, but it’s also meant to represent Rose’s tightening of his game as the diamonds get smaller and more dense as it nears the DRose logo on the ankle.

The upper is again adidas’ patented SprintWeb, engineered for Rose specifically for maximum weight reduction.

SprintFrame keeps the integrity of the shoe, bridging the foot from the rear to the front and extending to the back to make up the heel counter that holds the foot into the bed of the shoe.

The mesh tongue and the breathable mesh inlays inside the diamond pattern provide ventilation.

OUR TAKE: It’s a shame that Derrick Rose has been absent from the court this season.

Usually, a player’s third signature shoe signifies a turning point in the line, and the D Rose 3 had every indication of it, with this 3.5 iteration a nice exclamation point to it all.

The what-should-be second-half shoe for Rose, the 3.5 is about the same weight as the 3, but gets a slight makeover and new materials. SprintWeb remains as the weightshedding base for the upper, but the 3.5 replaces the leather overlay with a synthetic. The diamond patterns from the 3 were slightly modified, but remain relatively true. Gone are the perforations on the toe box of the 3, replaced by a solid one. Strangely enough, we were surprised with the result of the new upper material. The synthetic material on the 3.5 didn’t reduce weight and it made for a stiffer shoe (at least on the onset). We experienced some pinching early on with the 3.5 that we didn’t have with the 3, but it did get better as the shoe got broken in.

As far as traction, cushioning and lateral ability, we didn’t expect much of a deviation from the D Rose 3 since it shares the same chassis. One noticeable difference during play is the

Like the D Rose 3, the Three Stripes branding goes from tip of the shoe to the rear, where it extended up to the ankle, a nod to Rose’s speed up and down to both ends of the court.

ankle freedom that the 3.5 allows. The underside of the air-pocketed ankle embellishment (it’s hollow and squeezable; when squeezed it feels very much like the pump mechanism on a Reebok Pump) serves as a flex point to the shoe, something the 3 didn’t have as much on.

After going back to the D Rose 3 for this review, we can confirm that this was the one major difference between the two shoes.

As a “point-5” version, we didn’t expect much of a departure from the D Rose 3, a shoe we gave good grades. Don’t let not seeing Rose wear these during an NBA game deter you. If you slept on the 3, here’s your chance to get in on the 3.5. And if you liked the 3 and it’s time for an upgrade, you won’t be disappointed with this slight revision.

Even though the D Rose 3 and 3.5 have only been seen on Derrick’s feet during his rehab back to the NBA, they are by far the most personal shoe in the series, a testament to adidas’ storytelling of Rose’s return to the hardwood. Holding the shoe, you can almost feel Derrick doing the same inside the locker room of the United Center, waiting for his moment to return.

084

H130304-Gear.indd 84

2/22/13 4:04 PM

Insite Group.indd 1

10/5/12 3:35 PM

CHeCk it Wear 01

Reebok Shaq Attaq Can you believe it’s been 21 long years since Shaquille O’Neal’s larger-than-life game and his equally monstrous shoes, the Shaq Attaq, debuted in the NBA in 1992? Reebok, which has been doing an amazing job (shout-out to creative director Swizz Beatz, interivew with him on page 22) of reaching into its vast archives, is re-releasing the Diesel’s signature joints, complete with the still-satisfying-to-thisday Pump on the tongue.

$160

01

02

02

adidas Originals Hackmore

Taking cues from the court and the street, the Hackmore blends the two worlds together into a retro-inspired shoe. Once-performance innovations like the padded collar and hook-and-loop midfoot strap gets gussied up with bright colors and speckled paint and the molded overlays give it a modern sleek finish.

$120 03

03

Nike Sportswear Off Campus Jacket Nike’s homage to March Madness, the Off Campus Jacket takes the triedand-true varsity jacket details—the ribbed cuff, collar and waistband—and combines it with new touches—shoulder stripe, taped chest pocket and the school’s logo on the front and on the back lining.

$200

03

086

H130304-Wear.indd 86

2/25/13 12:20 PM

04

New Balance 574 Windbreaker Collection

Taking inspiration from an early ’90s fashion staple, the windbreaker (watch Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” video for a reminder), New Balance takes the ever versatile 574 and skins it with nylon, flecked laces mimicking drawstrings and reflective hits all over to resemble the classic windbreaker.

