Character Driven

by Derek Fisher

  CHAPTER SIX

  Rebounding:

  Bouncing Back from Disappointment

  By now the story is legendary. Michael Jordan, considered by many to be the greatest basketball player in history, was cut from the basketball team his sophomore year in high school. As Jordan himself later said on his website, “I think that not making the Varsity team drove me to really work at my game, and also taught me that if you set goals, and work hard to achieve them—the hard work can pay off.” I heard that story myself when I was in school, and while I didn’t ever fail to make the team at any point in my career, I experienced my fair share of ups and downs then and even today. Though Michael Jordan wasn’t known as, or expected to be, a great rebounder in the strictest sense, his career totals are still impressive. He averaged a little more than 6 rebounds a game during the regular season, and nearly a half rebound more than that in the play-offs. Even more impressive, when he needed to or wanted to, he could really go after them. His career one-game high was 18, which he accomplished twice. That’s impressive, but pales in comparison to what the greatest rebounders could do. To put Jordan’s number in perspective, Wilt Chamberlain had 55 rebounds in a game in 1960. That man had a nose for the ball and went after it with a ferocity that I can only imagine.

  Rebounding, like playing defense, is almost all about hustle. You need to learn a couple techniques, and a few truly great rebounders either had an instinctive ability or developed a talent for reading shots that enabled them to put themselves in the right position to gather in the loose ball, but desire really makes the difference. Being in the right place is important in almost anything you do, and knowing such things as that nearly three-quarters of all misses from the corner or from the wing go long and end up on the weak side (the side opposite where the ball was shot from) definitely helps. Being able to time your leap correctly also helps a lot when it comes to rebounding, but you don’t necessarily need big hops to be a good rebounder. I see that the vast majority of rebounds are made when the ball is below the rim. It’s more of a question of how quickly and how often you go up rather than how high.

  If you can get off your feet quickly, come back down, and go up again (and sometimes again and again), then you can develop into a great rebounder. When I’m watching a game and see a big man go up for a rebound, see it tapped back up, see that big guy go up after it again and maybe multiple times, I marvel at that desire combined with athleticism and skill. As a perimeter player, I’m often an outside observer of those duels and am fascinated. I don’t know if anyone who hasn’t played the game on a highly competitive level can appreciate how much energy gets expended then. Seeing guys as large as Karl Malone, Dikembe Mutombo, Yao Ming, and others get off the ground and go after the ball is just one of the things that make basketball such an amazing sport to watch.

  One of my coaches, I can’t remember who, said to think of every shot that goes up as a pass to you. That means that you have to develop an awareness of where the ball is going, figure out where it might end up, and go after at it as if it were intended for you. Some of that awareness is a physical thing you can do, but most of it is mental. I think that coach said to think of a rebound as a pass because, when your team has possession of the ball and a pass comes your way, it is an opportunity for your team (or you) to shoot and score. We all want to contribute offensively, and thinking offensively about rebounds is important, even if it is a defensive rebound—your team gets the ball and a chance to score. The more possessions you have, the more chances you have to score. Again, elementary, fundamental stuff.

  I started off talking about Michael Jordan and his rebounding not so much because of his literal ability to rebound the basketball, but because of how he came back from injury, adversity, and even from retirement. As I said, I faced a few ups and downs in my career, as has nearly every other player who played the game, and I really think that the test of any man is what he does after he’s either been knocked down or otherwise suffered a tough period in his career or his personal life. I’ve been fortunate that, because of my upbringing, the coaches and teachers I’ve worked under, and simply the grace of God, my down times have been brief (though they didn’t feel that way at the time) and I’ve always experienced some upswing. This hasn’t been just a matter of perspective, finding that proverbial silver lining; things have continued to get better and better for me on and off the court.

