Sl4mjun32014 by Zym Grig

PLAYOFF BLOWOUT: TONY PARKER, BLAKE GRIFFIN & MORE! 1

slamonline.com

STEPHEN CURRY JOAKIM NOAH KYLE LOWRY TAJ GIBSON ALONZO MOURNING THE REEBOK BLACKTOP IS BACK!

IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE

I KNOW I CAN KEEP GROWING AND GETTING BETTER.

WorldMags.net

AND1.COM @AND1BASKETBALL

WorldMags.net

BE THE ONE WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net JUNE 2014 no. 178 |

ROSTER

28. Man of the Year Once criticized for being just a dunking celebrity, Blake Griffin has become a complete and dominant player.

34. Aphillyated With a Philadelphia-sized chip on his shoulder, Kyle Lowry is determinedly leading the surprising Raptors into the Playoffs.

38. Kevin Durant Whether he wins the MVP or an NBA title this year or next, Kevin Durant is an historically great player that is somehow still getting better.

44. The Spur Coach Pop may get the mastermind props, and Tim Duncan is the Spurs’ rock, but on a nightly basis it’s now Tony Parker who makes the team tick.

48. Setting the Pace We chose the Indiana Pacers as our 2014 NBA Champions last October. We choose them as our 2014 NBA Champions now.

49. BLACKTOP Warming weather means outdoor hoops, trash talk and new fashion options. Rock with SLAM and Reebok as we cover every aspect of playground basketball.

82. 33: Rise of an Empire Alonzo Mourning wasn’t known for holding his tongue as one of the ’90s baddest big men. These days, his quotes are even better.

PG. 28

6 SL AMONLINE .COM

Garrett W. Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images

Blake Grifﬁn’s still got the dunks, but now he has so much more, too. WorldMags.net

COVER IMAGE ATIBA JEFFERSON

WorldMags.net

IN THE PAINT

WorldMags.net JUNE 2014 no. 178 |

FRONTCOURT 12. Trash Talk

Luckily, some people love our covers even when they turn out to be horribly timed.

15. Hype Michael B. Jordan has come a long way from The Wire, we fulﬁll James Harden’s reading desire and NOYZ that brings the ﬁre. Plus, Playoff X-factors Steven Adams, Trevor Ariza and Terrence Jones.

26. Slamadamonth Taj Gibson shows Omer Asik how much he’s been missed at the United Center.

BACKCOURT 86. The Fan

Get your dome right before the Finals kick off.

88. KICKS Playoff-ready kicks from Nike, Jordan, Under Armour, Reebok and more!

92. PUNKS Texas big man Myles Turner gets the big ink this month, while we introduce you to Rashad Vaughn, Dion Wiley, Eric Paschall and Shakayla Thomas, as well as learning how Tyus’ season wrapped up.

96. Frozen Moment We still think the ﬁrst round was better as a best-of-ﬁve, but that one BostonChicago series could’ve gone 11.

PG. 92

Myles Turner doesn’t have far to go before the NBA calls his name. 8 SL AMONLINE .COM

WorldMags.net

IMAGE TREVOR PAULHUS

WorldMags.net

Front row smokeshow.

ExtremeContact DW

Continental Tire. For what you do. Go to ctposter.com to receive a free decal & enter to win a set of tires.

CONTINENTALTIRE.COM

WorldMags.net

THE WorldMags.net SIXTH MAN 2014 Vol.21 No.5

PUBLISHER Dennis Page EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ben Osborne CREATIVE DIRECTOR Melissa Medvedich

Editorial

ehold a superstar. A real one. The type that baseball and football barely have, and that basketball has less than a handful of. A global marketing machine who draws crowds wherever he goes, endorses one of the hottest signature shoes on the market and, by dint of his 2013 alignment with the Jay Z-fronted agency Roc Nation, a dude who is at the forefront of today’s mash-up of sports, music and celebrity. Traveling in these circles creates a team around Kevin that brands and media outlets like ours need to work with if they want to do something with him. This can add layers of work for people like me that honestly aren’t that fun. But this sure as hell isn’t about me—it’s about KD. And by leaving a lot of the business stuff to professionals, Kevin himself has largely remained that hungry and humble kid out of the DMV, happy to lend a helping hand off the court, happy to lay the proverbial smackdown on it. Besides the endearing and enduring personality that our photo/writer team of Atiba Jefferson and Ryne Nelson got to enjoy during our late-March photo shoot in Oklahoma City, the handing off of duties in KD’s life also lets him preserve his energy and thoughts for what he was put on earth to do—play ball. And man is he good at that. You can jump to the feature (pg. 38) for Ryne’s take on the historic numbers Durant is putting up, but in a way it’s even bigger than stats. Kevin Durant has put an entire franchise—the only pro franchise of note for hours in any direction—on his back through hard work, willpower and perhaps the greatest pure scoring skill the NBA has ever seen. Will he win the MVP this year? Probably. Will he win an NBA title? If not this year, surely some time in the future. In the meantime, enjoy the smile, the killer instinct and the hooping. It’s a package well worth sifting through any number of layers to enjoy.

Peace,

MANAGING EDITOR Susan Price SENIOR EDITOR Tzvi Twersky ONLINE EDITOR Ryne Nelson ASSOCIATE EDITOR Adam Figman CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Ryan Jones ASSISTANT EDITOR/PUNKS Franklyn Calle ASSISTANT EDITOR/KICKS Abe Schwadron EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Bill DiFilippo, Habeeba

Husain, Eldon Khorshidi, Christian Mordi, Leo Sepkowitz, Alex Shultz, Jay Wallis, Peter Walsh, Yaron Weitzman BASKETBALL EVANGELIST Rick Telander SENIOR WRITERS Jake Appleman, Russ Bengtson, Michael Bradley, Alan Paul, Khalid Salaam, Bonsu Thompson, DeMarco Williams, Nima Zarrabi CONTRIBUTORS Maurice Bobb, Shannon Booher, Thomas Golianopoulos, Sherman Johnson, Tyus Jones, Victor Oladipo, Chris Palmer, Sam Rubenstein, Kye Stephenson, Kyle Weidie, Dave Zirin

Art CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Atiba Jefferson, Ahmed Klink, Tom Medvedich, Trevor Paulhus WEB DESIGNERS Lisa Case, Shanti Garcia

Circulation/Advertising ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER David Schnur CIRCULATION/MARKETING DIRECTOR Richard Fogel SINGLE COPY SALES MANAGER Richard Ciotta PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Dennis M. Wheeler MVP Spiro Maroulis

GRINDMEDIA MANAGEMENT SVP, GROUP PUBLISHER Norb Garrett VP, DIGITAL Greg Morrow PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Kasey Kelley EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Chris Mauro FINANCE DIRECTOR Adam Miner DIGITAL DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING Jeff Kimmel SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER Rishi Kumar SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER Marc Bartell CREATIVE DIRECTOR Peter Tracy MARKETING AND EVENTS DIRECTOR OF EVENTS Scott Desierio DIRECTOR EVENT SALES Sean Nielsen

SOURCE INTERLINK MEDIA, LLC PRESIDENT Chris Argentieri EVP, GENERAL MANAGER David Algire EVP, CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER Alan Alpanian SVP, FINANCE Dan Bednar EVP, ENTHUSIAST AUTOMOTIVE Doug Evans EVP, CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER Angus MacKenzie EVP, CHIEF ANALYTICS OFFICER John Marriott EVP, CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER Kevin Mullan SVP, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Tyler Schulze EVP, SALES AND MARKETING Eric Schwab EVP, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER AND TREASURER Bill Sutman CONSUMER MARKETING, ENTHUSIAST MEDIA SUBSCRIPTION COMPANY, INC. VP, CONSUMER MARKETING Tom Slater VP, RETENTION AND OPERATIONS FULFILLMENT

Donald T. Robinson III

Ben Osborne

Editorial & Advertising Ofﬁces

OFF THE BENCH Thomas Golianopoulos

While interviewing Alonzo Mourning for this month’s Old School feature (pg. 82), Thomas Golianopoulos was shocked to learn Zo was once almost traded to the Lakers. “This was before Shaq signed with L.A.,” he says. “Would Shaq have signed? Would the Lakers have included Vlade Divac in a potential Mourning deal? Does the Kobe deal happen? Imagine the alternate history!” A long-time SLAM contributor, Thomas specializes in deep-dives like his features on Manute Bol (Jan. 2011), the ﬁrst 150-point game in NBA history (August 2011) and the 1992 NBA All-Star Game (March 2012). He also writes for Grantland and The New York Times. Follow him on Twitter @golianopoulos.

10 SL AMONLINE .COM

1115 Broadway, 8th ﬂoor, New York, NY 10010 p.212.807.7100 f.212.620.7787 FOR PROMOTIONAL INQUIRIES: slamteam@harris-pub.com To carry slam in your store: 800.381.1288

Subscriber Customer Service FOR US: slam@emailcustomerservice.com or 800.333.6411 INTERNATIONAL: 386.447.6383 or write to SLAM, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235. Please include name, address and phone number on any inquiries. CANADA POST: Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to IMEX Global Solutions, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2.

Reprints Contact Wright’s Media @ 877.652.5295 (281.419.5725 outside the US and Canada) to purchase quality custom reprints or e-prints of articles appearing in this publication.

WorldMags.net

Atiba Jefferson

P.S. It’s still pretty darn cold in NYC as I write this, but the calendar promises that summertime—and the chance to enjoy ball on the playground—is almost here. To celebrate this fact, and a dope new line of Blacktop gear, we teamed up with Reebok to create a special 32-page section this month. Get ready!

WorldMags.net

IGNITE YOUR GAME.

(713) 524-3036

WorldMags.net

BIGFOOTHOOPS.COM

TRASH TALK

WorldMags.net SLAMONLINE.COM

@slamonline facebook.com/SLAMMagazine slamonline.tumblr.com pinterest.com/slamonline

THAT NEW NEW ISH

I’m a 14-year-old kid from La Palma, CA, a city in Northern Orange County that’s so small, my SLAM collection may be bigger than it. I picked up my first issue in Kauai when I was on vacation a couple years back. Allen Iverson was a Piston posing on the cover when it caught my eye. Ever since, my parents bought me a subscription and I can proudly say I’ve never been disappointed. I’m very, very satisfied with your last issue with my favorite player, Jabari Parker gracing the cover to go along with a great article. More great articles about Goran Dragic, Joel Embiid, Brad Beal, Breanna Stewart and Jamal Mashburn too. Shout-out to Branden J. Peters for the Landry Fields (who attended a high school 15 minutes away from my city)-YG article and because he spells his first name the same way I do. SLAM is truly a hooper’s Bible. Keep up the great work. Branden Pacion // via email As great as this magazine is, Kevin Durant deserves way more covers! LeBron is played out. I’m sick of the guy! Kevin Durant is the truth. Him and Larry Bird are the only ballplayers to average 28 ppg, 40 from the three, 50 from the field, 90 from the line. That’s sick, plus three back-to-back scoring titles? And would have been four if that ballhog Carmelo Anthony didn’t make a bunch of lucky shots. Kevin Durant needs his just due from the greatest basketball magazine in the world! Step

your cover game up! QUANDELL HUSBAND // CRANSTON, RI Readers talk, we listen (sometimes).—Ed. It’s 55-year-old Dollar Bill from Sherman Oaks, CA. It’s been a minute since my last letter to Trash Talk, so if I write again, it’s because there’s some shit out of order in the SLAM family. It’s like this: your KICKS sections and publications are not on point if you don’t take the time to acknowledge the truly ﬁrst premium

TAG YOUR PICS

#M YSL A M INSTAGRAM OF THE MONTH @junebug2123 salute to two of the greatest to ever play the game! I got mine, you got yours? #mySlam #Slam #slammagazine #Kicks0l0gy #kickstagram #TeamJordan #Jays #MJMondays #AI #sneakerholics

12 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

basketball shoe to grace the feet of the ’70s creme-DE-lecreme players. And you know this. Give the high-top suede Pro-Keds its propers. Just because you can’t ﬁnd em now doesn’t mean they weren’t the shit. Speaking of props—my 12-year-old son hates to read. But I force-fed him some classics, and guess what? SLAM got “Vaguely Literary” going, and two of his books were featured. It made him think. And it give me some cred. Thanks for that. Alright for now. All is good in the hood, and I ain’t in prison, unless you consider two kids, wife and mortgage hard time? DOLLAR BILL LANGLEY // STUDIO CITY, CA :).—Ed. Huge thanks to Rick Telander for the amazing pictures that run with his Opening Tip column. They make me think it’s 1974 again—yea! ANNIE ANTOLIK // FORT DODGE, IA

WorldMags.net

What made me run out and grab a copy of SLAM presents IVERSON? Heart, desire, that crazy ﬁre in my belly, an inﬁnite love for the game…just like Allen Iverson, The Answer! SLAM’s greatest icon, Allen Iverson, is the reason you think basketball, drink basketball, eat basketball, and ball so hard you’d die and in same breath live for basketball! How many players in the history of the game brought you as much emotion on the court as they did off it? Who inspired you to grow cornrows, get tatted, turn up the hip-hop and rebel in the face of adversity because you are who you are? Allen Iverson wasn’t just a basketball player; like his most lethal move, he Crossed Over into your mind, fashion (ask David Stern), made you question aspects of society and inspired you to live life on your own terms! Iverson the basketball player broke Jordan’s ankles, fearlessly battled Kobe

WorldMags.net

SEND LETTERS TO: TRASH TALK, C/O SLAM 1115 Broadway, 8th Floor, NY, NY, 10010 MESSAGE US ON FACEBOOK OR EMAIL US AT: trashtalk@harris-pub.com (We may edit letters to ﬁt.)

and Shaq in the Finals and delivered the playground game to your living room television. Allen Iverson’s personality and swagger deﬁne freedom of expression and strength against all odds! MIKE VERDERBER // REBEL MEMORIAL COURT

ILLY I’ve been in prison since the age of 16. I’m 29 now. I am very proud of my friend Mr. Damian “Lil Dame” Lillard. I seen with my own eyes that milk crate used as a basketball hoop outside his grandparents house. I personally dunked on it. I cried when I first received my 176 issue and seen my homie all grown up. It was like a gift from God to me, being in this situation. Even though I’m a diehard New York Knicks fan, I am rooting for the 2013 Rookie of the Year to get his first ring. Shout out to Dame from Drew, a Brookfield native. “It’s that East Oakland in you.” Best article of the year, SLAM! ANDREW WADSWORTH // REPRESA, CA

Player of the Year and Aaron McKie Sixth Man of the Year. Why have the Sixers lately been trading for players coming off injury like Bynum and Noel? You’d think they learned their lesson from Jeff Ruland. Peace. JONATHAN LEE RICHES // BELLEFONTE, PA I’m on lock down in Philly but I’ve been a Trail Blazers fan since 1985! I get a lot of ﬂack for being a Portland fan here. But now that I have one of my players on the cover, I’ve got some time to “trash talk.” I don’t see any Sixers on the cover. Matter of fact, the Sixers don’t have anybody to put on the cover. Anyway, my man Lillard is one of the best guards in the League. He’ll be the starting guard in next year’s All-Star Game! I can’t wait to see if I make it in Trash Talk so I can talk more trash to these Sixers fans. RAYMONT “TOO-TALL” PEACE // PHILADELPHIA, PA I’m just 23 years old but I consider myself an A+ student of

been putting on for his team. Also how you showed love to Yao Ming, a lot of people forgot about him even though he was a No. 1 overall pick and from China. Being locked down, we’re not able to watch all the games. But when your magazine comes out, it catches us up. I would be grateful if my thoughts got published in your next issue. I have a subscription so I’ll see it. Keep doing your thing and continue shining on the underdogs, SLAM. PERCY “P-NUT” SCOTT // BUFFALO, NY

love to Datwon Thomas for his piece on Adrian Dantley, one of the purest scorers in NBA history. He deﬁnitely knows how to get his point across. Now my man Craig Hodges was a real dude for speaking out on those political and social issues at the time. Thank you Mr. Hodges, keep marching. Get well soon, D-Rose. Aye Ben, since you’re on a roll with new blood covers, how ‘bout MCW? He will be Rookie of the Year (Déjà vu) . THE INFAMOUS WILLIE “FACE MOB” COLEMAN // GRADY, AR

What’s Beef??? I want to start by saying thanks to everyone on lockdown shouting me out in SLAM Trash Talk. I just don’t know the point of telling people you are in prison; doesn’t seem like the ﬁrst accomplishment I would mention to people I don’t know. Oh Lana, if that’s you I found via Google search, you seem like a real winner, but I digress. We all love this great game that the good Dr. James invented, and we all enjoy reading SLAM. As a Sixers fan, it

Shout outs to SLAM, my favorite magazine in the world. I want to thank Najee Fareed for telling me who Ed. is. I used to look on page 12 at the Editor’s List, wondering who the hell Ed. is LOL. I’m in Marcy Correctional Facility and I want the New York Knicks to know I don’t have their back anymore. So the rest is history. NAYEEM DORSEY, AKA PACMAN // NEW YORK I am indeed who I am.—Ed.

TWEET OF THE MONTH

My name is Jonathan Lee Riches, aka the white Suge Knight. I’m locked up at SCI Benner Township. I got real trash talk and anyone can conﬁrm this by Googling me. I sued LeBron James. I sued Kobe Bryant. I sued Carmelo Anthony. I sued Iverson. I sued many more athletes. Best part about it, all of them had to hire lawyers and respond to my lawsuits. Props to SLAM for keepin’ my sanity while doing a Fed Bid in Solitary ADX Florence. My fav AI memory is him droppin’ 40 or more points in ﬁve straight games as a rookie. Or that 2000-’01 season when the Sixers went to the Finals, AI was MVP, Larry Brown Coach of the Year, Mutombo Defensive

the game. My knowledge goes back to Dominique Wilkins, Larry Bird, etc. I’ve always been basketball-crazy. Having a basketball player as a family member (Clifford Robinson), a basketball was placed in me and my cousins’ hands at an early age. I never got the chance to be a dunker but I had nice handles, plus I could shoot from anywhere. I played AAU basketball from ages 8-17, when I got arrested. Being from Buffalo, we had a few good players come from my city, so don’t sleep on us. I’ve been a fan of your magazine for a few years now and the other day I received Issue 176. I like how you gave an underdog a chance to shine. Damian Lillard has

was nice to see AI get his jersey retired; he is the only player to ever make the Sixers relevant during my lifetime, and I always appreciated the love SLAM gave him. Now our hopes lie in the hands of MCW, Noel and hopefully a top-three pick. Oh yeah: Balance Eyes Elbow Follow through. BRIAN // VIA EMAIL Thank you very much for the Damian Lillard cover. I told y’all the kid was tough (see SLAM 165). I also said he was going to be Rookie of the Year. Now in year two he is pushing the Blazers (R.I.P. Brandon Roy). I like them in the West semiﬁnals but it’ll be OKC and Houston in the West Finals after that. Much

WorldMags.net

I’ve been a subscriber for three years now and you guys are my favorite mag. My favorite feature is NOYZ because of all the jokes about NBA happenings as well as the nice memoriam at the end. Having said that, Ish 175’s bothered me with that Spencer Hawes/Republican joke. SLAM, I thought you were a symbol of basketball utopia. I thought SLAM’s mission was only to provide great and unique coverage of basketball at all levels through a hip-hop lens. Players and coaches say all the time that on the court, nothing matters but your game and your attitude. Who cares if Hawes is conservative, liberal, independent, communist? As long as he balls, that’s what matters. I love you SLAM, but the only opinions we should discuss are Kobe vs. LeBron, Heat vs. Pacers, etc. Save the politics for CNN and FOX. Or when my Heat go to the White House again next year! JORDAN // MIAMI P.S. Wasn’t sure about doing this till I read the Craig Hodges article. Taught me it never hurts to just write! The teaching never stops over here.—Ed.

