by Derek Fisher
I did have one conscious thought, one that I always had when I went into the game as a substitute or even as a starter. I wanted to make an impact right away. I don’t mean that I went out there and took a huge risk—overplayed my man defensively so that I could get a steal (or alternatively give up an easy basket if my steal attempt failed) or fired up a shot at the first sign of being even remotely open. Instead, I took in all the data I’d collected while sitting on the bench observing, and looked for a chance to exploit the South West Missouri State’s point guard’s tendency to leave his feet prematurely on a pump fake. The first time he came out to guard me at the top of the circle, I rose up as if to shoot, got him in the air, and drove around him before dishing off when our center’s man left him to help guard me. A nice easy layup and an assist for me. I went on to score 12 points, handed out a fistful of assists, and even managed a steal or two.
At every time-out, I came back to the bench and could see in the eyes of my teammates and the coaches a glimmer of respect. I think my guys understood that I could play the game, and I didn’t think that I had anything to prove to them, but having evidence to back up my confidence and their belief in me made a big difference. After that game I never looked back, and started every game in each of my four years at Arkansas. It’s impossible to say that my career hinged on my success in that game, but people always say that first impressions are important. Just as I always felt that it was important to make a difference right away when entering a game, it’s equally important to start off a season, a career, or a comeback from injury on the right foot. More on comebacks and my foot in a bit.
The other major opportunity that I knew I had to seize came at the end of my senior year at UALR. Sometimes opportunities come at the most surprising times. When we lost our last game our senior year in our conference tournament, I was devastated. A buzzer beater knocked us out, and I just wanted to sink into the floor. That loss meant no conference tourney championship, no bid to the NCAA tournament (I’ve had a great career, but I would have loved to have played even a single game in March Madness), and the likely end of my basketball career. We had some consolation in being selected for the National Invitational Tournament, but that was like going to the big dance with the fifth or sixth girl you’d asked—even after your cousin said she couldn’t because she had other plans. Losing in the first round of the NIT to Vanderbilt was equally tough. I was nursing a slight injury as well, and sitting in that locker room in Nashville contemplating the dying of my dream was incredibly difficult. Every now and then I’d look around the room and see some of the underclassmen, and I was a bit envious of them. When Coach Sanderson started talking about next year, I couldn’t control my tears. For me, the odds were that there would be no next year.
Because of my half brother, I knew that there were other options besides the NBA. The Continental Basketball Association was a kind of feeder system/minor league to the NBA. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go through all that. The same with playing in Europe. At that point, in 1996, there hadn’t been the huge influx of foreign players into the NBA that there is today. I was only twenty-one years old, had only traveled in the United States to play basketball, and the prospect of going to a foreign country and experiencing a vastly different culture with what seemed to me to be little in the way of reward for all that risk wasn’t appealing. (Ask me today, and knowing what I know now, I would give you a different answer about overseas basketball as an opportunity.) I’ve never been much of a risk taker, and I was ready to finish out the school year and see what the world of work had waiting for me.
As I’ve said before, I think that God has a plan for each of us. The role He played in presenting opportunities and reminders to me of my ability is in my mind obvious and clear. Most college players who realistically assess their prospects of playing in the NBA know deep in their heart if not in their head whether they have a shot at the league. For most, that means being drafted. There are those other routes—the CBA, foreign leagues, otherwise being picked up as a free agent—but the vast majority of players in the NBA entered the league through the draft. When I was a senior, there was no NBA Development League, the D-League as we call it today. It began operations in 2001, my sixth year in the NBA. It has its own draft, and a number of players have made the jump from the D-League to the NBA. In fact, sixty players on NBA rosters in 2008–9 had once played in the D-League. That route didn’t exist for me, so if I wanted to make it in the NBA, in my mind there was really only one path—getting drafted.
I didn’t know if that was realistic. My heart told me that I was good enough and had the desire to succeed at that level. I remember Nike ran a series of print ads that said that the heart is the strongest muscle but also the stupidest. They meant that in a positive way—without our hearts refusing to surrender, without them continuing to pulse in our chests when our brains are screaming at us to just stop, no hill would be climbed, no race finished. The head/heart equation is always tough to balance, and I tend to rely as much on my head to tell me the truth as my instincts. I had been named the Sun Belt Conferences Player of the Year, but I wasn’t among the NCAA leaders in any statistical category. At my position, point guard, all the talk that year had been about Georgetown University’s sensation, Allen Iverson. Only a sophomore, he’d averaged 25 points per game playing in the Big East, one of the NCAA’s premier conferences. He’d had the chance to showcase his talent in front of the nation and the NBA’s top scouts while leading his team into the Elite Eight. Stephon Marbury was a freshman out of Georgia Tech who was a cinch to go in the draft, as was a little-known player out of tiny Santa Clara named Steve Nash. True hoops fans knew a high school kid out of Philadelphia by the name of Kobe Bryant who was projected to go high in the first round as a guard. If I looked at things realistically, I was definitely not a sure thing to go in the draft.