  In so many ways, my basketball career doesn’t make any sense. I don’t have that dramatic comeback from being cut that Michael Jordan does, and I didn’t make his side venture into professional baseball, nor did I suffer the devastating loss of my father like him. But I think of myself as having faced and passed a lot of tests along the way. I sometimes feel as if every season I’ve been in the NBA, I’ve faced more than one moment when I had to prove that I belonged. I’ve accumulated enough experiences over the years and have proved myself enough times that I feel confident when those tests come. Even before I had accumulated all those experiences and could draw on them as evidence when faced with a jury of my peers and coaches and management, I’ve always felt inside that I could succeed. The trouble was, sometimes I kept those feelings so deep inside that my quiet confidence went unheard in the rush of noise that other people made. It wasn’t only my father who urged me to be a little more vocal, a little more outgoing and willing to let myself shine. My basketball abilities have never held me back as much as who I am.

  One factor that worked against me was that I 100 percent bought into the coaches’ saying there was no I in team. From the time I began playing competitively to today, coaches have preached the team concept, with everyone to be on the same page, sacrificing individual achievement for team success. I believe that’s necessary, but something is also to be said for selfishness. That’s where competitiveness comes into play. Every guy in the NBA has to believe that he deserves to start or that he is good enough to start or to play significant minutes. If you didn’t take that attitude, I don’t see how you would have got into the league in the first place. Just because you don’t vocalize that—and sometimes players do it in the most negative of ways by complaining to the media or to their teammates about playing time—doesn’t mean that you don’t feel that.

  What has held me back, again from the time I was a ten-year-old making my first venture into the “elite” world of youth AAU basketball to national tournaments to the NBA, is that people have mistaken my being quiet with my not really caring. Because I didn’t put on a big show of emotion whether I was on the court playing or accepting a coach’s decision to bench me, people felt that I lacked intensity or faith in myself. I know a lot of people struggle with that same issue. In a kind of variation on the saying that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, the one who plays loudest, the one who hits the biggest notes, often gets the solo. He may not be the best player, but he gets the most attention. Obviously, I overcame the misperception about me to get where I am today, but it still crops up too frequently for me.

  I believe that results should speak for themselves, but they don’t always do that. When I was much younger, I took being passed over for playing time or recognition very, very personally. It bothered me that at every level I had to prove myself and my worth to the team again and again. What enabled me to do that is the deep confidence I have in my ability to play this game at a high level. A lot of my early success helped me, but at those earliest stages, I did need evidence to support my case even to myself. Belief in oneself isn’t enough. You have to have some evidence, some success you can point to, no matter how small, and use that as a foundation on which to place your faith in your abilities. I played with enough guys at various levels who had complaints similar to mine—that they weren’t getting enough playing time, that they were more skilled than the guy ahead of them in the rotation, etc. Not all of them could say as confidently as I could that not only could I show the coach if given the chance, but when I’d been given the chance, I had succeeded.

  The difference is t
his: I never used lack of playing time, lack of a coach’s faith in me, or his lack of praise as an excuse for those few times when I didn’t perform up to expectations. That was a place I could not let myself go—to Excuseland. If I was given an opportunity and proved myself capable of starting or contributing significant minutes, then had that opportunity disappear or diminish, it was never because I got too comfortable or complacent. Thanks to my mother and father, I really lived the motto “What have you done today to make yourself better?” Maybe it was my generally shy and somewhat withdrawn nature, but I never had to worry about anyone thinking that my head had got too big.

  Being consistently effective at what you do is a double-edged sword. When you can be counted on to deliver consistent results, it is easy to wind up overlooked or underestimated. I still battle against that too frequently. I know my opponents’ tendencies after so long, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t suffer from battle fatigue, a kind of “not this again” frustration. I know that some of this can sound pretty out of context, and I’m grateful for the career that I’ve had and my opportunities, but the just-happy-to-be-here mentality is a surefire way to end up not being there for long. Everyone wants happy campers on their team, and you have to toe that fine line between easy to get along with and easy to forget. How you handle those times when you need to make your dissatisfaction known is a topic for another chapter, but at times I’ve made myself heard. Picking and choosing those spots is all a part of growing up.

  A huge part of my growing up and learning lessons about the game and all that goes with it took place in those first few years in AAU ball. I feel that I was being prepared for an NBA career from early on, and the ups and downs of those AAU and scholastic years made my days in the NBA feel comfortable in some regards and a little bit too much like déjà vu in others.