SL AMONLINE .COM 13

WorldMags.net

VEGAS HAS NEVER BEEN HOTTER. THIS SUMMER, HAL PASTNER PROUDLY PRESENTS:

LAS VEGAS LIVE - JULY 16-20, 2014

LAS VEGAS CLASSIC - JULY 23-27, 2014

BIGFOOTHOOPS.COM

(713) 524-3036 WorldMags.net

rint

HYPE

WorldMags.net

THE OPENING TIP

D. Clarke Evans/NBAE via Getty Images

Always by Rick Telander

I love this guy, and it’s hard even to count the ways. My “manu-crush” on Manu Ginobili has been growing through the years, blossoming like the Spurs shooting guard’s ever-expanding bald spot. First off, I like that he is from Argentina, a country better known for Diego Maradona and the tango than basketball. Ginobili pretty much put the place on the map, hoops-wise, when he led Argentina to the Gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Along the way, he and his pals disposed of a US team featuring young Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, 89-81. Oops. Manu dropped 29, 3 and 3, plus a steal on the Americans’ heads. I liked him because he is left-handed, and southpaws are fun. Every time I see him make a crazy banker for the Spurs with his left hand, I have to remind myself that he’s doing what’s natural. Then, too, I liked him because I was at those Athens Games, and I wanted to talk to Andres Nocioni, his teammate, and tell him the Chicago Bulls, for whom he had yet to play, had just penciled him in as a starting forward. Trouble was, Nocioni spoke almost no English, so Ginobili graciously helped out. In that talk session, Manu became the first person to explain that Noach, as we in Chi-Town would find out soon enough, was a wild man on court. My like bloomed into love when the 6-6 Ginobili made two All-Star Games, earned the NBA Sixth Man of the Year and played a key role in three of the Spurs’ NBA Championships. That he has only been a Spur for his 12 NBA seasons is sweet, too. But the deed that placed him deep in my heart was his knocking a bat out of midair at the Alamo Dome in ’09, raising his right hand in triumph as he walked the creature off the floor and gave it to a maintenance man. Then there’s the cherry on top, as it were. I love that Ginobili, who turns 37 this summer, has malepattern baldness, so that with his pale skin and black circle of hair, he appears to be wearing a fleshtoned yarmulke. He could shave, but he doesn’t. He reminds me of Bobby Weiss, when he was a player, or Friar Tuck. He’s so old school, it makes me weep. My bald spot loves your bald spot, bro. Salud!

INSIDE: CATCHING UP WITH MICHAEL JORDAN (the actor) /// JAMES HARDEN FOR 3(.14) /// PHIL JACKSON aims high /// TREVOR ARIZA + more

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 15

HYPE

WorldMags.net

IN YOUR FACE

Boost

STEVEN ADAMS

Oklahoma City Thunder, 7-0, C

(Photo by Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images)

Steven Adams isn’t exactly the bragging type. He’s not likely to boast about his past as a five-star recruit while at Notre Dame Prep, or about his lone year at Pitt, or about being the only first-rounder ever from New Zealand or about his current day job: practicing alongside Kevin Durant, which Adams describes as “I don’t know…normal.” The 20-year-old is not likely to brag about his vital role in Oklahoma City’s second unit this season, either, instead focusing on the effectiveness of the entire team working together. “One huge attack,” Adams says. “That’s all it is.” Make no mistake, though: Adams has injected tremendous life into a Thunder bench that desperately needed some juice. Last season, it ranked 22nd in points per game, 24th in rebounding and 19th in efficiency among second units League-wide, according to HoopStats.com. The bench was remade following last year’s second-round knockout at the hands of the Memphis Grizzlies. Kevin Martin was allowed to walk in free agency, and his minutes were handed to Jeremy Lamb. Meanwhile, Adams has taken the minutes that belonged to 7-3 Hasheem Thabeet, and then some. The youth movement has produced incredible results. Despite nominal stats—3.1 ppg, 4.2 rpg, .8 bpg—Adams’ impact has been felt in a real way. Through three-fourths of the season, OKC’s second unit sits at fourth in the League in overall efficiency, largely thanks to major climbs in scoring and rebounding rates. “As soon we go on, we try to bring as much energy as we can,” Adams says. The 7-footer credits his surroundings for his early success. “It’s a huge advantage to go to a winning team,” he says. “I settled in quickly because all of the coaches and the organization was just as committed as the players.” It’s a good thing Adams is so comfortable. He’s going to be a fixture in OKC for a long time.—LEO SEPKOW ITZ

We’re never gonna credit NBA owners for being all that smart until they ﬁgure out a solution to tanking. No reason a third of the League should be completely ambivalent about winning every game—unless they want to cut all prices by a third while they’re at it…..We’re never gonna credit NBA players for being that smart until they hire a new union leader (and a decent one, at that) and change the fact that more than 20 Major League Baseball players make more than LeBron James, even though

16 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

Photo credit photo credit Photo credit photo credit Photo credit photo credit

Tom Medvedich, Trevor Paulhus, Dick Raphael/NBAE via Getty Images

VAGUELY LITERARY

James Harden, I recommend Life of Pi by Yann Martel. It’s a story about hope and survival and reinvention, things you know. You seem like the kind of guy who wants to be perceived as more than just a ballplayer, you’re a unique personality. Life of Pi is a story that like you, is deeper than it seems. In the novel, a boy named Piscine seemed to have a nice life with a loving family, though he was never truly allowed to shine on his own. It was like your idealistic days in OKC, when the possibilities of a small market NBA dynasty were limitless. You had a basketball family, and you were set up to be the goofy little brother for years to come. Piscine, who convinces everyone to call him Pi, has his beautiful life upset by tragic events on a stormy night during a boat voyage. For many basketball fans, the harsh financial realities of the NBA salary cap destroyed something beautiful in Oklahoma City, rocking the metaphorical boat, and you landed elsewhere. A quick note about his name, which gives the book its title; Piscine chose to define himself through the nickname “Pi.” You have chosen to be known as “The Beard,” so nobody refers to you as James or Harden. Initially people laughed or may have dismissed it as a gimmick, but now it’s who you are, just like he became Pi and was inseparable from the idea of the circle. Your journey to Houston took you to your new life. Now you find yourself on an adventure with a cast of strange characters. Dwight Howard, the villain you have to work with is like how Pi had to co-exist with a wild bengal tiger. It’s dangerous being around someone impulsive that you can’t really trust, but may have to depend on for your survival. Ah yes, the key to the novel is that Pi is stranded at sea with a tiger named Richard Parker on his raft, which as you can imagine presents all types of challenges. Pi becomes the king of the life raft, just like you have become the man in Houston, and the fortunes of your team depend on how you perform. You play with Jeremy Lin, a person whose story is so unbelievable, it seems made up. You are coached by one of the great power forwards in NBA history, a slow guy who couldn’t jump. And yet, you’re surviving the treacherous seas of the Western Conference. Not only that, you have become one of the brightest superstars in all of the NBA. None of this can possibly be real. Think how bizarre your situation is. You’re on a team of eclectic personalities working for a guy who worships at the altar of big data. So, the question is this: What do we want to believe the Houston Rockets are? Guys with meshing personalities playing ball, inspiring their fans and winning? Or are the Rockets the product of carefully crafted cold analytics? The Life of Pi presents two possible narratives at the end of the novel. The one we choose to accept speaks to who we are as people, and I think James Harden, or The Beard, is someone who wants to believe that life is more divine than mundane. The second half of the NBA season is the perfect time for you to get away from it all and read a novel. You know your team is going to the Playoffs, and while seedings can shift here and there, you pretty much know what you are and you’re just killing time until May. Reading will help pass that time, and this novel is so unique, it may inspire the next marketing bonanza move in the life of “The Beard.”—SAM RUBENSTEIN

Line of the Month

ROOKIE DIARY with VICTOR OLADIPO I’ve been watching… March Madness. It’s extra crazy this year. At this point, there’s no telling who is gonna win. At the same time, watching it makes me look back to last year when I was there. It’s crazy that a year ago I was in the same position.

As far as… guys declaring for the Draft after their freshmen years, I personally know I couldn’t have come out after my freshman year. I wasn’t developed, and I didn’t show signs of being able to play at this level. Some guys, though, are really talented and better than I was. Some of those guys could be ready. It’s a whole bunch of things—family, injury concerns, situations— that factor into it. But some guys are deﬁnitely ready, and everybody needs to do what’s best for them and their situation.

Earlier this month… I had to sit out because of an injury. That was the ﬁrst time I had to miss a game. It’s tough, especially when you feel you can help. But being a visual learner, it helps sometimes to sit next to the coaches and learn from afar. After I came back, it took me a while to get in the ﬂow, but I think I am now.

BY SHANNON BOOHER

LYRICS OF THE MONTH: “I was taught to just go hard, this ’Bron, Kobe and Hot Sauce,” “Power”; “Then Ali grabbed me and said, ‘I’m a take you to meet Mateen’/I said, ‘Mateen, who? Cleaves?’” “Last Call”; Jon Connor, the latest signee to Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label, celebrated by releasing Best In The World, a mixtape featuring him rhyming over only Kanye beats and dropping a few NBA references along the way. Time will tell if he goes the 50, Eminem and Kendrick route to superstardom, or the Bishop Lamont, Hittman and Stat Quo road to free headphones and a plane ticket back home. A HERO’S RETURN OF THE MONTH: Over on the East Coast, another new signee is creating quite the buzz—Phil Jackson as President of the New York Knicks. He really took that Kendrick Lamar “King Of New York” claim seriously. Time will tell if a “Zen front office” can get that chip or if he is just another in a long line of high profile Knick figureheads unable to de-Dolanize the organization.

The season… ﬂew by! I wasn’t conscious that there were only a couple of games left until someone pointed it out. From now until the end of it, I just want to keep playing aggressive and ﬁnish the year strong and win the rest of our games.

I don’t have… summer plans yet, other than to make sure I get better. I think I’ll spend time working out in Cali, back home in DC and of course down in Orlando. Now that I have a season in the League, I know what I need to work on and what areas I need to improve on. Also, I’m deﬁnitely gonna go away to get some rest and enjoy. I’m looking forward to that, but not as much as I am to getting better.

he makes more in endorsements than the top 10 baseball players combined. If all that sounds confusing to you, well, that’s because it is…..There were a lot of reasons the Lakers season was such a ﬁasco, but don’t let injuries or a bad roster let you excuse that clown coach Mike Antoni. Pau>him any day of the week…..And then there’s reports Antoni is talking to Marshall University as we go to press? That sounds pretty much exactly right.....“26ers.” Very funny. Incidentally, if you like bad Philly teams, you’ll love next issue.....A book on Jim Boeheim? If it’s truthful, it could be amazing.....

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 17

HYPE

WorldMags.net

IN YOUR FACE

Name Game

JORDAN HOOPER

Nebraska, 6-2, F

Nebraska Media Relations

There’s a basketball court on a cattle ranch in north-central Nebraska. The out-of-place 25x50-foot concrete slab—surrounded by acres of sand dunes, tall grasses and clean lakes— is where Nebraska forward Jordan Hooper finds inner peace. “Whenever I’m having a bad day, I try to imagine myself back on that court,” Hooper says. “What would I be thinking if I were out there? How would I be playing differently if I were out there instead of here? I try to go back and find some peace in those thoughts.” The solitary hours on the court provided therapy and a deadly outside shot. Combined with a rancher’s work ethic and an athletic, 6-2 frame, Jordan Hooper has game to match a name seemingly created for the sport. But journeying from the family ranch wasn’t easy. Matter of fact, it almost didn’t happen. “I’m a huge homebody,” Hooper admits. “I honestly didn’t know if I was going to be able to handle being away from my family for that long. Tons of people go cross-country for school, but I went across the state, and that’s pretty far for me.” In the four years since, the perfectly named baller made Lincoln, NE, a second home and built one of the greatest careers in Nebraska women’s basketball history. In the Huskers’ 33-game campaign that ended in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Hooper averaged 20 points and 9 rebounds per game while capping a career that also featured nearly 300 made threepointers. Jordan’s next stop will be the WNBA, where she projects as a firstor second-round pick, but she’ll never forget her time in Lincoln. “I played for my team, the state of Nebraska and everybody who roots us on every night.”— RY N E N E LSO N

The above story was like a mini-jinx. Kinda into upsets in the women’s Tourney, though—shows better balance in the sport…..Aquille Carr’s community service initiatives will have a lot more impact if he’s in the NBA, so we’d actually suggest he spend his time working on his game…..We just found out about Rex Walters’ coaching success at the U of San Francisco. Very cool…..Sorry for the lack of love we gave the UVA men this year; the problem with such a balanced team and a skinny mag is that it’s hard to focus on one guy…..

18 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

Flight Plate technology takes each step and turns it into explosive energy. Defy gravity and play above the rim. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your time to shine. TAKE FLIGHT.

B L A K E G R I F F I N â&#x20AC;&#x201C; S U P E R . F LY 2 P O

WorldMags.net

J O R DA N .C O M

HYPE

WorldMags.net

DIME DROP

B THE MAN Michael B. Jordan is done with dying. First, his beloved Wallace character was killed off on HBO’s The Wire with a bullet to the chest, then—after stints on All My Children and Friday Night Lights—his non-fiction character Oscar was fatally shot on a BART platform by a transit police officer in the transcendent film Fruitvale Station. Young Wallace and Oscar won’t be coming back, unfortunately, but Jordan is rising like a Phoenix from the ashes as Hollywood’s next big star. And judging by the way he balled out at the 2014 Sprint NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, the lifelong New York Knicks fan would definitely represent if the TV show he’s developing about a Michigan State basketball player ever makes it to the small screen. SLAM: You’re a really good basketball player. Did you play in high school? MJ: Yeah, I played in high school. Point guard, but in my mind, I’m a forward, my body just stopped growing. I like playing back to the basket but I like to contribute where I can. SLAM: The game announcer called you Michael Jordan a couple times before he added

the B. What’s it like having such a legendary basketball name? MJ: I wasn’t even listening to what they were saying. I mean, I was born in ’87 and at that time Jordan was just coming into the League and he was becoming a household name. I grew up with a chip on my shoulder. It motivated me to be better. SLAM: Is that why you added the B? MJ: I almost made my actor name Michael Bakari. Bakari is my middle name. It means “of noble promise.” But my dad’s name is Michael Jordan, so I wasn’t changing it. SLAM: It’s funny, you wore number 45 for the game. MJ: They actually tried to give me number 23 and I refused to wear that one. I said, “I ain’t wearing number 23.” But I ended up going with 45. SLAM: You’re living out in L.A. now. Are you a Lakers fan? MJ: I grew up in New Jersey, so I’m a Knick fan. I’m not really a Lakers fan like that. I do appreciate Kobe and what he built there and I’m a big Magic Johnson fan because I’m a Michigan State fan, but I’m an East Coast guy. I love the Knicks. SLAM: Who’s your favorite player in the L?

MJ: I love Kevin Durant. I used to be a Seattle Supersonics fan growing up, so I rock with OKC, too. I play with them on NBA2K. I’m just a fan of basketball. SLAM: You not getting an Oscar nod for Fruitvale Station was a ridiculous snub by the Academy. MJ: Nah man, it’s just great to be in the conversation. There were a lot of great projects and a lot of great performances. Everyone that was nominated deserved it. It was my ﬁrst time out doing a

PICTURE ME BALLIN’ Tyonna Outland, Cal-State Bakersfield: The Roadrunners may have just joined DI sports in 2010, but the program can already claim to have one of the top scorers in the nation in Outland. Heading into the NIT, the redshirt junior is averaging 20.8 ppg, placing her among the top-32 scorers nationwide. The 5-8 PG finished the regular season as the WAC’s second-leading scorer and was named National Player of the Week by the US Basketball Writers Association in late February after averaging 27.5 ppg, 8 rpg and 3.5 spg. A 36-point outing that week tied the school’s DI record, and with a year of eligibility left, she’ll be back next season aiming to set a few more of her own. Jason Brickman, Long Island University-Brooklyn: When Brickman dropped 12 assists against Bryant on March 1, his last college game, the 6-0 PG became the fourth player in DI history to reach 1,000 assists. After having led the nation in assists the past two seasons, his senior year average of 11.3 and 10.0 made him only the second player in NCAA history to average double figures in points and assists in a single season. The other? Avery Johnson, in the ’87-88 season at Southern University. Funny, considering Brickman is from San Antonio, TX, where AJ made his NBA name.— FR A N K LY N CA L L E

ﬁlm like that, so it was just cool to be in the conversation. SLAM: So tell us, are you confirmed for Fantastic Four? MJ: I’m not even sure yet. Like some of the projects I have I can’t really talk about yet, but you guys will be hearing some stuff in the near future. SLAM: What about Creed? MJ: Me and Ryan [Coogler], the writer/director of Fruitvale Station will be teaming up again. I’ll be playing the grandson of Apollo Creed. I’m really excited about that. Teaming up with Ryan again and working with Sylvester Stallone and everybody over at MGM. I’m really excited about it. SLAM: You represented for the actors at All-Star. Do you play pickup a lot? MJ: I play when I can, yes. SLAM: Who are some other actors who can ball? MJ: Jaleel White is actually a real good ballplayer, Flex Alexander is a really good ballplayer. Columbus Short, he got some game when he want to play, but I’d like to put myself up there along with the best of them. — M AU R I C E B O B B

The NFL banned dunking? Stupid haters. Why don’t they ban obnoxious, drunk-driving owners?.....Stay classy, Coach Masiello…..Of all the years for the should-collegeplayers-stay-in-school debate to blow up, this sure seems like a weird one. Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins would have been the ﬁrst two picks in last year’s Draft. But they should entertain not entering this year’s? GTFOH…..Maybe the debate will have a slightly different tone once players are getting paid—which they obviously should.

20 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

Gregory Shamus/NBAE via Getty Images, Mark Messiah/Mark Messiah Photography, Mike McLaughlin/LIU Brooklyn Athletics

After appearing in small roles on a handful of big-time shows, actor Michael B. Jordan has come into his own. Oh, and he can ball, too.

WorldMags.net IN YOUR FACE

Tree Pointer TREVOR ARIZA

Washington Wizards, 6-8, F

Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images

The last time Trevor Ariza found himself in a contract year, he was on his way to winning the 2009 NBA title with his hometown Lakers. “We were a very ‘together’ team,” he says fondly about that squad. “We were very close, and when you’re playing with your friends, it’s really dope.” But L.A. didn’t exactly feel the same way. That summer, they had eyes for Ron Artest. So Ariza somewhat reluctantly signed a contract with Houston. Ariza didn’t leave Cali with nothing, however. He had suddenly found a three-point shot. Over his first four NBA seasons, Ariza shot just 9-43 from long distance. In his fifth, 2008-09, Ariza shot 61-191 on threes, a 31.9 percent clip. That postseason, he scorched the nets with 47.6 percent from deep en route to a Championship ring. Some say the difference in range was Ariza simplifying his shooting motion while rehabbing a foot he broke in January 2008, just two months after being traded from Orlando to L.A. “I got a lot of reps and got my confidence up and had a lot of time to fix things,” he says. “My teammates were telling me when I got back to just shoot no matter what, and that definitely added another level of confidence.” But a change in shooting motion? “I don’t know about all that, I just know I grew confidence shooting.” Now Ariza is on his third NBA team since leaving L.A. and finds himself helping to propel a Wizards franchise to the Playoffs for the first time since 2008. Shooting a career-high 42.1 percent from beyond the arc and snagging 115 steals (seventh-most in the NBA) doesn’t hurt. Maybe it’s his ‘I ain’t got no worries’ chill. Maybe it’s the contract year. Maybe it’s his favorite Kendrick track: “‘Money Trees’…that’s pretty dope.” Whatever it is, Ariza’s thirsty for the Playoffs. “Every possession counts. The crowd’s into it, the city is usually always behind you, it’s very intense.”— K Y L E W E I D I E

Ratings are through the roof. The salaries of coaches and ADs are obscene. Football teams get 85 scholarships. College administrators are supposed to be scholars. They can ﬁgure it out. Word to our main man, former DI athlete and legendary writer Rick Telander…..Some SLAM-afﬁliated projects you should support: First, the SLAM KICKS book that Rizzoli published last month is now widely available in bookstores and online. And second, there’s a movie on Lloyd Daniels in the works that could be the best basketball documentary ever. Look for “The Legend of Swee’Pea” and make it happen!.....