What I did have was the heart-sense belief in myself. I wasn’t without other evidence. Again, as a sign that all things happen for a reason, during the summer between my freshmen and sophomore years in college, I got a chance to go to Houston to work out with my half brother, Duane Washington. His battles with substance abuse are well documented, and he, and many others who suffered from the same disease, were fortunate to have someone like John Lucas in their lives. Lucas was himself a former drug addict and recovering alcoholic. He was able to conquer his personal demons, and he also worked with other athletes/addicts/alcoholics to help them. Duane entered his program and kept in touch with Mr. Lucas over the years. Duane’s been clean and sober for a very long time. Mr. Lucas had played in the NBA for fourteen seasons and coached three NBA teams as well. At one point during the summer, he approached me after a scrimmage. He introduced himself and asked, “How many more years of school?”
“Three,” I told him.
He smiled, “Keep playing like you are, that might only be for two years.”
I’d carried that bit of validation with me for the next three years. If John Lucas, a veteran player and coach thought that I had what it took to make it in the league—and could possibly leave college early to do so—then maybe my optimistic heart wasn’t talking smack with me. I had no intention of not sticking around for four years, however.
While it took me some time to get over the disappointment of having my NCAA career come to a screeching halt, I did get some good news. At the conclusion of the season, I was invited to participate in the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament. Held in Portsmouth, Virginia, for the last fifty-six years, the tournament is a showcase for college basketball players. At the time I wasn’t completely sold on the idea that this tournament was a stepping-stone to the NBA. I’d heard of it, and I knew that Scottie Pippen, John Stockton, and a few other players had gone on to stellar NBA careers after playing in it and catching the attention of the NBA scouts. Things had changed over the years in college basketball, and one major change was that underclassmen could make themselves available for the NBA draft. As a result, in my mind, some of the s
hine was taken off the honor of being selected to participate in the PIT. I mean no disrespect to the organizers of the event, and I’m glad that it exists and contributes not just to the chances of basketball players fulfilling their dream but as a charity for the local community. But since it was open only to seniors, a lot of the best players in the country, and those most likely to be picked in the upcoming NBA draft, weren’t in attendance. It was a showcase, but also a kind of reward for those borderline-to-obviously-not-NBA-caliber college seniors who stuck around for four years.
I don’t want to leave the impression that I was upset about being asked to participate. I did see it as an opportunity that I had to take advantage of, but I was also smart enough to understand that this opportunity meant nothing unless I really proved myself in those games. My game was going to have to be nasty because I was NASTY—Not A Sure Thing . . . Yet. In the back of my mind, I did hold out some hope that the PIT could lead to some good things. When I found out that the Chicago Bulls’ Scottie Pippen had played there and improved his stock enough to be drafted by the Bulls and then go on to be a key component in the Michael Jordan–led Bulls championship streak, I was encouraged. I did a little more investigating about Pippen. Though I was a huge fan of NCAA basketball growing up and through high school (and even today), if Pippen weren’t also from the state of Arkansas, I doubt if I would ever have heard about him.
Pippen is sure to be in the NBA Hall of Fame and was named one of the Fifty Greatest NBA Players when the league celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1996. Pippen was born in Hamburg, Arkansas, a small town of about three thousand in the southeastern part of the state. It’s about 120 miles south of Little Rock, on the route we took to get to my dad’s folks in Louisiana. This unremarkable little place produced a fairly remarkable player. Like me, Scottie Pippen was six feet one inch tall when he started college. Unlike me, he grew to six feet seven while in school and eventually topped out at six feet eight. Though so talented, he was considered too small and wasn’t heavily recruited by any of the major college-basketball powerhouses. Instead, he enrolled at a non-NCAA school, the University of Central Arkansas, which is a part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. The NAIA is made up of mostly smaller private and state institutions like the University of Central Arkansas. At that level, the facilities aren’t exactly top-notch, but some quality guys do come out of those schools. They don’t get the same level of national press coverage, but that didn’t stop Pippen. He was considered a legend at the PIT, one of the feel-good success stories of the tournament both because of what he did on the court and his underdog story. How a guy could go from being both the manager and a player on a tiny NAIA team, averaging 4 points a game his first year, to an NBA lottery pick is almost unimaginable.
I’d played at a small school, but not one as small and “obscure” (in terms of basketball) as he had. I tucked all those thoughts about the possibilities and the opportunities along with all my clothes and toiletries in my suitcase and headed to Portsmouth, Virginia. I’d also packed a few of my textbooks, but it was tough to do any studying on that plane. My mind was on the opportunity awaiting me, and it was hard to distract myself from thoughts of the future. I did hold out hopes of an NBA career, but of more immediate concern was doing well in Portsmouth and advancing to one of the other camps and hopefully getting invited to Chicago, where the major predraft camp was held.