$75

04

03

05

Puma Future Disc Blaze Lite

In the late ’80s/early ’90s, it was all the rage for sneaker companies to replace the venerable shoelace with an elaborate and novel system of offering a custom fit to a shoe. Both Reebok and Nike had iterations of a pump, but Puma developed the Disc, a dial that locked your foot in place. Gimmicky? Perhaps, but you can’t argue that it looked pretty dope then—and still does now.

$130

05

Where to Buy: adidas originals hackmore: adidas.com; reebok Shaq Attaq: reebok.com; Nike SPortswear off Campus Jacket: nikestore.com; New Balance 574 Windbreaker Collection: newbalance.com; Puma Future Disc Blaze Lite: puma.com

087

H130304-Wear.indd 87

2/25/13 12:20 PM

CheCK it Wear

01 01

adidas Originals Stadium Jacket

This jacket is the perfect go-to outer layer toward off the early spring chill and understated enough to wear everyday.

$150

Where to Buy: adidas originals Stadium Jacket, Superstar CLr: adidas.com; Kangol x Marc by Marc Jacobs 504 : at Marc by Marc Jacobs stores

02 02

adidas Originals Superstar CLR

We don’t think an explanation to what the CLR following the Superstar means, but if you must, it stands for the icy sole treatment that sits underneath the juxtaposed bright and tonal upper of the timeless model.

$80

03

03

Kangol x Marc by Marc Jacobs 504

Marc by Marc Jacobs collaborates with Kangol to remix the never-out-of-style 504 cap.

MBMJ gives the 504 a vibrant knit check that fits in perfectly for the springtime.

$68

088

H130304-Wear.indd 88

2/25/13 12:23 PM

Untitled-5 1

2/27/13 8:53 AM

CheCk iT Wear 01

adidas Originals Colorado Windbreaker The windbreaker is back this Spring—did it ever really go away?—and this one by adidas Originals is one of our faves. More camo, please .

$75

Where to Buy: adidas originals Colorado Windbreaker, Logo tee, adi MC Low: adidas.com

01

02

02

adidas Originals Logo Tee

Big logos are not something we typically endorse, but when it’s the iconic adidas Trefoil, we’ll make an exception. As basic at it gets, this slim cut tee is a warm weather staple.

$25

03

03

adidas Originals adi MC Low

Forget Snakes on a Plane, you got snakes on your feet. Slither into these vulcanized faux snakeskin joints this s-s-spring.

$75

090

H130304-Wear.indd 90

2/25/13 12:23 PM

Untitled-5 1

2/27/13 8:54 AM

STEP BACK

February 18, 1989: Phoenix Suns vs. Sacramento Kings, ARCO Arena, Sacramento The 1988-89 season was the first season the Kings played in ARCO Arena (now called Sleep Train Arena). After relocating from Kansas City, the Kings played their first three seasons in Sacramento in the original ARCO Arena, which only housed 10,333, before the new ARCO Arena was built.

ARCO Arena is believed to be the first NBA arena to have the naming rights sold to a corporate entity. ARCO was a shortened name for Atlantic Richfield Company, now a subsidiary of BP.

Armen Gilliam was the second pick out of UNLV in the same draft as Johnson and Smith out of UNLV. He played for Phoenix, Charlotte, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Milwaukee and Utah over his 13 seasons during which he averaged 13.7 points and 6.9 rebounds.

West was not much of an offensive player throughout his career, but he is known for making them when he went up for a shot. Over his career, West shot an NBA fourth-best 58 percent from the field.

092

H130304-Stepback.indd 92

As a Tar Heel freshman, Smith played alongside Michael Jordan.

In 1988-89, Smith had one of his best NBA seasons, averaging 17.3 points, 7.7 assists and 1.3 steals.

Kevin Johnson was a 12-year NBA veteran, who, after being drafted by Cleveland one pick after Smith at No. 7 in the ’87 draft and playing just 52 games as a Cavalier, was traded to Phoenix where he would finish out his career.

After a brief retirement following the 1997-98 season, Johnson returned to the court for six games during the 1999-00 regular season and nine games during the playoffs.

Gilliam was nicknamed “The Hammer” for his biceps and pounding play in the paint, and also for hailing from a steel town, Bethel Park, Pa.

Gilliam passed away at the age of 47 from a heart attack on July 5, 2011 while playing pickup basketball at a gym in Pittsburgh.

Smith took part in three Slam Dunk Contests. In 1990, he joined two other “Kennys” in the competition (Battle and Walker) and finished as the runner-up, losing to Walker in the finals. Smith also participated in the ’91 and ’93 contests.