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 21

HYPE

WorldMags.net

HUSTLE & FLOW

Starships Up-and-coming Rockets forward Terrence Jones and Houston native and “Drank In My Cup” rapper Kirko Bangz have the same goal: Take H-Town to the top. By Tzvi Twersky

It means a lot to me to represent…

I will always rep for…

Oregon, where I come from. Seeing the guys who came before me, Kevin Love, Kyle Singler and Damon Stoudamire before them, gave me motivation to get here. With Seattle, WA, being nearby, too, I was able to play with a lot of college and NBA players who helped get me ready.

East Houston, for Houston, for Texas. This is where I’m from, and this is where I do what I do. Every time I record, every time I’m on stage, I’m representing my city. I always keep that in mind, no matter what city I’m in.

Kenny Smith… I really like it here. Being able to be a part of this Rockets team, with a Hall of Fame coach and teammates like James Harden and Dwight Howard, is great. I just want to play any role to help us win. The city itself is so much bigger than where I’m from, it’s so good to me and it rains a lot less than back home.

Guys here have been… looking out for me since before I even got here. I mean, Bun B reached out to me a long time ago. Now I listen to all of the local rappers: Bun, Slim Thug, Kirko Bangz. You hear their music all the time.

Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler, Mario Elie—I can name a lot of Rockets from when I was growing up. I never got to games, but I watched. And now? Now I live in the same building as a bunch of the guys from the team. It’s pretty funny.

I was playing… basketball way before I got into music. I was pretty good. I played point, and I could shoot and set up my teammates. A lot of people out here say they can play, but I really can. Ask around. I had the discipline that it took to be a player—playing all the time, staying in shape, taking care of yourself—and that helps me do what I do in music.

I try to watch… Before games… I listen to a lot of Jay Z, a lot of Meek Mill and Rick Ross. I listened to a lot of the same stuff when I was growing up. It gets me ready to keep improving on the court, and to help my team win.

basketball—Rockets or otherwise—when I can, but it’s hard. I’m on the road with Bun B right now, and we’re in and out of cities all the time. There’s not really time to watch or play ball like I’d like. Hopefully, one day, I can have them build a hoop for me backstage like Eminem and those guys.

Shoutouts to Dirk Nowitzki, Shaq and the burning ball…..Speaking of burning basketballs on covers—that’s a great idea, GQ!.....“Pet Crocodile Takes Over Man’s Apartment.”…..In case you were wondering, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar still has the worst publicist in the world. Maybe that’s why he’s so salty all the time…..Much respect to Adreian Payne, not only for his great play in the Tournament, but also for the support and friendship he’s offered little Lacey Holsworth…..Thanks for the recognition, FOLIO!.....

22 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images, Jimmy Fontaine

In terms of Houston…

WorldMags.net

HYPE

WorldMags.net

UNDER REVIEW

BOOKS

Last year, after dominating at the collegiate level for four seasons, Brittney Griner entered the WNBA and created a lot of noise, on and off the court. The center, drafted No. 1 overall by the Phoenix Mercury, averaged 13 points, 6 rebounds and 3 blocks per and threw down a couple of dunks for good measure. She also, in a series of high-proﬁle interviews, opened up about her private life. In essence, then, In My Skin, her new memoir, co-written with Sue Hovey, is a continuation of that air-clearing process. By her own admission, the three-time All-American and all-time collegiate leader in blocks still has a lot to learn as she becomes more acclimated to her newfound freedom in the valley. In the pages of In My Skin, Griner meditates on her painful path to self-discovery

thus far and describes the agonizing process of becoming more comfortable in, well, her own skin. At 6-8, 200 pounds, with an 88-inch wingspan and a size 17 men’s shoe, the gentle and soft-spoken giantess has heard every insult in the book while enduring years of bullying that began in sixth grade and continued into her years at Baylor with its don’t ask, don’t tell mentality. At this stage of the game Griner has grown bulletproof skin, and living in the real world among adults has provided a small measure of equilibrium. In My Skin illustrates how empathy begins with perspective and your willingness to let people know who you are, while acknowledging the difﬁculty of discovering your true self. But the more you embrace, the more you connect, and the more you connect, the more you learn.

If the NBA changed its logo, the 10-1 favorite for heir apparent would be the Jumpman, so great is the god who took flight and shook up the game like Ali shocked the world. If Nike is the embodiment of victory, Michael Jordan is the personification of her highly competitive nature. The Jumpman, which replaced the original winged Air Jordan logo in 1988, trumps inasmuch as it’s the universal symbol of success when inverted. Michael Jordan: The Life, the latest work by Roland Lazenby, tells the story behind the icon and the unprecedented deal with Nike, a fledgling runningshoe company when Sonny Vaccaro convinced Phil Knight to put his chips on a young kid nicknamed Magic Mike. The partnership was a windfall for Nike, making Air Jordan a household brand, but it nearly grounded MJ. Fortune tore his family asunder while fame

twisted reality into a reclusive abyss of hotel penthouses and escalating gambling debts. By Lazenby’s telling, everything hung in the balance when Phil Jackson stepped in as Bulls’ head coach with his famous Triangle. Michael’s greatest evolution occurred within Tex Winter’s triple post system. Coach Zen created a buffer between Michael and management while his idiosyncratic approach provided space for Jordan to complete himself as the Bulls began historic runs to successive titles. Jackson and the two Jerrys may’ve back-stabbed Jordan into early retirement with their collective dishonesty; Lazenby’s bona ﬁde credentials provide exclusive access to Jordan’s inner circle following the DC ﬁasco to reveal the hapless Bobcats’ owner living lavishly large while still frustrated with mere mortals.— SH E R M A N J O H N SO N

XXL’s freshmen>>>>our freshmen :((((…..We love SLAM history as much as anyone (obviously) and haven’t been shy about pushing it out there in various compilations/special issues. We also appreciate and love that it’s been getting a lot of attention of late for whatever reason. But let’s be careful not to put SLAM in the past tense. We’re still here, we still cover basketball (young and old, preps and pros) better than anyone and the players still love us. Thanks…..Nothing makes the SLAM staff happier than when the internets are

24 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net LOUDER THAN A BOMB Always by Dave Zirin

ZEN TIME

Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

ount me among the people who think that the man with 13 rings, Phil Jackson, will be a rousing success as the new president/CEO/Grand Poobah of the New York Knicks. Count me among the folks who think that despite salary-cap handicaps, 15 years of failure and an owner in James Dolan who has treated the franchise like a baby treats a diaper, the former Knick reserve will turn it around. Phil Jackson can reach into Madison Square Garden’s bottomless pockets, keep Carmelo Anthony and build a team around him that can contend in the lackluster Eastern Conference. Count me among the people who think that Phil Jackson can come home again precisely because home isn’t home anymore. This will work precisely because Phil Jackson is not the same person he was 40 years ago and New York is not the same city it was 40 years ago. In that glorious blink from 1968-1974, the Knicks were the team that shared the ball like

nothing the NBA had ever seen. A roster loaded with future Hall of Famers like Walt “Clyde” Frazier, Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley and Earl “The Pearl” Monroe reﬂected a communitarian ethos in full step with the times. The team reﬂected a city where a hard-working family could actually afford to live as well as a city that gave a damn about its poorest residents. The city was also the setting of Rick Telander’s Heaven in a Playground, the great incubator for basketball talent on the planet, not to mention a place where you could see the Knicks for the cost of a sandwich and a cup of coffee. A great admirer of both that spirit and the collective energy of that team was a hardworking hippie coming off the bench named Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson told a story in his introductory press conference about getting picked up from the airport by Red Holtzman more than four decades ago and someone throwing a rock that broke the

The new, hyper-expensive New York City may be just the place for the new Phil Jackson.

windshield of their car as they drove into town. Holtzman said to him with a shrug, “That’s just New York.” If someone threw a rock at a car today, Navy SEALS would rappel down from the rooftops and put them on a first-class ticket to Guantánamo Bay. No, I’m not mourning for a time of high crime, but I do miss a period when people could actually breathe in the city and not see police officers with flak jackets and M-16s in Times Square. Today, New York is a 21st century metropolis that is effectively under lock and key. It is a city of extremes, where profound wealth continues to push impoverished residents to the margins and beyond. It is a city where Manhattan has effectively become an offshore boutique and Brooklyn, that place where strivers once yearned to flee, is now where a family cannot afford to move. After a decade of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, this is a city by and for plutocrats. This certainly reflects itself at

Madison Square Garden, where those without hedge funds or three-picture movie deals need not apply for a good seat. Seeing the Knicks has become the most expensive show in town. It is the most valuable franchise in the NBA even though the product has been hollow for years. This “new” New York also reflects itself and is seen in a team built around the harddribbling, isolation shooting of Carmelo Anthony. This isn’t a team that is as strong as the sum of its parts but an awful collection of contracts that can only go as far as Carmelo drags them on a given night. As for Phil Jackson, the man walking into this situation is not the happy-go-lucky freewheeling hippie of 40 years ago. He is a 69-year-old Malibu living multimillionaire. He is the guy who criticized the Phoenix Suns for supporting immigrant rights, saying, “I don’t think teams should get involved in the political stuff.” New York is now his kind of town. He will fit in just fine.

internetting.....That Tyquone Greer-Orr Academy story out of Illionois was amazing. The whole Chicago/Illinois boys playoffs were amazing, in fact. Pretty cool to have the nation’s two top high school players in the same city and living up to the hype individually and for their teams. Word to Scoop Jackson…..We love when PR people send emails about new products and tell us what to tweet about it. #gross..... Hope Woj doesn’t get too big for his britches.....Oh Dean we are pulling for you…..Glad it wasn’t the Quinton Ross we know, but someone still lost a son. RIP…..Thomas Alquist…..Thomas Alquist…..Thomas Al

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 25

Mike DeNovo/USA Today Sports

WorldMags.net

26 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

When the Bulls let Omer Asik leave via free agency—partly due to one of those pesky “poison pill” provisions that would have eventually put them over the cap—rather than re-sign him in the summer of 2012, fans grumbled. He

established himself as a valuable piece in the Bulls frontcourt, and losing him would potentially derail a Championship push. Little did they know this would be the least of their problems. Since Asik left, the Bulls frontcourt

has been just ﬁne, with Joakim Noah establishing himself as one of the best centers in the League and Taj Gibson emerging as one of the L’s biggest bargains. Instead it’s the backcourt that’s been a problem. Former MVP Derrick

WorldMags.net Rose played just 10 games in the post-Asik era, and stopgap measures have included the return of the prodigal Kirk Hinrich. That’s not to say Omer isn’t missed, however. And with Carlos Boozer’s contract nearing its end (via

UNITED CENTER Chicago, IL

03 . 13 . 14

amnesty or otherwise), the Bulls will be looking to bolster that frontcourt one way or another. Would they turn to another ex-Bull? As Taj demonstrated, Omer will always be welcome in the United Center.— RUSS B EN GTSO N

OVER OMER ASIK

TAJ GIBSON

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 27

WorldMags.net

JUST WHEN PEOPLE WERE READY TO WRITE OFF

BLAKE GRIFFIN

AS A ONE-DIMENSIONAL DUNKER, HE RADICALLY IMPROVED HIS GAME, MAKING HIM AN MVP CANDIDATE AND HIS TEAM A TRUE TITLE CONTENDER IN THE PROCESS. BY CHRIS PALMER lake Grifﬁn stood on the top row of the rickety bleachers at Oklahoma Christian School. Perched on the edge, 10 feet off the ground. He steeled himself and leaned forward. He couldn’t let his 9-year-old older brother beat him again. Not this time. Taylor beat him at everything. So it was now or never. Time to prove this son, too, also rises. The coast was clear. There were no grownups around. He sprang from the bleachers and hung in the air for an eternity. It was just a sibling rivalry. He was just a boy. But when he touched down it would reveal everything about who he would one day become. 28 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

Who is Blake Grifﬁn? You know the guy with all the commercials who dunks? The power forward with a crazy blend of size, grace, skill and hops having a break-out season? The one who your girl can recognize despite being buried in fashion mags on the couch next to you? You know, the game’s future doing the impossible by turning a purple and gold town on its head and arguably becoming the NBA’s most recognizable face in the process. Oh, him. Yeah, that’s the guy. So who is he? Tricky question. Ask around and the answers are many. The future. Misunderstood. A great

teammate. Kinda soft. Crazy talented. Just a dunker. A funnyass dude. From another planet. Future MVP. My brother. Man, that just complicates things. So let’s start with what he is: a four-time All-Star who’s landed on the All-NBA SecondTeam the last two seasons and is the anchor to the Clippers Championship hopes. With season averages of 24.3 ppg, 9.7 rpg and 3.7 apg, he’s also a—minus KD and LBJ—legit MVP candidate. Let’s not forget February Player of the Month after averaging 30 and 10. “He’s not human,” says Clips point guard Darren Collison. “He’s not human at all.”

WorldMags.net

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 29

WorldMags.net

Ace sixth man Jamal Crawford tracks his origins to a planet only he and LeBron James are from. “I don’t know what planet that is but we’re trying to figure it out,” says Crawford. “They see each other up there sometimes.” Up until recently much of the fascination with Griffin has centered on that otherworldly athletic ability, the basis of some of the most GIF-inducing highlights in recent memory. But he’s simply not content with being the latest in a line of skywalkers merely here to entertain. This season through constant study, self-evaluation and a merciless work ethic, Griffin has transformed himself and the whisper of his top five status has been pumped up to a low roar. He’s consistently hitting the midrange jump shot (even using the window), commanding double teams all over the floor and making plays as a facilitator in the open court. He talks more on defense and is finally settling nicely into a leadership role. Given his youth, untapped potential and pairing with the current generation’s best PG, Chris Paul, rarely has a power

30 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

forward positioned himself this well at such an early stage to capture a ring and the place in the game that comes with it. Grifﬁn’s come a long way from the injured rookie made to wear a Dora The Explorer backpack and light blue tux two sizes too small. Hard to even remember the days when then-teammate Steve Novak would look out his window to make sure the Clips’ savior’s lights were off and he was sound asleep before midnight. So who is Blake Grifﬁn? Or rather who is he destined to be. Still more important, not destined to be. The story starts on those bleachers. And in the driveway of a split-level home 15 minutes away in Edmond, OK. He is the product of Tommy, a high school basketball coach, and Gail, a former high school teacher, who preached discipline and hard work as the pillars of success. He is his mother’s son. He is a chip off the old block. A product of an environment in which he had a long list of chores, a curfew and church all while being home schooled until high school. He loved his mother’s strawberry

cake and she encouraged his early penchant for creativity. He led his father’s Oklahoma Christian High to a 106-6 record and four state titles. He competitively knocked heads endlessly with his older brother Taylor, while building an unbreakable bond that persists to this day. Every driveway oneon-one showdown, card game, chore or made-up competition ended in a ﬁght. “Usually because I would win,” says Taylor, now 27. But every loss made him stronger as if part of the plan. “When I see him intense on the court today,” Taylor says, “I

see the same look in his eyes he had against me.” After scoring a season-high 43 points on March 10 against the Suns he lets out a sigh and folds himself into a black swivel chair in front of his locker. He’s used up his intensity for the day and is dressed in fashionably form ﬁtting clothes with warm tones. He leans over to slip socks on his bare feet. “Superstar!” shouts best mate DeAndre Jordan from across the room as he adjusts his tie. There’s an easy look on his tired face. The face with the high cheekbones, square jaw and

“I LOVE HEARING STORIES ABOUT HOW HARD KOBE, LEBRON AND MICHAEL JORDAN WORKED, AND HOW IT . THAT’S DEFINITELY SOMETHING I WANT TO EMBRACE.”

WorldMags.net

Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images, Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

freckles you’ve seen dozens of times even if you haven’t forked over $159 for League Pass. His commercials are on a constant loop. The art of blending power dunks and selfdeprecation is his creation alone. The bizarre juxtaposition has made him one of the most visible athletes on the planet. But in the mid-’90s he was just a boy hanging in the air. Trying to jump farther than his brother off the top of some wooden bleachers. Pay dirt was a large cushy gym mat like polevaulters use that someone left out. After each jump they pushed the mat back a couple feet. Taylor had already completed the jump. He was bigger, faster and stronger. He was the leader. Every competition for Blake was an uphill battle. But the kid had some spunk. Blake soared but fell way short crashing down on the unforgiving gym floor breaking his wrist. Taylor won again. But this time he started to freak. Just as he was about to run for his father, the younger Griffin stood up. “I want to go again,” he said. En route to the hospital Taylor thought, “That kid is tough.” Griffin’s defining quality isn’t his sublime athleticism or his irreverent wit. It’s his motor and his toughness. The midair artistry gets airtime but it’s the battering ram mentality that simply won’t cease that makes Blake Griffin who he is. “He never stops coming at you,” says Taylor, who has relocated to Los Angeles to be near Blake while rehabbing his ankle. “He goes 100 miles an hour every play.” Most opponents don’t mind giving up dunks. Just two points. But getting beaten to a pulp stays with you. Hurts, too. Those bleachers, that gym mat, the mistimed jump and a competitive older brother were all part of the plan. The Boy Who Fell To Earth was just getting started. There are few places Griffin spends more time at than the Clippers practice facility. When Crawford took his official visit in July of 2012 he was surprised to see a lone figure in the gym. Griffin was working on post moves at 10 in the morning. “I’m a firm believer in the more work you put in, the more you get out,” says Griffin.