First things first, I kept reminding myself. I couldn’t be mentally booking a flight for Chicago if I didn’t take care of business in Portsmouth. That’s how I looked at the trip—as a kind of business excursion. A lot of the other guys knew that this was a kind of reward, a last hurrah, a chance to get away from school and the pressure of final exams and thoughts of what they were going to do with their lives after graduation. I roomed with Derrick Beattie, a center out of Temple University. He was a great guy, and though we were essentially competing against each other for draft position, we got along well. Among the campers was a guard from Mississippi State, Bubba Wilson, who played with Dontaé Jones and Erick Dampier. Jones would be drafted that year by the Knicks, with Dampier chosen by the Indiana Pacers. They wouldn’t risk injury by playing in the tournament even if they had been invited.
Portsmouth, a quick ferry ride from Norfolk, had a quaint, small-town feeling, even though an enormous naval base is nearby. That quaint hometown feel extended to the tournament itself. Though the games were played according to NBA rules, they were played at one of the city’s high schools, and the teams were sponsored by local businesses. Admission today for a single day is $10, so I can’t imagine that back then they were any more than $3 or $4 for the two games held each day. While I can’t remember who sponsored our team, some of last year’s sponsors were Cherry, Beakart, and Holland Accountants, Tidewater Sealants, and the Norfolk Shipyards. Those sponsors past and present were great, and in addition to showcasing possible NBA talent, the tournament raises money for a scholarship fund that helps out local high school students. I’m proud to say that I participated, and the warm reception we received from the tournament organizers, local volunteers, and members of the community was outstanding. Even though I don’t remember the scores of the games I played in, I do remember performing really well, averaging about 16 points a game, passing out a half dozen assists, and generally impressing others with my all-around game. I also remember signing autographs for the local kids who watched the games. I was happy to oblige them, and I could see a lot of myself in those kids and was reminded of my days hanging out in a gym at every opportunity.
I felt good about my performance during the three days of competition. I got on the flight back to Little Rock satisfied that I’d done what I’d gone there to do. I settled into my seat, pulled my Walkman out of my carry-on, and let Toni Braxton, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and R. Kelly sing me home courtesy of the mix tape my girlfriend had made for me. I was glad to be back among friends and family in Little Rock, and everyone wanted to know how things had gone. I kept it cool and said, “Fine. Fine.” I didn’t really know what else to say. How could I honestly evaluate my performance? I’d done as well as I could, gave it everything I could, and the rest was out of my hands. I hated that my fate was being decided by someone else. How objective could I really be? My teammates and the other players praised how I’d done, but did that mean my NBA dream was viable?
I waited a long time to find out. A month or so after Portsmouth ended, I was leaving for class when the phone rang. I wasn’t going to answer it, but something told me I should. I picked up and heard the familiar voice of Coach Sanderson on the line. “Derek, congratulations.” I hoped I knew what he was going to say next. “I just heard from Marty Blake. You’ve been invited to Chicago.”
I let the pleasure at hearing those words sink in for a minute. Marty Blake was the director of scouting for the NBA. Blake has been associated with the NBA for more than fifty years. He was the long-time general manager of the NBA’s St. Louis/Atlanta Hawks. In the seventeen years he guided the team as the GM, the club had the second-best record to the legendary Red Auerbach’s Boston Celtics. Marty is renowned around the world for his basketball knowledge, and he was primarily responsible for establishing the system of scouting that enabled the NBA to find, draft, or sign the most talented players in the United States and later in the world. As with the PIT, the NBA predraft camp didn’t draw the surefire lottery picks, but it did have the cream of the crop of the rest of the guys expected to go in the first or the second round. Coach explained some of the arrangements that we’d have to make to get me there in early June. All I heard was June, and all I could think of was the six weeks or so I’d have to prepare for that opportunity.
I thanked coach for letting me know the good news. While being drafted wasn’t a certainty, I was getting all that I could have asked for—a shot. That’s what most of us want in life—not a guarantee but a chance. I would have to figure out how to make the most of it, but that could wait. I had a class to get to,
and my head was still spinning at the news. It felt strange walking through campus. It wasn’t just as if I’d got a haircut or was wearing a new set of clothes or something, I felt different. I knew that the odds were still not fully in my favor, but they were considerably better than they had been just a few minutes earlier. I imagined that what I was experiencing was a lot like what some of my fellow seniors had experienced earlier in the semester when they’d gotten a job offer or been accepted to graduate school or some other professional school. I felt as if I were in two places simultaneously—physically there on campus, and mentally someplace far away, such as Chicago, and then after that who knew where I might be or what I might be doing there?
That feeling was frightening but far more exhilarating. For a while, I wanted to keep the news to myself, but that didn’t last long. The first person I thought to call was my mother. I knew that she was at work, and I knew my girlfriend was in class. My dad would likely have been home; he was no longer working and no longer living with my mom at our place, and that made it difficult to pull the trigger on any phone call. I’d just let the good vibes continue to work their way through me. I’d figure it all out soon enough. I’d always been wary of thumping my chest and drawing too much attention to myself, and that wasn’t going to change because of this news. Wrapped up in all this confusion about whom to call, what to say, and how to feel were some practical realities as well. Playing a sport at an NCAA Division I institution had been like having a full-time job. I was constantly having to juggle the priorities of my family, my sport, my classwork, and a social life. I’d been doing that for years, but suddenly the stakes felt a lot higher.