Unfortunately, West’s lofty 58 percent field-goal mark bested his career free-throw percentage (.568).

Mark West lasted 17 NBA seasons, playing for the Mavericks, Bucks, Cavaliers (two stints), Suns (two stints), Pistons, Pacers and Hawks. His best season came as a Sun in 1989-90 when he averaged 10.5 points, 8.9 boards and 2.2 blocks.

Throughout most of his NBA career, Gilliam’s first name was spelled “Armon.” He changed the spelling to “Armen” so people would stop mispronouncing his name as “Ar-Mon.”

Kenny Smith played 12 NBA seasons and was drafted No. 6 in the 1987 NBA Draft after four seasons at North Carolina.

Johnson was an electrifying scoring/passing point guard who had three consecutive seasons where he averaged at least 20 points and 10 assists. In 198889 he posted 20.4 ppg and 12.2 apg and followed up the following two seasons with 21.5 and 10.9 apg and then 22.2 and 10.1. Over his career he averaged 18.9 and 9.6.

The Converse Cons ERX-300 was an evolution of the original Weapon. It featured a similar Y-Bar ankle support system but with an updated cushioning system. The shoe lives on, reborn as a skate shoe on Converse’s roster.

In 2008, Johnson campaigned for mayor of Sacramento and won, and was re-elected for a second term last year.

In 1989, Johnson founded St. HOPE (Helping Other Pursue Excellence), a nonprofit organization dedicated to revitalizing communities through education, leadership, economic development and the arts.

In 1993, in addition to the Slam Dunk Contest, Smith also took part in the ThreePoint Shootout during All-Star Saturday. Although he came up short in both competitions, Smith became the first player to take part in both events in the same year.

Johnson set a Finals record for minutes played in a single game by logging 62 minutes in Game 3 which featured triple overtime.

The Air Delta Force Mid was a Nike release in 1988 that featured a full-grain leather upper, a full-length Tomlite midsole and Air unit in the heel. It was available in tech white/grey, white/red and the pictured white/royal blue, and there was an option for a low and high version of the shoe.

OTTO GREULE JR./GETTY IMAGES SPORT

2/22/13 9:49 AM

Untitled-5 1

2/27/13 8:54 AM

call out

Members of the Utah Jazz (pictured is Paul Millsap and Marvin Williams) do their best in putting a smile on the faces of patients at the Primary Children’s Medical Center during their the team’s Christmas visit. melissA mAjchrzAk/nBAe/Getty imAGes

Recently minted Hall of Famer Jamaal “Silk” Wilkes gets his golden moment as the Lakers retired his #52 to the Staples Center rafters. Fellow HOF members and Lakers retired digits (L-R Jerry West, James Worthy, Elgin Baylor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar flank Wilkes during the ceremony.

Andrew d. Bernstein/nBAe/Getty imAGes

As one of the NBA’s fittest stars, Serge Ibaka knows a thing or two about nutrition.

So it’s only fitting that Ibaka carefully analyzes the ingredients to a foodstuff before putting it into the shopping cart during the Thunder’s Holiday Assist Homeland Shopping Spree for needy families. lAyne murdoch/nBAe/Getty imAGes

Paul Pierce leads the Celtics on the court and does the the same during Christmas carols while on the team’s visit to the Boston Children’s Hospital.

BriAn BABineAu/nBAe/ Getty imAGes

It’s not a prerequisite to be an elite rebounder to help collect coats for the needy, but we’re sure it helped Kevin Love gather a big handful of muchneeded outerwear during fifth annual Kevin Love’s Coat Drive that netted over 2,500 coats. dAvid shermAn/nBAe/Getty imAGes

094

H130304-Call Out.indd 94

2/25/13 12:38 PM

NOTE TO PUB: DO NOT PRINT INFO BELOW, FOR ID ONLY. NO ALTERING OF AD COUNCIL PSAs.

Untitled-5 1

2/27/13 8:55 AM

FINAL EXAM

DOES JRUE HOLIDAY MAKE THE GRADE?

096

H130304-Final Exam Jrue Holiday.indd 96

2/22/13 9:41 AM

d rose 3.5 Designed exclusively for Derrick Rose’s speed and style.

See the full Rose signature logo collection at adidasbasketball.com

Adidas.indd 1

1/3/13 2:30 PM

The Irvine Co.indd 1

10/8/12 9:01 AM