Few things inspire Griffin more than tales of the game’s greats, both past and present, working their fingers to the bone to improve even the tiniest aspect of their games. “I love hearing the stories of Kobe, LeBron and back in the day even Michael Jordan,” says Griffin. “How they worked and how it made them unique. That’s definitely something I want to embrace.” Griffin has heard dozens of Kobe workout stories about late night shooting sessions and murderously long bike rides. One of his favorites, though, is the time Mamba was in Italy one summer and couldn’t sleep. He called Marco Belinelli at 2 a.m. looking for a gym to get up some shots. Belinelli found him one and met him there 30 minutes later. By morning the Italian guard was exhausted. He thought Kobe just wanted to shoot but instead lured him into an intense three-hour workout. “Now that’s work ethic,” says Griffin. That same work ethic had Griffin at the practice facility five days a week last summer. Had him hoisting thousands of shots under the tutelage of shooting guru Bob Thate. Made him obsessed with footwork. Drove him in summer pickup clashes at the Clippers practice facility against the likes of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and James Harden to prevail in those intense games of seven. “He’s put in a lot of deposits,” says a smiling Rivers, “and now he’s getting some cash back.” But a funny thing has happened on the way to greatness. Griffin has become the player opponents love to hate. Or at least hate to play against. After a game two seasons ago a visibly frustrated Lakers forward Josh McRoberts shook his head and bit his tongue when asked about Griffin’s physical play. “I don’t want to get myself in trouble,” he said. Zach Randolph, less concerned with Griffin’s feelings, famously called him an “actor” during a 2012 Playoff matchup. (One Grizzlies blog features “The Top 5 Fights between Zach Randolph and Blake Griffin.”) Last season Serge Ibaka delivered a shot to his groin. Suns bruiser PJ Tucker pulled

Griffin to the ground on March 10 and promptly delivered an elbow to his chest drawing an ejection. Two days later, still smoldering 30 minutes after a game from a snarky comment, Warriors center Jermaine O’Neal tracked Griffin down in the hallway. Of course there was the nationally televised Christmas Day game that ended with the Clippers forward being ejected after which he called the Warriors “cowards.” After that March 10 Suns game Rivers paused, collected his thoughts, careful not to cross a line that could end up with a call from the League office or at least a nasty bout of regret. “Blake gets hit as much as anybody in the League and it

WorldMags.net

gets old,” said Rivers. “I’m not going to say what I really want to say. I just think he’s playing really well right now and some people don’t like that.” With that Rivers deftly got his point across and dropped a taboo bomb that has scarcely been touched by anyone: jealousy in the NBA. “Every other second Blake is on TV,” adds Crawford. “I guess you get tired sometimes of always hearing about the same person. Blake is a lot of people’s favorite player. Who knows what family members are saying too?” One player has no such qualms when it comes to facing Grifﬁn. “To me it’s fun,” Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried told ESPN prior to a March 17 grudge SL AMONLINE .COM 31

match with L.A. “He’s an AllStar.…all the magazines, all the commercials, so it’s fun to me.” Whether it’s the bruising style of play or frustrated opponents with envious eyes, those skirmishes are an everyday part of BG’s world. Through discipline and self-control, he’s managed to bottle his reactionary rage and turn the other freckled cheek. “He’s doing the right thing,” Rivers says. “If he reacts like people say he should he gets thrown out and it hurts the team.” His running mate Chris Paul concurs. “He could easily punch back and get to ﬁghting,” says Paul. “But no. I don’t know how 32 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

“WHEN I SEE HIM INTENSE ON THE COURT TODAY. I SEE THE SAME

HE HAD AGAINST ME.” —TAYLOR GRIFFIN he does it. That’s pretty selﬂess.” As with many things in BG’s life, handling the nightly frustration circles back to Taylor. “When I was little and playing my older brother and he was

whooping me, I used to ﬁght,” remembers Grifﬁn. “I used to get mad, grab him and swing.” Those battles with Taylor planted the seed to deal with the extracurricular rigors of the

WorldMags.net

game’s cheap shot artists. The dustups send Taylor’s heart racing from his courtside perch at Clippers home games. But Griffin’s refusal to retaliate has unfairly branded him as soft. Teammates scoff at the word. The growing sentiment is that he has to do something soon. But to what end? “You don’t have to swing back,” says Taylor, “but you have to stand your ground.” Ask those who know, and they say The Boy Who Fell To Earth, who now soars far above it, is anything but soft. After five years, life in SoCal, is of course, different for Griffin now that people spout catchphrases and are ready to Instagram him at Whole Foods. But Griffin keeps a tight circle of folks who knew him before he jumped over that Kia. Taylor and his wife, Marieka, often make the 15-minute drive to Blake’s house to hang out in the backyard, play pool or table tennis. “Somehow he got really good at ping-pong,” says Taylor. “He must have a tutor. I’ve beat him once in 75 games.” My how things have changed. Blake’s Rhodesian Ridgeback, Chaney, frolics with Taylor’s eager year-old Weimaraner, Humphrey, on the grass, as the brothers reminisce about life in Oklahoma City or laugh about some viral video. For Blake’s 25th birthday last month, Marieka made him his favorite strawberry cake, just as his mother has each year for his birthday. The brothers get together at Blake’s a couple times a week to eat dinner or watch League Pass. In social situations Blake is the center of the room, always ready with a joke or an impression. He’s the life of the party while Taylor prefers the anonymity of the background. “We’re both kind of quiet until you get to know us, then we open up,” says Taylor. “He just opens up more.” The boys check in with their parents regularly by phone— they still can’t tell their voices apart. Dad still coaches. Mom still worries. Lessons learned in that house still resonate. “I never wanted to be famous,” says Blake. “I just wanted to be a basketball player.” And then it becomes clear. This is who Blake Griffin is. S

Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 33

Jordan Johnson/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

34 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

WITH A SWAGGER EARNED IN HIS NATIVE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE,

HARD-NOSED POI N T GUARD KYLE LOWRY HAS HELPED MAKE THE LONG-SUFFERING RAPTORS A PLAYOFF TEAM. BY A D A M F I G M A N

lvin Williams clearly remembers his ﬁrst meeting with Kyle Lowry. They were at Villanova University, on the Main Line in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where Williams was training during an offseason in the midst of his 10-year NBA career, and Lowry was a high schooler, visiting the campus on a recruiting trip. Williams, an established baller from Philly, was simply reaching out to an up-andcoming baller from Philly. Lowry wasn’t really having it. “I thought he was a jerk,”

Williams laughs. “Kyle was tough. He was tough to get along with, from my standpoint. He was stubborn. I didn’t really like his attitude at all.” Though Williams quickly bonded with the point guard (who did end up attending Villanova before being selected 24th by the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2006 Draft) that toughto-get-along-with rep followed Lowry around during his ﬁrst years in the League. “You won’t run into people who knew Kyle early in his career who say he was a nice guy,” Williams says.

Now, though, eight seasons into his career, Lowry’s reputation has evolved. He’s the guiding force and possibly the most important player on the Toronto Raptors, a team that sits at 39-30 as we go to press, good for a surprisingly high third place in the Eastern Conference. He’s averaging 17.4 points, 7.8 assists and 1.6 steals per game, the first two of which are career highs. He was either the first or second player left off the East All-Star team. And his rep as a tough-nosed, difficult-to-coach hardhead has softened; he was

WorldMags.net

highly coveted before the 2014 trade deadline, and will be once again this summer when he hits free agency. It’s been an undeniably great 2013-14 for the 6-0 Lowry, a process that began as soon as the 2012-13 campaign concluded. “Coming off of last season, we had a meeting at the end of the season and just decided it’d be his best summer ever,” says Joe Abunassar, who manages Impact Basketball and has trained Lowry every offseason since he was drafted by the Grizzlies. “What we did early SL AMONLINE .COM 35

36 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

The way I grew up and the situation I was in made me want it more, no matter what. WorldMags.net

announced in January, many expected Kyle’s name to be on the list—alas, he was left out. “It wasn’t a big thing to me,” he says. “I mean, I would’ve loved to accomplish that. I would’ve loved to achieve that accomplishment, but it didn’t make me say, Oh man, I’m mad. It basically made me say, OK, it’s not my time. Just keep working harder and maybe it’ll happen.” Kyle’s evolution has likely been a shock to many—especially some who dealt with the point guard early in his career as he struggled to gain his NBA footing—but some say this is exactly where they expected him to be at this point in time. Count both Abunassar and Williams in that camp, along with Lonnie Lowry, Kyle’s big brother, who steered lil’ bro into hoops way back when. “My brother wanted me to be something,” Kyle says. “He knew I loved the sport, and he loved the sport, and he just put the ball in my hands and made me run with it.” “He followed me and my friends around and played sports with us,” Lonnie says. “We’re ﬁve years apart, but honestly, from age 7 on up, he literally played sports with me and my friends—tackle football, basketball, baseball. Anything we did, he came and played with us. That probably toughened him up more than anything.” And, of course, Lonnie played hoops, so Kyle did, too. Basketball kept both boys out of trouble, as did the duo’s foundation: their mother and grandmother, who ran a tight ship in the Lowry household. “We were scared of our mom—our mom and our grandma,” Lonnie says. “We knew they weren’t playing. We were the kids where everybody would be playing, and it’s 8 o’clock, and you can hear my grandma screaming our names out down the street to come in the house. A lot of our other friends didn’t have that. Our grandma would come out—it’s 8 o’clock, let’s go. We knew what it was.” The duo avoided trouble and stayed on the right path, though the city’s violence would creep into their lives by simple proximity. One day in either 2001 or 2002, during a pick-up game at Connie Mack Court in North Philadelphia, shots were ﬁred in

David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images, David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

was get his weight down and get him in great shape physically— normally guys would take some time off after the season, but he didn’t really take time off at all. He got going with mostly low impact cardio training.” After spending time in his hometown of Philly, Lowry went to Las Vegas to train with Abunassar through the hot summer. They worked on improving his jumpshot, which had been Lowry’s Achilles heel early in his career. They ran hundreds of pick-and-rolls, making sure the then-27-year-old was prepared for every possible outcome. And Joe made sure his client and friend was in tip-top shape, ready for the slog of another 82-ormore-game year. (As we go to press, Lowry has been on the court for 2,526 minutes this season, the most of his career—and we still have 13 games to go.) “Kyle’s summer—and I’ve had guys for a long time—it was as good as any summer anyone’s had,” Abunassar says. “His focus was unbelievable.” In late September, Lowry convened with the Raptors overlords—chairman Larry Tanenbaum, team president Tim Leiweke, senior basketball advisor Wayne Embry and general manager Masai Ujiri, who called the meeting—to discuss his future. The group loved what Lowry brought to the table, talent-wise, and knew that the team would go as far as their bulldog of a starting point guard would bring them. It wasn’t much of a secret: If he failed, he’d likely be shipped out of town before the trade deadline, and the organization would turn its focus toward the upcoming Draft. If he succeeded, they’d keep him on board for a Playoff run. “They put a lot on my shoulders,” Lowry says now. “They pretty much told me, How you go is how we’re going to go. They put their hearts and trust into me to be a successful player and lead the team, you don’t want to let down and disappoint them, so you do what you have to do in order to not disappoint them and let them down. That was a goal for me—I personally wanted to make sure I didn’t let those guys down. I wanted to make them proud.” Safe to say he’s done just that. So when the All-Star rosters were

WorldMags.net

the gym. Everyone fled. According to a National Post report, the ever-competitive Kyle wanted to keep playing immediately after. “It was just a bad place at a bad time,” Kyle says. “The neighborhood I grew up in, it was definitely one of those places where it definitely wasn’t easy to get around, wasn’t like you can just say, Hey, I’m gonna go walk around the corner, without your brother. There’s violence, drugs, things like that.” Lonnie, despite only being half a decade older than Kyle, coached his younger brother’s AAU team, realizing slowly that his sibling had a very serious hoops future. Even back when they were kids, the younger Lowry had an insanely competitive spirit, and as he got older, Lonnie says there were multiple moments when he was blown away by his brother’s talent. He pinpoints a game in 2003 when Kyle’s AAU team was in Fort Wayne, IN, for the Run ‘N Slam, facing a skilled group called The Family. Though his squad was expected to lose, Kyle dropped 41 points in a victory. “[The Family] had like eight high-major kids, and he just trashed them, from start to finish,” Lonnie says. “I was just like, Whoa.” He played two seasons at Villanova—one in which he came off the bench and often clashed with coach Jay Wright, and one in which he started, scored 11 points per game and helped the Wildcats reach the Elite 8—before getting drafted by the Grizzlies in 2006. That he’s bounced around the NBA for a bit since—playing two and a half seasons for Memphis, then three and a half for Houston, and now about to finish his second in Toronto—could be credited both to a set of unfortunate situations (the Grizzlies drafted PG Mike Conley with Lowry already on the roster) and how far he needed to come as a person (after the Rockets ditched coach Rick Adelman, Lowry reportedly refused to give new coach Kevin McHale a full effort). Now settled in Toronto—at least until this summer, when he’ll be keeping an open mind toward all free agency opportunities, in the T-Dot or elsewhere—Lowry has been one of the main factors behind the team’s decision to avoid

the all-tank-everything route and attempt to make at least a small splash in the postseason. As could probably be expected, Lowry is quick to deflect the attention to his teammates: “We take a little bit from everybody on our team,” he says. “From me, every single night I know these guys are gonna go to war for me, and in the same way they know I’m gonna go to war for them. We get our swagger from Greivis, because he has the best swag on the team—he’s definitely swagged out. From John Salmons, how humble he is—he’s always ready to go. DeMar [DeRozan], too. Everybody takes a little something from everybody, and it builds an uncanny, cool team.” And as for Kyle individually, it looks like his career is finally steered in the perfect direction. His NBA mentors Chauncey Billups—whom he met through Abunassar—and Chester, PAbred Jameer Nelson helped him reach this new level of maturity, as has simply getting older and the birth of his 2-year-old son, Karter. “Having a healthy kid is one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me,” he says proudly. “He’s made tremendous strides as a player, but more so as a young man,” Williams says. The former Toronto Raptor guard literally watched the evolution of Kyle Lowry from a stubborn young pup in high school to his current status as a more levelheaded, valuable member of a soon-to-be Playoff contender. “The person he is now is so far from the person he was when I first met him. He still has his moments, but he’s so much different, such a better person than he was back then. He has a ways to go, but it should be emphasized that he makes it an every-day goal to become better in that locker room and as a player off the floor. He really does, man.” Abunassar agrees wholeheartedly. “We talk about attitude and [Lowry’s] approach more than anything else,” he says. “It’s a learning process. He’s started to realize his off-thecourt mannerisms and his mannerisms in the locker room are just as important as his value on the court. That team is winning, and his attitude and approach has a lot to do with it.” S

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 37

K D

WorldMags.net

Whatever it Takes WITH A VAST THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE AND UNRELENTING

WORK ETHIC, KEVIN DURANT HAS PUT TOGETHER AN MVP SEASON… AND HE’S JUST GETTING STARTED. W O R D S RY N E N E L S O N P O RT R A I TS AT I BA J E F F E R S O N

38 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 39

he look on Kevin Durant’s face when beast mode is turned up is calm, controlled, foreboding. He will score. Defender be damned. We saw the look 43 hours ago, when Durant dropped a double-overtime game-winner in Toronto. But now, Kevin Durant is back in Oklahoma City, getting a cut before SLAM’s cover shoot. Apron draped from neck to camo sweats, the NBA’s leading scorer tilts down his head as his barber touches him up. “It was four guys just scream40 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

ing my name all game,” says KD, “especially in that second overtime when we were down. Just screaming my name. It was really annoying. “I looked over and said, Grow up. I told them all to grow up. It was four guys, grown men.” Durant glances up, a smile crosses his left cheek. The look. “Then I hit the backboard three. I looked over, and they just kept saying it. Then Fish hit the three. I looked over, it got quieter. Then they missed the two free throws, I looked over there. “I told Mustafa Shakur on our team, I said, I’m going for the win.

He shook his head. Then I came down, shot it and I looked over and started walking out. That was the best part of the night. Just to shut them up.” The man isn’t that nice. The Thunder came back from an 8-point deﬁcit with 48 seconds remaining, behind Durant’s 51 points, 12 rebounds, 7 assists, 7 treys and game-winning dagger. “The fans kind of awoke a monster that they didn’t want to,” Reggie Jackson laughs. Truth is, Durant’s been a monster practically every night. The ball has been in his hands more than ever this season, yet his

WorldMags.net

offensive production (32.2 ppg) and efficiency (64 true shooting percentage) are at historic levels. He’s had more games of 30 points this season (43) than not (27), including 12 straight games in January. As we went to press, Durant has scored 25 points or more in 36 straight games, the longest streak since Michael Jordan did it in 40 straight games in 198687. And he’s been compared to Jesus…at least once. After Durant vacuum-sealed the air out of Air Canada Centre, Raptors point guard Greivis Vasquez said, “Kevin Durant is like Jesus in this League.” No one objected. Jordan may have been God in disguise, but KD has many of the GOAT’s qualities. Scoring aside, Durant’s combination of skill set, work ethic and competitiveness are formulaic of the League’s bronzed legends. Durant says it’s simple “self-evaluation” that fuels him to get better. “There’s always going to be someone quicker than me, somebody that can shoot better, somebody that’s taller, somebody that’s stronger, somebody that’s faster, somebody that’s a better ballhandler, somebody that’s a better rebounder, somebody better at something in this game than me,” he says. He’d be hard pressed to find a better scorer. KD’s offensive season has been so great that fans have been frantically trying to invent nicknames. They can soon call him MVP. “If you ask any player in this League if they had an opportunity to get an individual award, if they care about it, they would say yeah,” Durant says. “It would definitely feel great to win my first MVP, but if I think about it every single day, then that takes my focus off the group. “If you win, then all that stuff comes with it. And for us to win, I have to be the best teammate I can be and come to work every single day and play as hard as I can. Everything else is going to happen. I can live with whatever happens after that.” That humility has both endeared Durant to fans and foiled his badass on-court persona. Durant will bark at an opponent’s bench while on court, and after the game, he’ll accompany a fan to an X-ray (true story). He’ll fol-

Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images, Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

low a big dunk with a “kill ’em and pray for ’em” gesture, and later be seen helping elderly people at the mall when the escalator isn’t working (another true story). “He’s really not a good guy, you’re just being fooled,” coach Scott Brooks says. “He fooled me for a lot of years, I finally figured it out this year. With KD, he has a real quiet confidence about him, a quiet competitiveness about him. But he’s as competitive as I’ve ever been around anybody.” Derek Fisher, who signed with Durant to win his sixth ring, has a unique perspective, having worked with KD and KB at 25. “They’re different people with different games, different styles,

that those guys were on my team, and they were out on the floor with me. I think his teammates are the same way.” Jackson concurs: “If you get to the last six minutes of a tight game, you can almost put the game in your back pocket.” Durant will finish the season averaging more than 20 fieldgoal attempts per game for just the second time in his sevenyear career. Remarkably, for a four-time scoring champ, he’s never looked like he’s chased points. Matter of fact, he’s averaging a career-best 5.6 assists. Durant came into the League getting buckets in his sleep, but things were much different during

“THE MOST FUN PART IS FINDING OUT THINGS THAT YOU CAN GET BETTER AT, POINTING THEM OUT AND GETTING BETTER FROM THEM.” different approaches,” Fisher says. “But I always talk about the similarity in their confidence, how they love to compete, love to win.” Despite missing three starters for stretches of the season, the Thunder have won. They’ve actually played so well without Westbrook, critics have started to question whether the Thunder are better without his him. Durant has shot more, and more efficiently, and has distributed the ball at a career-high rate with Russ missing a large portion of the season. But make no mistake, this team is even more dangerous when their All-NBA point guard is fully healthy. “That’s what great players do. They make players that they play with better, or at least make them feel that they’re better than they are, when they step on the floor. And to his credit, he’s done that,” says Nuggets coach Brian Shaw. “Walking out on the floor with Shaq and Kobe, it made me feel better than I was because I knew

those early years when Durant endured a combined 43 wins over his ﬁrst two seasons. “It feels like that was 10 years ago. But it was much needed,” Durant explains. “Every team has to go through that tough stretch in order for you to grow. The best part about this organization is the continuity we have with everything. We have the same coach. We have the same players, same core group of guys. Same trainers. Same everything.” That continuity and trust allowed Durant to develop at a rapid pace—winning the scoring title at 21 and ﬁnishing runner up in MVP. The Thunder won 50 games during his third season and were dubbed the L’s greatest up-and-coming team. Now they’re perennial title contenders. “I don’t know if there are enough words to put into how much he means to the team, to the organization, to this city,” Fisher says. “This organization has only been in existence for

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 41

WorldMags.net

“IT WOULD DEFINITELY FEEL GREAT TO WIN MY FIRST MVP, BUT IF I THINK ABOUT IT EVERY SINGLE DAY, THEN THAT TAKES MY FOCUS OFF THE GROUP.” 42 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

only ﬁve, six years. He symbolizes what’s been able to be accomplished by the team in that period of time.”

Darrell Arthur is toast. Back at Chesapeake Energy Arena, Kevin Durant handles the rock at the top of the key. Denver’s power forward’s feet are frantically trying to figure out a direction to move. KD shakes him with a quick dribble to his right. Then left. Then forward, banking in the and-one. Easy Money. “I felt good. I felt like I was back at the park, back at home,” Durant says. “He bit on a few of them. And I was able to finish the play.” Durant’s having fun with the game. But it wasn’t always this way. “I was working out as a kid so much that I started to become a robot,” Durant says. “I just always worried about working out, and the fun started to soak out of the game with me. It was just like, if I ain’t having fun, then why am I playing?” But that’s when the light turned on, and what Durant learned literally propelled him to the heights that he’s at today. KD fell in love with progress. “That’s before I really knew how important working hard is and how much better you can get,” Durant says. “I could start to see the progress. That’s when it started to become more and more fun, just knowing that I can always get better if I just go ahead and put some time in.” Since the mindset change as a high school freshman, Durant has been defined by hard work and keeping an open mind toward advice. You can’t argue with the results. “Now that I know the significance of hard work,” explains Durant, “it’s just me playing the game on another level. Every time I have a bad game, or I mess up, or have a play I wish I could take back, I just learn from it. “That’s been the most fun part: Finding out things that you can get better at, pointing them out and getting better from them.” As good as Durant has become, it’s a never-ending progression. That’s why he’s still first and last in the gym. That’s why he piques the mind of every Thunder player and coach. “Being open-minded to everybody is the thing I try to tell younger guys,” he says. “I always keep conscious of it myself. I can learn from anybody.” And he thinks social media is changing the game in profound ways. “I think there will be another Kevin Durant. I tell people all the time, YouTube and Twitter, that’s helping players because you get to see who you want to be like,” he says. “When

I was a kid, I was like, I want to be like Tracy McGrady. But I never seen him unless he came on a national TV game. “If I was watching a YouTube clip of what he did, I could go right on the court and try to do the same things. I couldn’t do that,” KD continues. “So now these players are seeing all their favorite players and who they want to be like, and they watching them. And they working on the same moves those guys are working on.” With Durant churning out highlights like that doublecrossover on the regular, it’s

no surprise that players are already entering the League idolizing him. “He knows that I used to look up to him. I used to try to play like him,” Nuggets forward Quincy Miller says. “Playing against KD [now] is just like the stuff you dream of. The player everybody compared you to, and still compare you to— you’re playing him now.” Durant is more than happy to provide advice to players, whether it’s through Twitter (he regularly holds Q+As for his followers) or at his restaurant, KD’s Southern Cuisine, in

WorldMags.net

OKC’s Bricktown district. “I’m there after just about every game, except if we lose. Then I go home,” KD laughs. He’s found a second home in OKC and a lifelong family in the Thunder. He’s just enjoying the journey, even if his limitless ability comes with unfair comparisons. “I’m nowhere near Jesus in this League. I’m just going out there having fun with the game, and some nights, Jesus is deﬁnitely out there watching over me. But I’d fail miserably if I try to stack up to that guy. “I like being KD.” S

WorldMags.net

THERE ARE MANY REASONS FOR THE CONTINUED SUCCESS IN SAN ANTONIO—BEST RECORD IN THE NBA, ANYONE?

—BUT ONE OF THE BIGGEST HAS TO BE

ebruary in Brooklyn, and Nets General Manager Billy King is standing courtside watching his team warm up for a game against the shorthanded Spurs. He’s also engaged in a conversation with a reporter, helping explain what, in his opinion, has been at the heart of San Antonio’s incredible 17-year run. “It starts with your best players,” he says. “They have to buy into what you’re doing. After that, everybody else will too, and the Spurs have had 44 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

QUITE POSSIBLY THE MOST UNDER-APPRECIATED PLAYER IN THE LEAGUE. BY YARON WEITZMAN that with Tim [Duncan] from day one. “If you get that, then you’ve got the culture that you want, and that leads to the system on the court. That leads to execution. You don’t take bad shots, you share the basketball, when a play is called, you don’t break off, and the coach doesn’t even have to say anything. And all that’s got to start from the best player.” King is then asked about Tony Parker’s role in all this. “It’s still Tim’s team,” he says

with a smile. “If Tim says, ‘Tony, we’re doing this,’ Tony’s going to say OK. It’s kind of like the way it was with Magic and Kareem. Magic was there, but that was still Kareem’s team.” He came into the League as a 19-year-old kid, tall enough to be a point guard at 6-2, but also scrawny and weak. “Everyone talks about Kevin Durant not being able to bench press the bar at his Draft combine,” says Mike Brungardt, the former strength and conditioning

WorldMags.net

coach for the San Antonio Spurs, “but Tony was worse.” He also couldn’t really shoot from the outside, and he did not yet posses a true point guard’s feel and eye for the game. He bombed in his ﬁrst pre-Draft workout for the Spurs, in 2001, failing to hold his own against Lance Blanks, an ex-NBA player and former member of San Antonio’s front ofﬁce. Banks was 34 years old at the time. The Spurs, though, decided to give the prospect another look. Speed, after all, is

Layne Murdoch Jr./NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 45

WorldMags.net

46 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

“I WANT TO KEEP THIS DREAM CAREER GOING AND NOT WAKE UP. WHEN I DO, THAT’S WHEN I’LL SIT DOWN AND next highest number), and that no Spur creates more scoring opportunities for the team as frequently as Parker, who ranks second in the NBA (behind Ty Lawson) in drives per game and points per game created on drives. “Our offense is a motion one, based off reads,” says Spurs forward Matt Bonner, currently in his eighth season in San Antonio. “What we run depends on what is initiated by the point guard, and when you have Tony Parker as that point guard, that offense is going to work a lot better.” For Parker, it often starts with a quick outlet pass from a teammate. Or a screen for a pickand-roll. That’s when he’s at his best. When the ﬂoor is spaced and the defense is on its heels. There he can use his assortment of moves. The hesitations, and quick-changes of direction,

and floaters in the paint that you don’t see from anyone else, and footwork that TJ Ford—a longtime friend of Parker’s who played four months for the Spurs two season’s ago—says is “as sound as anyone’s in the game.” All of this comes naturally to him, Parker says, the result of him being small when he was growing up and having to find ways to adapt on the court. “There are videos of me playing when I was like 10 years old, and even in those you can see me doing some of that stuff.” The key, according to Parker, especially on the pick-and-roll, is to be aggressive, and this is where he’s made his strides. When he first came into the League, Parker was Gregg Popovich’s whipping boy; these stories are well documented but it’s worth noting that if you ask Parker today what he believes to be the greatest

WorldMags.net

.”

obstacle he’s ever overcame, his answer is “my first few years in the League when Pop was really tough on me.” Eventually, though, Parker says he learned—how to be aggressive but not reckless, how to be both a scoring and true point guard. The goal was always to shoot 50 percent from the field and to be the kind of player who teammates would like to play with. “That was really important to me,” he says. “To make sure I keep my teammates happy and help them get open shots.” It took five years for him to accomplish the first of those goals (he shot 55 percent in 2005), and it has been a mark that he’s missed just three times since. As for the second goal, well, the results speak for themselves. As does Popovich’s decision to take the reigns of the offense out of Duncan’s

Issac Baldizon/NBAE via Getty Images, D. Clarke Evans/NBAE via Getty Images

one of those skills that can’t be taught, and there was no questioning the fact that the young Frenchman was fast with the ball. He had a nose for the paint, too, and so he was brought in for a second workout, one in which he shined. A few days after that, thanks to some luck and oversight from the rest of the League, the Spurs were able to select Tony Parker with the 28th pick in the Draft. Now, 13 years later, Parker finds himself acting as the conductor for an offense that is the envy of the rest of the Association. As of this writing, the Spurs are scoring 108.4 points per 100 possessions this season, the fourth best mark in the NBA. This will be the fifthstraight year in which the Spurs finish with a top-seven offense. According to NBA.com, San Antonio’s crunch-time offense, with its 123.8 rating, is also the best the League has seen since the 2011 Mavericks. And now, thanks to the Player Tracking Data on NBA.com, we know that no Spur has the ball in his hands as much as Parker (his 6.2 minutes of possession per game nearly triples Patty Mills at 2.3, the Spur with the

WorldMags.net

hands in order to place them in Parker’s, a change that Parker says was made prior to the 2011-12 season following the team’s Playoff loss to the Grizzlies, which marked just the fourth time in NBA history that a No. 1 seed had fallen in the first round. “Timmy was getting older,” Parker says, “and I was playing with the [French] national team and doing great.” That summer Parker led France to a second place EuroBasket finish, its best finish in the tournament in 62 years. “Pop decided to transition the team to me and have us do more of the stuff that I do best.” The result was a return to the Conference Finals, where the Spurs blew a 2-0 series lead against the Thunder. The year after that they made it to the Finals, where they were inches away from knocking off the defending champion Heat. What would Parker’s place in basketball history be if not for Ray Allen’s miraculous three? “I don’t really think about legacy and things like that,” Parker says. “When I’m 90 I’m sure I will, but now I just focus on the present. “The career I’m having is like a dream,” he adds, “and I want to keep going and not wake up. When I do, that’s when I’ll sit down and reflect. With Pop and wine.”

Everyone wants to play like San Antonio and do the things that the Spurs do. Every team wants its players to constantly swing the ball from side to side, and to take great shots instead of settling for good ones (a favorite saying of Popovich), and to have the corner three—the most valuable shot in the game—be a major part of its offense. “More and more, we’ll get a scouting report and it will be full of our plays,” says Bonner. “Now we’ve got assistants running things in so many different places—a lot of teams are mimicking our offense.” Which brings us to the enduring mystery that is the Spurs. Playing the style of basketball that every ﬁctional high school coach, from Norman Dale in Hoosiers to Samuel L. Jackson in Coach Carter, has preached is not exactly revolutionary. And

it’s safe to assume that any innovative idea that the Spurs have had over the past 15 years has also been implemented in the new homes of the many assistants and disciples that have been pried away by other teams. And yet the Spurs remain the Spurs, a team that seemingly always knows something that the rest of the League doesn’t, one that manages to somehow combine the simple with the complex in a manner that no other team can. This year, they have once again surprised, except that since they are the Spurs, they no longer can surprise with excellence. There have been injuries and new players and a crazy amount of starting lineups—only the lowly Lakers have been forced to use more—and, as always, none of it seems to matter. Not only is San Antonio scoring with ease, but it’s also holding opponents to 100.4 points per 100 possessions, the fourth best number in the NBA, and once again, with the Playoffs on the cusp, the Spurs ﬁnd themselves riding a double-digit win-streak and in possession of the best record in the League. “They make us all want to throw our hands up in the air and just give up,” says one Eastern Conference scout. “It’s just crazy what they do over there.” Certainly, there are many answers to this question and many aspects to this celebrated system. The presence of a brilliant coach, an astute GM and a uniﬁed organization. For example, Brungardt, the team’s former strength coach, says that he was constantly communicating with the Spurs’ basketball people. “This,” he says, “is not as common as you might think.” The Spurs, though, also happen to possess the NBA’s most precious and rare commodity, and it’s here where perhaps the explanation lies for why all those teams that, as Bonner says, “mimic” the Spurs have eventually wound up failing in their quest to emulate them. For years now, the Spurs have had great players. Three of them, to be exact. One, Tim Duncan, will go down as one of the best to ever play. Another, Manu Ginobili, will be remembered as

one of the most unique. And then there’s Tony Parker, a player hard to deﬁne. He’s the best player, and has been for a few years now, on a perennial contender. He’s won three Championships, is a six-time All-Star, and was a Finals MVP. Assuming he makes the Hall of Fame—as he should—Parker will be just the fourth point guard enshrined in

WorldMags.net

Springﬁeld with more than two rings (the other players on that esteemed list are Bob Cousy, Dennis Johnson and Magic Johnson). Parker is also everything the Spurs are. Admired, yet underappreciated. Respected, yet constantly overlooked. All-time great teams have never had just one great player, and this Spurs team is no different. S

SL AMONLINE .COM 47

WorldMags.net

SETTING THE PACE

Yes, a small part of this is stubbornness. You make pre-season NBA picks in half an hour with some great predictions (though man did we whiff on the Knicks) that include NBA immortality for that solid-but-title-less franchise in Indy, and you want to see it happen. For the ﬁrst few months of the season, it didn’t even look like a reach. The Pacers had the best record in the League, big-

48 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

selling SLAM 174 cover subject Paul George looked like Diet LeBron and the East looked like it would offer about as much resistance as the NCAA does to cheating coaches. Then the mid-season malaise hit the Pacers hard. Those ugly dog days of March that get overlooked while a nation watches college basketball. There were distractions in the form of catﬁsh (a Paul George

hater) and dogs (Andrew Bynum). Meanwhile, the Bulls got over their Derrick Rose hangover and the Nets woke up. And the Heat stayed the Heat. Just like that, the Pacers were back to looking like a reach. Well, you know what? The reasons we picked the Pacers haven’t really changed. They’re big (really big), they’re motivated and PG is still ascending. They’ve had a stretch of ugly

WorldMags.net

ball while still sitting atop their conference? Welcome to human nature. The Heat still have major concerns regarding Wade, and the Bulls/Nets/Raptors can’t win a seven-game series over Indy. The West is undoubtedly the better conference, but by the time the Thunder run the gauntlet of that side’s Playoff bracket, they won’t have anything left for the rejuvenated Pacers.—BEN OSBORNE

Andy Lyons/Getty Images

PAUL GEORGE AND CO. ARE STILL THE TITLE FAVORITES IN OUR MINDS.

BLACKTOP WorldMags.net

THE RETURN OF THE BLACKTOP

LEGENDS OF THE GAME

Courtesy of Reebok

BATTLEGROUND BOULEVARD RETALIATE AVENUE

RUCKER PARK DREW LEAGUE ALLEN IVERSON GREG MARIUS

SUMMER JAM TAKING IT BACK TO THE BLOCK WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

CONTENTS 52. The Real Whether on cracked concrete or refurbished wood, with lights or without, there is nothing quite like streetball. Bone up on its rich history.

60. Pioneers Nowadays, nearly every company invests in streetball. Reebok, though, has been down with the outdoor game since the beginning.

64. Deeper Than That It’s not just a business front: Reebok is and always has been authentically invested in the purest form of basketball.

68. Building Blocks Long before you heard their names or watched their games, Baltimore, MD, natives Dominique Wilkins and Muggsy Bogues were learning their craft at local parks.

72. Concrete Heat More than two decades after inventing the ﬁrst outdoor basketball performance shoe, Reebok is bringing the Blacktop back. And it’s better than ever. The special section you’re about to enjoy is as true to SLAM roots as you can get. Our staff members have always balled outside, we were featuring playground legends like Joe Hammond and Ray Lewis from day one and we published a mag called STREETBALL from ’03-07. You know who else has been down with blacktop hoops for a long time? Reebok. Do the knowledge.—Ed.

50 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

Rick Telander

WorldMags.net

52 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

As the great Rick Telander showed everyone in the ’70s, heaven is a playground, especially in New York.

THOUGH RECORD BOOK BOOK THOUGHITITMIGHT MIGHTNOT NOT HAVE AN OFFICIAL RECORD ORORSCHEDULE EVERY BIT BITAS AS SCHEDULELIKE LIKETHE THE NBA, STREETBALL IS EVERY INTEGRALTOTOTHE THE GAME OF BASKETBALL. INTEGRAL BYBYAADAM DA M FFIGMAN IGMAN

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 53

WorldMags.net

You don’t need much. A ball and a hoop—and not even a real hoop, just some kind of circular object that you can throw a ball through. That’s it, all you need to play basketball. Which would explain why, over the course of the 20th century, while multiple sports thrived on a mainstream level, it was hoops that became the deﬁnitive game of the city. “We don’t have football ﬁelds like most places do,” says Greg Marius, founder of the Entertainers Basketball Classic, a streetball tournament hosted at Rucker Park. “Tennis was a sissy sport to a lot of guys—I played tennis, I was a tennis champ. And basketball courts were everywhere. There was always a basketball court, and if you didn’t have a basketball court, we had a hanger in our room and made it into a basketball court, or we had a crate downstairs on the fence. We found ways to play ball.” And with basketball as the quick and easy athletic option for kids across the country, it was the work of a few visionaries to foster the growth of the sport into a slightly organized

form—by simply setting up courts in some strategic locations, and setting up leagues that were hosted in those very parks—that led to the rise of what we today call streetball. You’ll never be able to find a definitive origin for streetball, but you could do worse than calling 1947 the official beginning, or at least a beginning of sorts. That’s the year a guy

(and a location change in ’65), the league would host a slew of the best streetball players of all time. In ’74, P.S. 156 Playground—at 155th St. and Frederick Douglass Boulevard— became known as Holcombe Rucker Playground, named after Rucker, who died of cancer in 1965. (Though he was a custodian at the time he founded the basketball league, Rucker

“We don’t have football ﬁelds like most places do. Basketball courts are everywhere.”— M ARI U S named Holcombe L. Rucker, a playground director for New York’s Parks Department, started a basketball tournament for local, impoverished kids at a court on 7th Avenue and 129th St. in New York City. The Rucker Basketball League tipped off there in 1950, and over the following few decades

earned a bachelor’s degree and became an English teacher before he passed.) In the 1950s, legends like Wilt Chamberlain and Cal Ramsey played at the park that’d become known as The Rucker, helping build its rep to must-experiencein-person status. New York City streetball was a different product

than what was being played in the NBA—it was ﬂashier, more exciting, more up-and-down. Then in the ’60s and ’70s, the park established itself further, with a cast of players including Earl Manigault (who had been mentored by Rucker himself), Julius Erving, Nate Archibald and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. These were NBA players facing off against the best hoopers in the country who—for some reason or another—hadn’t made the L. And don’t get it twisted: Many of those non-NBAers were just as good, or better, than the pros. Rucker Park became a neighborhood spot during this era, with people watching from fences, rooftops, windows, even trees, just to get a glimpse of the court. In 1971, Dr. J showed up and played against a team led by playground legend Joe Hammond. Erving’s squad won in triple OT, with The Doc reportedly scoring around 40 points and Hammond scoring about 30. Everyone who played at Rucker Park was given a nickname. Hammond was “The Destroyer.” Manigault was “The

Rachel Golden

The Dome

54 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Rucker Park

Goat.” Earl Monroe was “Black Jesus.” (So, yeah: He was really good.) Chamberlain was “The Stilt.” And so on. In the years after the rise of the Rucker Basketball League, other streetball leagues popped up around the country. In L.A. in 1973, Alvin Wills founded The Drew League, a six-team league based in a small gym in South Central. Over the following decade, the league expanded to 10 teams, and in ’85 a man named Dino Smiley took over the league’s day-to-day operations. In L.A., and throughout the West Coast, the basketball looks slightly different than what you might see on the East Coast, or in colder cities within the Midwest. With beautiful weather the norm, players are able to constantly practice their jumpshots without wind, rain or anything like that throwing the shot off—and as a result, it’s oftentimes why the best shooters come from out west. “We have so many courts, and our weather is so good that nine, 10 months out of the year, you’re able to go out and play on an outdoor court,” says Smi-

ley. “There’s always a place to play and hone your shot. That’s why you have great shooters out here. Our young guys now, from James Harden to Nick Young, these guys are unbelievable shooters.” Today, the Drew League consists of 28 teams, many of which include celebrities like NBA players, rappers and guys who play professionally overseas or in semi-pro leagues in the States. NBA stars like Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, DeMar DeRozan, Paul George and JR Smith have all suited up in the Drew League. Smiley credits the similarity of the Drew League to the pro leagues as one of the reasons the Drew has both survived and thrived for so long. “Why we’re so successful at the Drew League is we’re going into our 41st year, and we never changed our concept of how the game was played,” he says. “That’s why in the summer, Kevin Durant, Kobe, James Harden can walk right in, because they’re coming in to hone their skills, but they also know when they’re running up the ﬂoor, we have about eight NBA ofﬁcials, so they feel

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 55

WorldMags.net

comfortable.” Two years after the founding of the Drew League, on the other side of the country, Ervin Brady, Carlton Reed and Morty Hammonds established the Barry Farms Community Basketball League in southeast Washington, DC. In the early ’80s the name of the league changed to the Goodman League—after George Goodman, a long-time Barry Farms resident. Today, the Goodman League is run by commissioner Miles Rawls, who also acts as play-by-play commentator of the action. Rawls, who grew up in the DC area with 14 siblings, is undeniably the face of the League. “I’m proud of what I’ve done over these last 15 years,” he once told ESPN. “Used to be when you heard of Southeast DC, Barry Farms, it was killings, shootings. Now it’s positive stuff. You see my face and my league.” NBA players like Brandon Jennings and local products Kevin Durant and Michael Beasley have all showed out at Goodman over the past decade. 56 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

Over the course of the second half of the 20th century and the ﬁrst few years of the 21st, a series of leagues were established that created the foundation for a culture of streetball throughout the country. In 1990, a new streetball hub popped up in Manhattan, when Kenneth Stevens, Omar Booth and Michael Jenkins restored a run-down court in the Washington Heights section of NYC. Located at 204th and Nagle Avenue, the Dyckman Basketball Tournament kicked off with six teams—now, still run by Stevens, the league boasts multiple age

groups and 52 teams. Beasley, Durant, DeRozan, Jennings and Kyrie Irving have all hooped at Dyckman, which has evolved into a mandatory stop for all NYC streetballers. Philadelphia, known for its tough, hard-nosed style of ball, has a ﬂourishing streetball league as well: The Chosen League, which was founded by

WorldMags.net

Rahim Thompson in ’02. “It wasn’t so much the violence,” Thompson once told Sports Illustrated about his reasoning for starting The Chosen League. “There was just nothing to do, and when there’s nothing to do, kids get themselves in trouble.” In 2011, Thompson told SI that 82 players who passed through the Chosen League had played Division I college basketball, with nine—including Hakim Warrick and Kyle Lowry—getting selected in the NBA Draft. Which is all to say that, over the course of the second half of the 20th century and the ﬁrst few years of the 21st, a series of leagues were established that created the foundation for a culture of streetball throughout the country. While each league may have served a similar purpose—keep kids off the street and doing something safe and productive; help players get better, possibly good enough to turn pro; provide entertainment for members of the community during the summer; etc.—each has its own local ﬂavor.

Bottom right: Joanne Chan

Hoops In The Sun

WorldMags.net

Dyckman

Then, in the early 2000s, streetball hit the mainstream. In ’99, a VHS mixtape, largely featuring a NYC-bred point guard named Rafer Alston—nicknamed Skip To My Lou—destroying opponents with his sick handles and crazy dribbling moves, made the rounds, enthralling anyone who could get their hands on a copy. The Skip Tape, as it became known, was also the ﬁrst volume of the AND 1 Mixtape. Over 100,000 copies of the Skip Tape were reportedly sold. The follow-up was AND 1 Mixtape Volume 2, with players like Main Event, Half Man Half Amazing and Headache—along with Skip, of course—putting on a dazzling display of highlightheavy basketball. The third volume featured the aforementioned characters along with a Philly streetballer named AO and a Southern cat named Hot Sauce. In 2001, AND 1 brought this group of streetballers across the country—dubbing it The AND 1 Mixtape Tour—and Volume 4 included footage of the four stops (NYC, L.A., DC

and Chicago) the tour made. Then ESPN picked up the AND 1 Mixtape Tour, documenting the group’s trips in a show that aired on ESPN2. Once ESPN began airing the show, it was official: Streetball was officially everywhere. Kids watched the show and practiced specific moves made by their favorite players, with guys like Hot Sauce, Skip To My Lou and AO often replacing NBA players as the childhood heroes of a whole generation. “I think that basketball itself was really, really popular at the time, and I think people were just looking for something that was different,” says Grayson “The Professor” Boucher, who joined the tour in ’03. “I think people are drawn to the highlight-aspect of a basketball game. People get the loudest at games, besides when they’re close, during crossovers or exciting dunks and things of that nature. That was so captivating, and hip-hop was so popular at the time, and this was hip-hop mixed with basketball. AND 1

WorldMags.net

The late Earl “The Goat” Manigault (l) with James “Fly” Williams.

SL AMONLINE .COM 57

WorldMags.net

brought it to everybody’s city, which made it like a lifestyle thing. The West Coast could experience it, the South could experience it—places that weren’t accustomed to streetball.” The show adopted a competition format, where one player would join the bus in each city, and at the end of the show, one add-on would stick with the tour permanently. That’s how The Professor, a 5-10, 155-pound kid from Oregon without a real chance to make the NBA, was able to join—and become a legitimate household name. In the mid-’00s, the streetball craze hit full blast. EA Sports created NBA Street, a streetball video game; Midway’s

NBA Ballers did the same but included only one-on-one gameplay. AND 1 clothing was everywhere. High schoolers around the country dreamed of joining the tour. “[Previously,] people didn’t even know that that type of basketball was out there,” Boucher says. “I know I didn’t. But I don’t know if Middle America, mainstream America—unless you had been in like DC or Harlem or certain places—knew that there was a basketball style with that kind of energy even out there. So I think AND 1 put that on the mainstream and broke down a lot of walls.” When ESPN and ESPN2 stopped airing the show in the

“I think streetball has grown to the point where they’re honing their skills—they’re becoming more fundamentally sound.” —SM I L E Y

late ’00s, streetball faded from the mainstream consciousness some, and then, in 2011, with a little help from the lack of an NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement, it popped again. As the lockout dragged on into what should’ve been the 201112 season, NBA players hit the streetball circuit in full force. KD led the way, making stops at the Goodman League, Drew League, Dyckman, Rucker and others. But it wasn’t only that Durant showed up; it was what he did after he stepped on the court: 48 at the CP3 Foundation All-Star Game. And 50 at a Drew vs Goodman game. And 66 at the Rucker, which was documented by a YouTube video entitled “Kevin Durant Catches Fire in Harlem,” which has 5.5 million views to date. And it wasn’t just KD. Kobe played at The Drew League, dro a buzzer-beating game-winner over James Harden. Brandon Jennings and Michael Beasley were everywhere. LeBron, Melo and Chris Paul all played in charity games. NBA players returned to their home arenas when the NBA and NBPA ﬁnally made nice, but streetball hasn’t gone anywhere. Sites like Ballislife

and HoopMixtape continue to document the summer circuit— which works well, because a game’s highlight package can fit perfectly into a three-minute vid—while sneaker companies like Reebok, Nike and AND 1 continue to sponsor leagues and parks all over the States. Hit any park, on any day, throughout the summer (or even during the colder months, if you want to find the real hoopheads), and the staying power of streetball is beyond obvious. The level of play may be different from what we’ve witnessed in years’ past, but according to Dino Smiley, that’s a good thing: “I think as of today, streetball has grown to the point where they’re honing their skills—they’re becoming more fundamentally sound,” he says, proudly. “They still have a swagger of the playground in them, but now these leagues are becoming more pro-level style leagues. From the officiating to the rules, it’s becoming more NBA style because these guys are getting there. So now it’s changed a bit—it used to just be wide-open, one-on-one, everybody does things for the ‘Oooh’ and ‘Aaah.’ Now it’s come to developing your game.”

Chosen League

58 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

EBC

WorldMags.net

60 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

PIONEERS

ALWAYS WILLING TO DO THINGS WITH A UNIQUE TWIST, REEBOK HOLDS DEAR TO ITS TITLE OF THE ORIGINAL BLACKTOP BRAND. BY AB E SCHWADRON NBA basketball features the best players on the planet, thousands of fans in attendance and millions more watching at home. It is, by deﬁnition, hoops on the highest level. But with chartered planes, catered pre-game meals and corporate sponsorships, it won’t ever match the raw bravado of the outdoor game, which has a unique language and distinct culture unto itself. Nah, basketball’s street lexicon has a ﬂavor you can only taste when you’re pouring sweat onto an asphalt court on a scorching 100 degree day in August, scraping your knees diving for loose balls. Because if you lose, you might not get another chance to run before it gets too dark to see the rim. And if you get embarrassed, well, you might not ever be able to show face at the park again. See, playground ball is different. There are no referees, no coaches. Oftentimes one-onone games are more important than running full. Talking shit is a requirement, and backing down is not an option. Streetball has its own vernacular, and the rules vary from court to court—if any exist at all. Make it on the summer concrete, and you’re a local celebrity. But don’t get picked up or have the courage to call “Next!” and you’ll never get in the game. Coming up in the neighborhood,

you could rattle off the names of the cats who dominated the Sunday morning pickup runs as easily as you could tick off the champion Bulls’ starting five. Maybe you even heard stories about legendary players and wondered if tales of their 50-, 60-, 70-point games were reality or mere myth. Yet in the early ’90s, before YouTube had crossovers going viral and sneaker companies were striking deals with streetballers, there was a void. A gap between the hardwood and the playground, between indoor and outdoor. Between the professional basketball player and the everyday hooper. Soon, with the help of movies like White Men Can’t Jump, players like Allen Iverson and cult phenomena like the AND 1 Mixtape series, streetball went worldwide. By the end of the 20th century, every sneaker brand on the planet was designing models specifically for the outdoor game. But Reebok was the first to recognize streetball culture as its own separate monster, launching the Blacktop line back in 1991. “When Reebok was getting into basketball in a bigger way in the early ’90s, Reebok was always trying to figure out different approaches to the game, because there were other brands in the game, and Reebok

had always had this irreverent approach to sports, doing things differently,” says Todd Krinsky, VP of Global Classics and Basketball at Reebok. “We started to talk to that kid who was playing outdoors four days a week. A lot of these guys didn’t play in high school or didn’t play in college, they just went out and played with their boys on a Saturday and Sunday. We were making product for that consumer.” Whereas buttoned-up, bythe-rules indoor players had a plethora of shoes to choose from when it came time to cop a new pair, outdoor warriors found themselves without basketball kicks that could stand up to the beating of concrete, asphalt, dirt or otherwise unwieldy surfaces for an entire summer. Blacktop was for outdoor ballers only, and it was a welcome introduction to the hoop shoe universe. It was not only a long-overdue nod to the streets but a practical product to play in, too. Reebok looked at the landscape of basketball—not just for the hardwood, but for, well, the blacktop, too—and realized that there was a slice of the market missing. No sneaker company had approached the outdoor game yet. The same brand that succeeded in the ’90s with technology like Hexalite, Pump and DMX, and designs like the

WorldMags.net

Kamikaze, Blast and Shaqnosis, set out to be the ﬁrst to touch streetball and do it with a level of authenticity that would resonate, not just imitate. “I think of Reebok really being the pioneers of speaking directly to that streetball consumer,” says Brian Lee, Global Director of Reebok Basketball. “We’ve always done a good job embracing the entire culture, not just the game. Outdoor basketball is something that deﬁnitely speaks to Reebok’s heritage.” Indeed, Reebok Senior Designer Judy Close recalls doing a lot of traveling around the country before Blacktop was birthed, watching kids play basketball outdoors on concrete courts. “Their shoes were wearing out,” says Close. “We took that as a mission to design the best, most durable shoe for the outdoor game.” As a result, Reebok created the Reebok Blacktop Pump Battleground and the Reebok Blacktop Boulevard, which featured aggressively tumbled leather, a double-stitch on the toe and a rubber bottom, plus wrapped the traditional herringbone of basketball shoes all the way up the side. Close says the design even took cues from Reebok’s “Preseason” football turf shoe, and with good reason—outdoors, on asphalt, players needed a gritSL AMONLINE .COM 61

WorldMags.net

tier shoe than had previously existed for basketball. Parks and playgrounds have natural divots, uneven areas and tricky spots on the court that only the loyal locals know about. To help ballers navigate the terrain and stay balanced, the Blacktop line put an emphasis on strong stability and lateral support, with a higher cut, thicker leathers and near-indestructible materials. Blacktops were, as Krinsky likes to put it, “regular basketball shoes on steroids.” Technically speaking, they were unbreakable. Not to mention the funky design, with elements like the exaggerated midsole, wild print on the webbings and the edgy Blacktop logo itself. The kicks were iconic for the period and remain crisp and ultra ’90sesque today. It was a new look for basketball shoes, and one that was swagger-jacked by other companies in the years that followed. Most importantly, Blacktop kicks had personality. When an outdoor baller picked up the shoe, it just made sense. “The shoes took on a different attitude. There was a different need for the player than indoor,” says Krinsky. “It was this different form of the game that brought its own culture and its own product need. Reebok was the first one to attack it.” With the Blacktop line, Reebok found lightning in a bottle—the shoes took off on the East Coast first, spreading through New York City, Philly and Boston before out to Chicago, the Midwest and later the West Coast. You could even find Blacktop sneakers on feet in China and Taiwan not too long after the initial stateside launch. Blacktop was, even in its infancy, a quality product packaged in a simple message, delivered in a memorable series of TV ads by none other than big-time comedian Sinbad: “This is where legends are made— outdoors.” “Let me tell you about the outdoor game,” Sinbad begins one of the original TV spots, set on a court outside an old brick project building, surrounded by a chain-link fence. “There ain’t no rules! How do you know when you’re out of bounds when you’re outdoors? Let me tell you. When you run into them 62 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

Dee Brown (middle) and friends Pump it up

Swizz Beatz

“WE HAVE A MISSION TO DESIGN THE BEST, MOST DURABLE SHOE FOR THE OUTDOOR GAME.”— CLO SE people on the bench, you went too far. When you run into that pole, you took a charge you shouldn’t have taken, you were stupid. That’s the outdoor game. That’s why the outdoor game is different from the indoor game. Pain, jack, I’m talking about pain.” Reebok championed streetball for its freedom of expression

and for its freedom from the frills of the organized game. Sinbad’s “Can’t take no charge outside!” philosophy from those early commercials embodied the Blacktop line to the fullest. There were, of course, other Blacktop models to hit shelves, but the OG Battleground and Boulevard were far and away the most iconic. It’s ﬁtting then, that

WorldMags.net

nearly 25 years later, with ’90s style coming full circle—even in the NBA, word to the dress code—Reebok is set to release retro editions of the Blacktop collection in originals colorways, along with a handful of updated, modernized interpretations of the line, drawing on original outdoor inspirations, plus cues from speciﬁc streetball Meccas like Rucker Park in Harlem. Reebok has plans to roll out Blacktop sneakers and apparel starting in May, much to the delight of sneakerheads of a certain age. See, Blacktop called “Next!” back in ’91, and hasn’t given up the court yet.

WorldMags.net

DEEPER THAN THAT

WHILE THE POPULARITY OF STREETBALL HAS EBBED AND FLOWED,

REEBOK HAS CONSISTENTLY STAYED IN THE GAME. Reebok and the Entertainer’s Basketball Classic have a long and storied history. And to hear Greg Marius, the EBC’s founder and CEO tell it, it was a match made in heaven. In 2002, Marius famously praised Reebok for, more than any other brand in basketball, keeping it real. “We are tired of other footwear companies ‘biting’ on the tournament and imitating the true Rucker Park experience,” he declared. More than a decade later, Marius stands by that statement. Reebok has given Rucker Park’s brain trust the freedom to design uniforms and the power to run nearly every aspect of the summer tournament. “A lot of cats call me like, ‘Yo Greg, how hard is it to get a sponsor?’” he explains. “Well, it’s hard because at the end of the day, you can say it’s about goodwill, it’s about this or that. But it’s really about how can you get a return on investment, and once you get that return, you’re out. Whereas with Reebok, it’s 50-50. That’s why I respect them so much.” Getting in with the Rucker at ground zero gave Reebok instant street cred, and as the brand gained traction in new areas, its sneakers took on an identity beyond the Classics line. Inspired by the way the streetball

64 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

Mecca has forever touched the people, by attracting pro ballers that kids in New York City might otherwise not be able to afford to watch live, Reebok continues to host current and former NBA stars at the Rucker on special occasions, including Shaq and Shawn Kemp this past summer alone. In fact, it took showing the Seattle Sonics legend’s old highlight reels on the video scoreboard for many in attendance at Kemp’s 2013 visit to the Rucker to recognize who he was, proving just how inaccessible the pro game has always been to a good chunk of the park’s faithful—and the extent of Reebok’s efforts to bridge the gap. It helped that Kemp brought along his most iconic signature sneaker, the Reebok Kamikaze II, which has suddenly become one of the hottest retro kicks at retail, thanks to a bold design and a bevy of ﬂy colorways. What’s been the key to the shoe’s recent success? In the words of Michael Bivins, founding member of R&B groups New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe, who’s been hooping since age 8: “Women make it ﬂy, guys know what to buy.” Greg Marius laughs, having just recounted the early ’90s story behind the birth of a multi-

decade relationship between Reebok and the EBC. “At that time, to be honest, Reebok didn’t understand what they had yet.” He remembers being invited to meet a brand exec during the album release party for Wu-Tang Clan’s debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) at Webster Hall in lower Manhattan, and making a handshake deal right there in the middle of the dance ﬂoor. As creation stories go, it’s hard to get more street than that. Of course, complicating things slightly was that this particular agreement made former Reebok sub-brand Above The Rim chief sponsor of the EBC. So two years later Reebok, having taken over ATR, had to convince Marius to re-sign, just days after the Godfather of Rucker Park had been this close to putting pen to paper with action sports apparel company No Fear. Marius was still skeptical, but agreed to reciprocate the loyalty Reebok had shown with that simple dap back in 1993. Lost amidst the hordes of happy hiphop revelers that night, Reebok had, in retrospect, pledged allegiance to what was about to become the most important outdoor basketball entity on the planet. And be it by foresight or fortune, Reebok’s decision to link up with Marius meant

WorldMags.net

shared responsibility in taking streetball to the top of sports and pop culture over the 15-plus years that followed. Back then, Reebok was eager to earn respect in the streets, but Marius still had his doubts about the brand’s ability to produce results. “They brought me up to Reebok and asked me what I thought about Allen Iverson. I said, Oh, that’s that dude,” he remembers. “They said, Do you think we can get him?” “I said, Hell no.” Given that Iverson had attended Georgetown—a Nike school whose head coach was on the Swoosh’s board of directors, for crying out loud— Marius’ reaction was echoed across the industry. But not so long after that conversation, Reebok inked The Answer to a sneaker contract. The EBC’s head honcho was impressed, but he’d beaten Reebok to the punch, because Iverson had already agreed to make an appearance at the famed New York court before he played a single game in the L. The coincidental synergy signaled a serendipitous start to the Reebok-EBC relationship. In the summer of ’96, AI arrived at Rucker Park to play for Puff Daddy’s infamous Bad Boy Records squad alongside Coney Island legend and fellow

Jerritt Clark/WireImage

BY AB E SCHWADRON

WorldMags.net

Dee Brown shows the Rucker Park faithful heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still got it.

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 65

Bivins

Marius, Kobe and Kacey Jones

NBA rookie PG-to-be Stephon Marbury. “Iverson said to me, ‘Oh shit, I ain’t never seen nothing like this,’” Marius says. “I remember the ﬁrst time I played out there, I couldn’t believe how many people came out to see the game,” Iverson recalls in the documentary The Blackout: Fat Joe vs. Jay-Z At The Rucker. “It wasn’t no out of bounds line, it was people’s feet. So if you made a shot or stumbled to the sideline or something, you fell on top of people. It might be harder to play out there than it is to play in The Garden.” Since teaming up with Reebok in the mid-’90s, there have been bumps in the road, ups and downs and even seasons with different title sponsors. But as the EBC has ﬂourished—with on66 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

“IT IS IMPORTANT TO PARTNER WITH THE RIGHT PEOPLE AND EVENTS. GREG MARIUS AND MIKE BIVINS ARE A PART OF THE REEBOK FAMILY— WE GET EACH OTHER.”—B. LEE court appearances by every NBA star from Kobe Bryant to Kevin Durant, and off it by every celebrity from Nas to Bill Clinton—the tournament has always found itself coming back to Reebok. Michael Bivins is no stranger to streetball. Coming up in Boston, his New Edition team helped usher in the era of the Celebrity All-Star Game, ﬁrst playing

against local radio DJs, the WBLS Sure Shots. Later, Bivins started taking his teams on the road, traveling down to New York City to do battle with the East Coast’s best. Back in the day, he even ran at the Rucker with future NBA point guard Jamaal Tinsely and Brooklyn blacktop legend Ed “Booger” Smith. What separates the outdoor game from indoor gymnasiums

WorldMags.net

is the atmosphere. Which like any good party, as Bivins points out, requires a strong female presence. “What the fuck is a streetball game without no girls?” he exclaims. “If it ain’t no hot chicks in the motherfucking park, shit is whack. So when they come in with the shorts and the little dresses and the t-shirts all curled up, those colorful Reebok sneakers, you be like, That is street! That’s the streets!” Bivins’ passion for the game led him to push Marius and Reebok for a chance to set up his own Rucker-like tournament at Boston’s Derby Ramsey Park. In 2003, Reebok came aboard the Biv20 Tournament, which has expanded to host teams from Boston, NYC, Detroit, Philly, New Jersey, Atlanta and Dallas over the years, including appearances by God Shammgod, Anderson Hunt and countless other big names with even bigger games. The 2013 Biv20 took on added significance in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. With the city basically shut down to outside events, Bivins had to plead with local officials to get the tournament up and running. “I had to go to the police headquarters. I’ve never been to police headquarters in my life,” says Bivins. “I had to say, Look, I’m here to heal, I’m not here to put any more fire on things. Please, the city, in the hood where I come from, needs an event for healing. Let the black community have an opportunity to get out and enjoy basketball for free. Reebok supported me, and we were able to bring the Tournament back.” Bivins hopes to expand the tournament in the years to come, inviting players and teams from across the country to get back in touch with the outdoor game. So does Reebok. “It is extremely important to partner with the right people and events that speak to the culture, have an impact on the neighborhood and represent what Reebok is all about,” says Brian Lee, Global Director of Reebok Basketball. “Greg and Mike are a part of the Reebok family—we get each other.” Without a doubt, Reebok understands what they have now. “We are the culture,” Bivins says. “Our marriage is perfect.”

Courtesy of Greg Marius

WorldMags.net

Rick Stewart/Getty Images

Caption

68 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

BUILDING BLOCKS

THOUGH THEY GAINED FAME FOR DISPLAYING THEIR OTHERWORLDLY TALENTS ON THE HARDWOOD,

DOMINIQUE WILKINS AND MUGGSY BOGUES,

LIKE MANY OF THEIR NBA PEERS, LEARNED HOW TO PLAY OUTSIDE. BY T Z V I T W E R S K Y Basketball. We know, in an organized sense, where it ends. It ends, for an unlucky group, when they finish junior high and still haven’t had a growth spurt to push them past 5-1. It ends, for a far different group, when they hit 11th grade and still haven’t moved past JV. It ends, for a good group, when they graduate high school and hang their varsity uniform up for a final time. It ends, for an even better group, when they collect their college diplomas and leave the madness of March for the work force. It ends, for a great group, in the late 20s and early 30s when NBA front offices stop calling and even the best agents can’t keep them balling. It ends, for the best group, with a farewell tour of a season, a Fan Appreciation Night and a letter, five years later, from the Naismith Hall of Fame. We know, in an organized sense, where it ends. We also know, and this is much more important, where it all began and where it all will never end. The blacktop. A perfect example. Over the course of a four-

team, 14-year NBA career that spanned from 1987-2001, Muggsy Bogues averaged 7.7 ppg, 7.6 apg, 1.5 spg and only 1.6 turnovers per game. Everyone knows those basic-if-not-speciﬁc, impressive-if-not-All-Star digits, and everyone knows that those numbers are made even more impressive by the fact that Bogues only measured in at a mere 5-3. What everyone might not know, though, is that for every one of the 908 regular season and Playoff games where Bogues wore an NBA uniform, for every one of the 26, 067 minutes the mighty mite played in the League, he spent exponentially more time outdoors getting his game to that level. “In the park,” says Bogues, “that’s where it all starts.” It kicked off when he was just a 9-year-old boy, when, as Bogues recalls, “the ball was just as big as me.” The little native of East Baltimore, a harder than hardscrabble section of Maryland, would take a rock and head down to play at the local park. For the ﬁrst while, because of his diminutive height and assumed dearth of skills, no

one would pick Bogues for their team in the survival-of-thefittest atmosphere. “I didn’t have that type of reputation,” remembers Bogues. “I was the last one to get chosen, and that was infuriating. But I knew when I got my chance, something was going to happen.” While Bogues waited in the shadows for his turn, the adolescent would watch the older players play. He would pick apart their games and pick parts that he wanted to add to his own game. Knowing that his dad stood 5-6 and his mother 4-11, Bogues didn’t dream of dunking like the high-flyers or playing in the paint like the big, beefy guys. Instead, he worked on honing his handles, realizing that his proximity to the ground and low center of gravity would work to his advantage. He also worked, conversely, on his defense. Specifically, on positioning his long arms and quick feet for the steal. Years later, Bogues credits dribbling on the cracked concrete for his uncanny 4.69:1 assist-to-turnover ratio in the NBA. He also brags about how defense was his first calling card on the streets.

WorldMags.net

“I’d steal the ball at half court,” says Bogues. “I didn’t try to embarrass anyone, but that was my strength. That made me feel good, especially knowing I wasn’t in the first 10.” As he got older but didn’t exactly grow up, Bogues’ game got better and he earned himself a rep. The point guard would travel all over, representing Lafayette Projects, and battle the best in Baltimore. Crowds would holler and snicker when they saw him pull up to the park, a shrub standing amongst a forest of tree-sized friends, but Bogues and Co. would usually leave with the win and the last laugh. If you Google his name, you can easily find out that Bogues would go on to have an historic career at Dunbar High. You can find out that he followed that up with a strong four years at Wake Forest and then 14 seasons in the NBA. What you won’t find out, though, is that his fearless attitude, one that allowed for thousands of forays to the hoop amidst men with almost two feet on him, was birthed on the blacktop. You won’t find out that he would return to East Baltimore every summer and refine his game on cracked concrete. And SL AMONLINE .COM 69

you won’t ﬁnd out that, despite playing for pay in arenas around the nation, the park was always the place he considered his basketball home. “It’s summertime. It’s dark and the lights are on,” says Bogues. “The park is packed, and the atmosphere is pure. That’s real. That gave me a sense of appreciation for my hobby. It propelled me and prepared me for the rest of my life.” Be real. There’s nothing like playing under the bright lights in a jam-packed NBA arena. There’s nothing like playing on freshly polished hardwood for 48 minutes every few nights and collecting a check with mad digits every few weeks. There’s not a single NBA player who will argue otherwise and keep a straight face. There’s also, on the real, not a single NBA player who would have made it to that point if not for playing under the bright light of the sun in a fenced-in neighborhood park, where the court is crumbling concrete and the only checks collected are if you shot for dollars before the runs started. Just ask Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins. “I didn’t hone my game a little bit on the blacktop, I honed it a whole lot,” says The Human Highlight Film. “That’s where I learned, and that’s where you get your game. “Playing playground basketball,” he continues, “if you didn’t win or if you weren’t good enough, you didn’t get back on the court. There’s nothing like playing basketball, playing basketball, playing basketball.” Wilkins played for 15 seasons in the NBA. He’s best remembered for a run from 1982 to 1993, when he carried the Atlanta Hawks on his back and lit up the League. During that stretch, Wilkins averaged 26.4 ppg and 6.9 rpg, many of which came on drives and dunks, offensive re70 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

bounds and putbacks, post-ups and twisting layups, fadeaways and, well, more dunks. Wilkins laughs at how easy it is for someone else to list his accolades. After all, he had to ball in the NBA to earn those numbers. And more importantly, he had to sweat outside on hot Baltimore, MD, summer days to learn the skills that befuddled defenders. “We played all the time,” says Wilkins. “Especially when I was in high school and college, we played in the summer all the time. That’s when we worked on our game. That’s all we did. Sometimes I would leave home at 9, 10 a.m. and not get home til 6 in the evening. That’s how much we played. We played ﬁveon-ﬁve. We got a bunch of our guys, and just played.” This continued when Wilkins made the League. In the summer, like Bogues, he would go home to his corner of Baltimore, get in the gym with his guys, and tune up his game with good, old-fashioned streetball. “That’s where real ballplayers are made,” says Wilkins. “I’m talking real street basketball, not AND 1 and all that stuff. I’m talking real street basketball.” Wilkins says that he focused on developing areas of his game that he needed to work on while playing streetball. He says that as a result he increased his menagerie of moves and became harder to guard. He says that, like the generation of NBA players before him, outdoor work as a kid in the summer is what made him into the hardwood player he was as an adult in the winter. “If you look at a lot of the greats from years past, everyone of them will give you the same story,” Wilkins says. “Playground basketball is where it’s at. That’s where it was, and that’s how you learned the game.” That’s where it all begins, and that’s where ball never ends.

Greg Forwerck/NBAE via Getty Images, Tim DeFrisco/Getty Images

WorldMags.net “PLAYGROUND BASKETBALL IS WHERE IT’S AT. THAT’S WHERE IT WAS, AND THAT’S HOW YOU LEARNED THE GAME.”— N IQ U E

Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 71

WorldMags.net

CONCRETE HEAT

T he Reebo k Bla ck to p line is b a c k , a nd s o i s o ut d o o r ho o p s . I m a ge s To m M edvedich

Twenty-three years after introducing the Blacktop, the first made-for-outdoors basketball sneaker, Reebok is relaunching the groundbreaking kick this spring and summer with a slew of OG and updated silhouettes. From left: Reebok Blacktop Avenue August 1 (red), $130, and July 1 (blue), $100; Reebok Blacktop Boulevard, May 9, $100.

72 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 73

WorldMags.net

74 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

If you want people to respect your game, you have to shine in the heat of summer. With the retro Blacktop on your side, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be ready to do just that. Clockwise from bottom left: Reebok Blacktop Battleground May 9, $125, Reebok Blacktop Battleground August 8, $125, Reebok Blacktop Battleground August 8, $125, Reebok Blacktop Retaliate August 8, $115, Reebok Blacktop Retaliate June 1, $125, Reebok Blacktop Retaliate June 1, $125

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 75

WorldMags.net

Life is short, and the line of cats shouting â&#x20AC;&#x153;nextâ&#x20AC;? is long. Some things never change, or let you down, like the Reebok Blacktop Battleground, $125, May 9.

76 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

Joshua Wolfe

Now that youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve read up on blacktop histoy, and seen the new Blacktops, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only one thing left to do: Get out to your local court and play ball.

78 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 79

WorldMags.net

LEGENDARY WorldMags.net

ON SALE NOW! WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

STEPHEN CURRY, WARRIORS

Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

JOAKIM NOAH, BULLS

WorldMags.net

Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

82 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

THOUGH HE WAS RARELY THE BIGGEST PLAYER ON THE FLOOR, WAS ALMOST ALWAYS THE MOST INTENSE. BY THOMAS GOLIANOPOULOS ll the superstar centers of the 1990s had their trademark moves, their deﬁning characteristics, that certain je ne sais quoi. Hakeem Olajuwon had the Dream Shake. Patrick Ewing had the fadeaway. Shaquille O’Neal was stronger than the rest of his peers. David Robinson was more agile. Alonzo Mourning didn’t have touch like Hakeem or Patrick and wasn’t as physically gifted as Shaq or the Admiral. His thing, his greatest attribute, was his heart, his grit and his passion.

It made the Chesapeake (VA) Indian River product an All-American at Georgetown, the No. 2 pick in the ’92 NBA Draft, a seventime All-Star, a two-time Defensive Player of the Year, an Olympic Gold medalist, and ﬁnally, after years of Playoff heartbreak, an NBA Champion with the Miami Heat. Mourning’s greatest accomplishment though, was his comeback from a life-threatening kidney disease, which later led to a kidney transplant. Now healthy, Mourning is the VP of Player Programs and

Development for the Heat. We caught up with Mourning recently to discuss all the highs and lows from his life in basketball: the rumored rivalry with Larry Johnson, the very real rivalry with the NY Knicks, his illness, his Championship and the state of NBA big men today. Let’s say this: Dwight and Roy, you’ve been warned.

SLAM: Who first put the ball in your hands? AM: My dad, but it didn’t work out too well at ﬁrst. I was awkward and clumsy. I was 6-4

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 83

“ I WOULD BE THE BEST CENTER IN THE LEAGUE TODAY, BY FAR. IT’S ONLY REALLY THREE CENTERS IN THE LEAGUE—DWIGHT, HIBBERT AND MARC GASOL—AND

.”

as a seventh grader and didn’t start—that was embarrassing. I said, I’m going to get better. That determination developed over the years. It was innate, a part of my DNA. SLAM: Playing college ball at Georgetown, how important was coach John Thompson to your development? AM: It was about me developing into a man. He was more of a father ﬁgure than basketball coach. He cared about his players like they were sons. He made me realize that basketball was a temporary thing. He also stressed the importance of education. He had coaches waiting to see if your ass came to class. If you missed class, everyone ran. Coaches don’t do that shit no more, man. A lot of these coaches don’t give a damn if their kids go to class because a lot of these kids are leaving after their ﬁrst or second year. 84 SL AMONLINE .COM

SLAM: Then you had a great rookie season for the Charlotte Hornets highlighted by a buzzer beater to beat the Celtics in the first round. AM: That shot was meant for Dell Curry and everybody knew it, but they weren’t expecting me to pull up and shoot it. I caught that joker and let it ﬂy, brother. SLAM: Why didn’t it work out in Charlotte? AM: Management. You had management that really didn’t understand the importance of longevity, and when you have a team that talented making an investment in a group of guys that was on the verge of developing a really solid chemistry. I’m not going to bad talk anybody but I had serious run-ins with [then-Hornets owner] George Shinn and the rest of the Charlotte Hornets management. I was truly willing to accept less money to stay there but they were

telling me they didn’t want to make the investment so they traded me. SLAM: There were rumors you clashed with Larry Johnson, too. AM: That had nothing to do with it. I want to dispel that rumor. LJ and I weren’t hanging out together off the court, but on the court we battled together, passed each other the ball, helped each other out on defense, did all the things that teammates did. It came down to George Shinn basically telling me I wasn’t worth the money my agent was asking for. I ended up leaving and getting more money somewhere else. I could’ve gone to three other teams. I had a choice to go to the Lakers, the Knicks and play with Patrick [Ewing], or the Pacers, but I went to Miami simply because Patrick told me on the phone to go down there and play for Pat Riley. He said that he was a great coach and would get the best out of you. I said, You don’t want me to come up to New York and play with you, man? I can be the 4, you can be the 5. He’s like, “No, go play for Pat Riley.” I was on the phone with him and John Thompson and both told me to play for Pat Riley. SLAM: And, of course, the Knicks and Heat became archrivals. How much did that have to do with Coach Riley leaving the Knicks for the Heat? AM: I think it had all to do with it. That rivalry was deﬁned by Pat leaving New York. If Pat wasn’t in the equation, there wouldn’t have been a rivalry. He created the culture of these two different teams. SLAM: You played them in the Playoffs three straight years. Let’s run through each series. To this day, Knicks fans are mad over the suspensions to Ewing, Johnson, Allan Houston, John Starks and Charlie Ward in the 1997 Eastern Conference Semifinals. AM: Regardless of the scenario, we knew the rules and if you started ﬁghting, you’d get kicked out. Guys made decisions that were detrimental to the outcome of that series. SLAM: Then in the 1998 series, you were suspended for fighting LJ, but it’s remembered more for the image of Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy hanging on your leg. What kind of memories does that bring back? AM: It was quite comical, but number one I was hurt by it because I let my team down. I let my emotions get the best of me. It made me understand that in order to be a great player for your team, you got to control your emotions. Mine totally got the best of me and it affected the outcome of our season. SLAM: The 1999 series must have been so painful. With Michael Jordan retired, it was probably the best chance for that Heat team to win a title. AM: Yup, it was. We would have beat San Antonio that year. I think we were a better defensive team than San Antonio. SLAM: Some fans hated the low-scoring games of that era… AM: I didn’t care man. It was all about Ws with me, bruh. I don’t care how we got them. We used to win ugly, but we won.

WorldMags.net

Andy Messerschmidt/NBAE via Getty Images, Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

WorldMags.net

SLAM: Did you like playing the villain? AM: I didn’t mind wearing that title. I didn’t mind that at all. SLAM: After winning the Gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, you were diagnosed with your kidney ailment. Did your family ask you to retire? AM: I had a lot of my friends and family members telling me to retire. I listened, but if I didn’t follow my heart, I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in today. I made the decision to come back and play and that gave me the opportunity to win a Championship. SLAM: Throughout your recovery, you cited Lance Armstrong as a source of inspiration. You even wore a LIVESTRONG bracelet. How do you feel knowing what we all know now about his performance enhancing drug usage back then? AM: I’m nobody’s judge, but he decided to take the path he decided to take. But he was an example for a lot of people. For him to overcome testicular cancer and get back on that bike and do what he did, he inspired a lot of people. Regardless of how he did it, he still inspired a lot of people. [Laughs] He had a quote: “Pain is temporary but if you quit, it’ll last forever.” I carried that with me, mentally. I knew that if he could do it, then I could deﬁnitely do it. So it kind of motivated me. SLAM: The Heat’s 2006 Championship team was led by Dwyane Wade and Shaq and had so many strong veterans such as yourself, Gary Payton, Jason Williams and Antoine Walker. The motto was 15 STRONG. Was that job Coach Riley’s crowning achievement? AM: Pat always found a way to motivate his players to take that next step. He tried to erase any doubt or question and bring everybody’s mental approach to that main thing and that was just to win. Whatever it took for him to get us to think that way, he did it. Him putting together 15 Strong for the Playoffs, us buying into what we needed to do to come out on top, that’s what it was all about, just everybody doing their job making the right plays under the leadership of DWade, Shaq and those guys. There was so much controversy with the ofﬁciating in Game 4 of the Finals. Regardless of if they gave us free throws or not, Dirk [Nowitzki] had free throws to put us away but he didn’t. He missed the free throws. He could have won it for them but he didn’t do it. They can whine and complain all they want, but we won the Championship. SLAM: You retired in 2008, and it seems like the game has changed so much in that short time. Just recently, Kobe said that it’s too finesse. Do you agree? AM: I can’t question David Stern. They want to take the aggressive nature, any violence, they want to take that perception away from the game. They want high-scoring, fun, up-and-down games. They don’t want those knock down, drag out Knicks games anymore because I guess, they feel like it’s not attractive for the sport. Even though I felt like when the Knicks and Heat played,

it felt like the world stopped and everybody was watching us play. We had a following, a global following of people for Knicks-Heat, people wanted to pay top dollar and there were ﬁghts in the stands in Madison Square Garden and in Miami. They don’t want that anymore. I totally understand where they going with it. That’s the one thing always evident in life, change. SLAM: There’s a dearth of big men these days. How would you fare against today’s centers? AM: I would be the best center in the League, by far. If I was playing now, I would be better than Dwight [Howard] and Roy Hibbert because of my mentality. It’s only really three centers in the League, really. There’s Dwight, Hibbert and Marc Gasol. SLAM: Your demeanor on the court was the opposite of Dwight Howard’s. I feel like you would try to eat him alive out there. AM: Ugh, oh my God, yeah. The mentality has changed tremendously. Back when I was playing, there were like 15 good centers in the League. Night in and night out, I had to get ready. I had Rik Smits, Patrick, David Robinson, Hakeem, Shaq, Vlade Divac, McHale, Robert Parish, the list goes on.

SLAM: Who was your toughest cover? AM: Hakeem, by far, man. SLAM: Have you seen Joel Embiid from Kansas? AM: Oh man, Embiid is nice. That young fellow, if he gets with the right team and right coaches, someone to groom him, he can be an amazing center. SLAM: How is your health? AM: My health is great, thank God. I get lab work done twice a year and see my doctor quarterly. I just have to keep exercising, taking my meds on time and doing the things I need to do. SLAM: You’re on the Hall of Fame ballot later this year. Are you a Hall Famer? AM: [Laughs] You know what, I think I had a decent career. If that’s looked at in other people’s eyes as a Hall of Fame career, then I deserve to be there. Unfortunately after my eighth year in the League, I developed this rare kidney disorder, which slowed my career down somewhat. But up until then, I was a 20 and 10 guy with 3 blocks. From ’92 all the way up to 2000, I was 20, 10 and 3 blocks a game. Those are pretty decent numbers. S

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 85

THE FAN

WorldMags.net

CHECK OUT HOW PEOPLE REP THEIR TEAMS. WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S YOUR STYLE? Fashion trends come and go, but one thing that will never go out of style is supporting your squad. And as the weather gets warmer, that means one thing: the Finals. Get ready for the best basketball of the year with The Finals Pack from Mitchell & Ness. With caps for all the teams who made it to the Finals from â&#x20AC;&#x2122;90-99, this is your chance to represent for the greats who made it to the end of June. To get your own authentic NBA gear, head to NBAStore.com or mitchellandness.com.

86 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

S L A M O N L I N E .C O M 87

KICKS ON COURT

WorldMags.net

88 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

SECOND SEASON P owe r i nt o t he P l a yo f fs. Ima ge To m Me d ve d i c h Clockwise from top left: Reebok Q96 Cross Examine Out now, $115 adidas D Rose 4.5 Out now, $140 Nike KD 6 Elite Return Out now, $200 Under Armour Anatomix Spawn “Human Torch” Stephen Curry PE; Out now, $120 AND 1 Aqua Low Out now, $100 Jordan XX8 SE May 1, $150 Nike LeBron 11 Elite Return Out now, $275

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 89

KICKS OFF COURT

WorldMags.net

adidas Originals Stan Smith Out now, $85

adidas Originals ZX Zero Out now, $140

adidas Key Trainer Out now, $130

Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Premium Out now, $120

Converse CONS KA-II Out now, $90

Jordan VI Out now, $170

Jordan I Low Nouveau Out now, $125

Jordan I Mid Nouveau Out now, $135

New Balance ML574 Out now, $80

Nike Air Force 1 Downtown Out now, $135

Pony x Atmos NY State of Mind “Big Apple” April 18, $95

Pony x WISH Year of the Pony “Good Fortune” April 18, $150

Under Armour SpeedForm Apollo Out now, $100

90 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

KICKS EXTRA

WorldMags.net

Second Dream

AFTER LIVING THE DREAM FOR OVER A DECADE IN THE NBA, SNEAKERHEAD BOBBY SIMMONS NOW OWNS AND OPERATES ONE OF THE HOTTEST SNEAKER BOUTIQUES IN THE WINDY CITY.

Imagine growing up in Chicago, idolizing Jordan, wearing his shoes and then being drafted by MJ—not only to play for him but with him. Such was the case for Bobby Simmons, who played at Simeon High and later DePaul, before beginning his NBA career next to MJ on the Wizards. Beyond sharing a locker room, Bobby and Mike also shared a love for sneakers and, perhaps more importantly, a shoe size. “We both played in 14s,” Simmons says, smiling. “So I have stuff that nobody has.” He ain’t lying. Simmons, 33,

played for ﬁve NBA teams from 2001-12. And, had he come along ﬁve years later, he would have been the toast of sneaker blogs given the collection of Js he played in. But after winning the NBA’s Most Improved Player award with the Clippers in ’05, Simmons missed the entire 2006-07 season with an ankle injury and didn’t know if he’d play again. That’s when he began formulating a plan for life after basketball. “I started to think about things I had a passion for, things I would never get tired of,” he

remembers, leaning back in a chair in his ofﬁce at SuccezZ, Jordan XIII Breds on his feet. “For me, it was sneakers.” So he hooked up with wellknown Chicago sneakerhead LaVelle “VDot” Sykes, who brought two decades of fashion retail experience to the table— and whom Simmons always copped kicks from in his DePaul days—and in June ’08, SuccezZ opened its doors on Michigan Avenue, near Soldier Field. Today, SuccezZ is thriving as one of the city’s go-to sneaker boutiques. Players with

Courtesy of SuccezZ; Courtesy of British Knights

BK GO HARD

Chicago connects like Tyson Chandler, Andre Iguodala, Shawn Marion, Antoine Walker, Tim Hardaway, Juwan Howard, and Simmons’ former DePaul teammate Quentin Richardson all shop at SuccezZ, not to mention the occasional visit from rappers like Stalley, Fabolous and Young Jeezy. “The sneaker culture is amazing here,” Simmons says, with credit due to his legendary mentor. “Chicago is a retro town. Jordan retros are the most elite sneaker you can ﬁnd.”—A B E SC H WA D R O N

After going dormant for a time, British Knights is on the comeback trail.

Thanks to commercials featuring Kool Moe Dee and MC Hammer, catchphrases like “How Ya Like Me Now!” and a sponsorship deal with Nets forward Derrick Coleman, British Knights were a staple for streetwise, fashion-forward kids back in the day. And now, BK is back. British Knights brought in Los Angeles-based designer Darren “Dr.” Romanelli, aka DRx, whose list of style revitalization projects includes work with Converse and Coca-Cola, to help breathe life back into a sleeping giant. DRx specializes in linking retro flavor with future cool, and by using art as a vehicle to re-introduce British Knights to the next generation, he’s helping the brand connect back to its shining moment in the ’80s, when BK was a hood favorite. “For a minute, Coke was really impactful in the streets, and then it fizzled out,” Romanelli explains. “There are a lot of similarities with BK.” The goal for BK’s re-launch is “resurrecting those memories but flipping them a little bit so it makes sense for today,” according to DRx, who is putting his own spin on classic kicks like the Control. As for execution, the brand began with a limited release in March, exclusively at specialty boutiques around the country, like Kith (NYC), UNKNWN (Miami) and Burn Rubber (Detroit). And don’t be surprised to see British Knights on the feet of rappers like Danny Brown and Action Bronson—after all, BK’s mantra for 2014 is “Artists are the new athletes.” That said, they’ve also promised a return of the DCs, because basketball is undeniably a part of the brand’s DNA.—AS

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 91

WorldMags.net

CENTER OF ATTENTION TEXAS BIG MAN MYLES TURNER MIGHT BE THE BEST PLAYER IN THE 2014 CLASS. AND HE’S ABOUT TO MAKE ONE COLLEGE FAN BASE VERY, VERY HAPPY.

WORDS RYAN JONE S ★ P O RT R A IT S T REVO R PAU L H U S

yles Turner is the guy everyone is waiting on. A consensus top-10 player in the ’14 class—and, in the eyes of many, the nation’s No. 3 overall prospect behind fellow big men Cliff Alexander and Jahlil Okafor—Turner is pretty much the only highimpact recruit in the country not to have announced his college choice. He’s got his reasons, including a desire to see how various recruiting classes shape up, and wanting more time to develop relationships with the coaches doing the recruiting. But there’s another reason that comes as a pleasant surprise. “My teammates are like family to me,” he says, “and

92 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

with all these coaches coming through here, it’s a chance to get them some looks as well.” To hear Trinity (TX) High coach Mark Villines tell it, that selﬂessness is one of Turner’s deﬁning traits. “He could’ve very easily left Trinity by now, and he’s been offered all kinds of things to go to one of the big prep programs,” Villines says. “He probably would’ve faced a little bit better talent, but he chose to stay here and do something great. I think that’s indicative of his whole career.” That career wrapped up last month, leaving fans of seven programs—Arizona, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio State, Oklahoma State and Texas rounded out his list in late

March—to wait on Turner’s decision, which he was expecting to make in late April after the McDonald’s, Hoop Summit and Jordan All-American runs. The winner of the Turner sweepstakes will get a versatile 6-11, 235-pounder who has his oncourt priorities in order. “I feel like I’m a real defensive presence—shot blocking, being able to defend the rim, is one of my key attributes that I pride myself on,” he says. “Offensively, I can stretch defenses, but also mix it up down low. I try to be kind of like Serge Ibaka, real vocal, a defensive anchor who can also stretch the defense, and also like LaMarcus Aldridge with that face-up game.” Based on his skill set, and

WorldMags.net

his upside—he just turned 18 in March—such comparisons and thoughts of an NBA future are highly realistic. As such, you can’t blame Turner for being aware that, within a year of his college announcement, he’ll likely be weighing the choice of whether to enter the NBA Draft. Like every kid at his level, he’s also aware of talk that the NBA’s one-and-done rule might soon be a two-anddone rule. He’s not a fan. “You never want to rush anything, and I see what the logic is,” he says. “But some people need to support their family. In my opinion, if you’re ready to go, you need to go.” Adds his coach, Villines, “When people like Coach K tell you, ‘This kid’s a one and done, two and done at the most,’ you’re thinking, really? But enough people say it, and you see his potential and the things he has in his arsenal, you start to believe it.” Turner will clear that defender when the time comes. For now, he can look back on a tremendous prep career, proud—and still motivated—at his place among his peers. “Personally, I kind of like being the No. 2 player in the class,” says Turner, who holds down that spot in the ESPN 100. “It means I still have something to work for. Honestly, when I was unranked, I liked that even more. But being No. 2, it has its advantages. It means you’re still out there trying to prove you’re better than everybody.”

WorldMags.net

“Offensively, I can stretch defenses but also mix it up down low.” WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 93

WorldMags.net

MERRY LAND DION WILEY

Oxon Hill (MD) Potomac, 6-4, G

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS…

RASHAD VAUGHN Las Vegas (NV) Findlay Prep, 6-5, G

As the top uncommitted guard in the nation for the Class of 2014, Rashad Vaughn’s college announcement this past February had the recruiting world’s eyes on him. Choosing between three historic programs in UNC, Kansas and Kentucky, and two rising ones in Iowa State and UNLV, the 6-5 shooting guard’s final five were all legit. But after relocating to Nevada to play at renowned Findlay Prep, after transferring from New Hope (MN) Robbinsdale Cooper following his junior year, Vaughn ultimately decided to stay in Vegas. “I kept going back and forth and didn’t know until the day I was going to announce,” says Vaughn, who averaged over 20 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists per on a stacked squad. “But with Coach [Dave] Rice and the relationship we built from the start, and also just the blueprint that he showed for me, plus the relationship I already had with Dwayne [Morgan] and Goodluck [Okonoboh], I just felt we could do something special.” Something special like reaching the Final Four? That hasn’t happened for the Rebels since 1991—five years before Vaughn was even born. But with three top-25 prospects arriving in the fall, and two solid starters returning in Khem Birch and Roscoe Smith, the chances of the program reaching a stage they haven’t seen in over two decades—since their own head coach led them there as a player—is as high as it’s ever been. “We pretty much came together to help Coach Rice get back there,” says Vaughn of his future head coach, who led the Rebels to its lone national title in 1990. “We just want to bring UNLV back to where it needs to be.”— FR A N K LY N CA L L E

94 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

Kelly Kline Under Armour (2); Ahmed Klink, Dennis Victory, Kelly Kline

It’s hard to win State in any of the 50, let alone in the hoops hotbed of Maryland. That’s why it’s extra impressive that Dion Wiley, a native of Oxon Hill, was able to lead Potomac High to a 2A state championship. Fittingly, the ﬁnal game was played at the Comcast Center, home to the University of Maryland, where Wiley will be heading next year to play for the Terps. “Coach [Mark] Turgeon recruited me himself,” says Wiley. “He was there from day one. We have a great recruiting class coming in and I just hope to make an impact as soon as I get there.” Wiley certainly made the most of the past year, becoming a more vocal leader on the court while sharpening his already dead-eye shooting from the outside. Likening himself to NBA guard Dion Waiters, the 6-5 Wiley is a straight-up scorer with excellent shot-making abilities and has become a catch-andshoot specialist. “If I’m in the mix on a play coming off a screen, I can knock it down anytime,” Wiley says. Wiley’s rise up the rankings has been rapid, especially considering he didn’t initially love the sport. “When I was 8 or 9, I was on a team and I didn’t want to play, but the coach wouldn’t let me quit,” Wiley says. “I really started to take basketball serious my 10th grade year.” As Maryland transitions into the Big Ten Conference, Wiley’s physical toughness and extended range gives Terps fans plenty to look forward to.— KY E STE P H E N SON

WorldMags.net

SOUTHERN STAR SHAKAYLA THOMAS Sylacauga (AL) High, 5-11, F

Shakayla Thomas is already regarded as one of Alabama’s all-time best prep players. She’s led varsity in scoring since seventh grade, and the 5-11 wing finished her senior season as the Alabama HS Athletic Association all-time leader in rebounds while also ranking fourth all-time in points. “They’ve been a goal of mine since I was young,” says Thomas, of the milestones, “so I wanted to achieve one of them before I got out of high school, and I’m just glad I did.” The Florida State commit led her team to the class 5A state championship game after a 40-point, 7-rebound performance in the semifinals. As the only senior in the first five, and after having fallen short of reaching the state’s final four until this year, the feat was extra sweet for Thomas. “Ever since I was in seventh grade, I always wanted to go to Birmingham and actually play,” Thomas admits. “It didn’t happen until this year. Being able to win regionals and get there was probably my greatest accomplishment.” Posting averages of 33, 16 and 5 per game as a soph, then 31.9 and 14.5 while shooting 52 percent from the floor as a junior, Thomas won Class 5A state Player of the Year the last two seasons. And you can count on her officially having three-peated by the time you read this.— FR A N K LY N CA L L E

BASKETBALL DIARY

TYUS JONES Well, my high school career is done, and unfortunately we got knocked out this year a little earlier than we would’ve liked. (Apple Valley lost to Cretin-Derham, 89-77, in double overtime in the sectional championship game in March. Tyus, who was named Minnesota Mr. Basketball, had 35 points, 8 assists and 6 steals in his final high school game.—Ed.) The team we played, it was just their night. They were on fire, hitting everything, getting all the 50-50 balls. They just outplayed us that night. It definitely hurt initially, but the further you get away from it, the more you look back at your overall career. So it doesn’t hurt as bad now as it did. I’m more satisfied now looking back than I was right after the loss. And then of course Duke lost in the Tournament. I’m trying to look at that both ways. I was definitely cheering them on, but after the game, I started to look forward to next year, thinking about the possibilities, and if Jabari were to come back. Part of the reason we went to Duke—me, Jahlil, our whole class—is to carry on the tradition, wear that Duke name across our chest. We know we’ve got a lot of hard work to put in, but we’re going to work hard from day one. I’m really looking forward to it. I leave this weekend for the McDonald’s All-American Game, then Hoop Summit and the Jordan Classic after that. It’s gonna be fun. I just took a few days off after the season ended, but then I got right back in the gym, and I’ve been in the gym every day. I’m trying to stay in the best shape I can, and I’m excited for these games. As for school, I just started the final trimester of my senior year. I’ve definitely got the senioritis going on, and with all the traveling coming up, it’s gonna be a really busy month. I’m just gonna try to make sure I’m not falling behind. Oh, and if you remember from the last diary, my little brother actually re-broke his collarbone. He got cleared from the first time he broke it after like four weeks, so he was at AAU tryouts, got bumped funny in a one-on-one drill and ended up re-breaking it. It’s a setback for him, but he’ll be alright.

RAM SQUAD

Want to talk about a dope under-the-radar player with a solid prep career from start to ﬁnish? Look no further than Eric Paschall. After a sophomore campaign at Dobbs Ferry (NY) High, Paschall led upstart AAU program The City to a 15U championship. Months later, as a junior, the local star averaged 26 ppg, 11.2 rpg, 2.1 bpg and 1.1 spg, earning him Westchester County’s Mr. Basketball. Last summer, the rising senior

transferred to powerhouse St. Thomas More. “[I was] somewhat nervous about the competition,” he says. “I didn’t know how my game would translate. But after my ﬁrst 20-point game, I gained conﬁdence and knew I belonged.” Paschall proved he had the goods, leading the Chancellors to a 26-8 record, advancing to the Prep National Championship game and taking home the NEPSAC’s AAA Player of the Year Award.

ERIC PASCHALL

Oakdale (CT) St. Thomas More, 6-6, F

With all of that behind him, Paschall is getting ready to take Fordham, his college of choice, to the next level. “Fordham recruited me hard,” he says. “I love the staff and felt Fordham offered a combination of great basketball and academics. Being close to home and my family is also important to me. I’ve heard nothing but great things about Fordham, and in four years, I hope to be a better player and have a degree.”— P E T E R WA LSH

SLAM (ISSN:1072-625X) June 2014, Vol. 21, No. 5 is published monthly except January and October by Source Interlink Media, LLC, 261 Madison Avenue, 6th ﬂoor, New York, NY 10016-2303. Copyright @ 2014 by Source Interlink Magazines, LLC. All rights reserved. Periodicals postage is paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing ofﬁces. Single copy price is $4.99. Subscriptions: Subscription rates for one year (10 issues) U.S., APO, FPO and U.S. Possessions is $19.97. Canadian orders add $10.00 per year, all other countries add $20.00 per year (for surface mail postage). Payment in advance, U.S. funds only. For subscription, address changes and adjustments, write to SLAM, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL, 32142-0235. SLAM is a registered trademark of Source Interlink Magazines, LLC. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. Manuscripts, photos, and other materials submitted must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope; SLAM assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. Printed in U.S.A. Postmaster: Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 707.4.12.5); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: send address corrections to SLAM, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235.

WorldMags.net

SL AMONLINE .COM 95

FROZEN MOMENT

WorldMags.net

7TH HEAVEN

Bulls-Celtics, May 2, 2009

Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images

Backers of the NBA’s 2003 move to switch the first round from best-offive to best-of-seven will never have a better argument for that move than the ’09 battle between Chicago and Boston. There were a total of seven overtimes in the series, which featured the true birth of Derrick Rose and Rajon Rondo (right) as NBA stars, elite guard play from Ben Gordon (left) and Ray Allen, and enough hard stares to fill 10 Gucci Mane videos. The longer it went, the more fun it got. Except, ultimately, for Bulls fans.

96 S L A M O N L I N E .C O M

WorldMags.net

adidasbasketball.com

OFFICIAL OUTFITTER OF THE NBA WorldMags.net