  In Little Rock, the schools didn’t have organized teams until you reached junior high—seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. That’s where Boys Club and AAU ball came in. Their seasons didn’t overlap, so when I was ten and playing in my first AAU games, I went from being on the Kinko Sixers in the Penick Boys Club to playing for the Sixers in AAU under twelve tournaments. In the state championship game we faced off against another team of guys from the Penick Boys Club, the Arkansas Spirits. We were all from the local area, but the Spirits were made up of guys from Boys Clubs all around the state. Unfortunately we lost, but my buddy and teammate Corliss Williamson and I were asked to play for the Spirits in the national tournament to be held in Orlando, Florida. At the time, for the under-twelve-year-old tournament, only the state champion was eligible for the national title. AAU rules allowed a tournament-eligible team to adjust their roster between the state and the national tournament, so the Spirits weren’t doing anything out of the ordinary. I didn’t think at all about the kid whose spot I might have taken or whose minutes I would be taking. That didn’t mean that I had no compassion or loyalty; instead, I was really torn over what to do. I knew that this was a great opportunity to play in a big-time tournament, but I was loyal to my coach and the guys on our team. Coach Barry of the Spirits and my dad had coached together, and that may have prompted some of what happened next.

  I was already conflicted about whether to play with the Spirits and then the coach of the Sixers made my decision even tougher. He told Corliss and me that if we went to play with the Spirits, we could forget about ever playing for the Sixers again. Here I was a ten-year-old, and I’d developed close friendships with all these guys on the Sixers and I didn’t know anybody on that other team, so it was hard for me to think of going with the Spirits, and then I received this threat. I was too young to understand everything that was going on, but my parents stepped in and said that I was going regardless of what the Sixers coach said or did.

  All I wanted was to play ball and have my friends, and my “Why can’t we all get along?” mentality seems pretty naive to me today. It took some time, but based on this and on some later experiences, I realized that not everyone in a position of authority had my best interests at heart. It saddens me to realize that all kinds of politics and personal relationships and possible jealousies and infighting affected things when I was only ten. Fortunately, I was only vaguely aware of what was going on, and I got a huge boost of confidence. Here was a state championship team who’d played together all that season choosing me to go with them to the national tournament.

  My parents couldn’t make it for the whole tournament, but Corliss’s family did. In fact, we left a couple of days early so that they could enjoy some time in Florida before the tournament started. We stopped in Pensacola before Orlando. It’s funny to think of it now, but even at ten, I was already acting like a little pro ballplayer. Instead of my remembering the two days in Pensacola and running around and frolicking in the ocean and eating ice cream or fried shrimp or even enjoying road-trip snacks in their car, that part is almost a complete blank. I was a serious little dude and all I could think about was the games coming up. I’m sure the trip was fun, but we had business to take care of. This was the first time I’d be playing against kids I truly didn’t know. In the Boys Club league and in the AAU games, I was always going up against familiar competition. Even if you didn’t know the kids personally or go to school with them, the Little Rock and the Arkansas leagues were small enough that eventually you knew and played against just about everyone enough times so that you knew who they were.

  I didn’t really even think about making the adjustment to the Spirits. Though I’d never played with them before and only faced them a couple times, we didn’t run such sophisticated offenses or defenses that we had to do a lot of chalk talk. We had a couple of practices in Arkansas before we left, but once the tourney got under way, it was play, play, play. We relied on everybody’s having an understanding of the fundamentals, and that worked well for us. Even then I was what sometimes gets called a floor general, which sounds as much like a vacuum cleaner as it does a necessary role on a basketball team. I guess I don’t like floor general because it implies a guy who gives orders but doesn’t get involved in the hard work. I liked being in charge, but I also liked being involved in every aspect of the game.

  I don’t know if it was my floor leadership or just sheer talent, but we finished third in the nation that year. Losing in the semifinals was tough, but I’m proud that we came back in the third-place game and won. I kind of miss the “consolation final”—a nice euphemism for the third-place game—in the NCAA tournament. I figure if you make the Final Four, you ought to at least know if you finished third or fourth. If you’re going to play, then keep score. I don’t think any kid who when asked what place his team came in would say, “Consolation.” There’s no consolation in losing or not knowing if you were third or fourth. I’m also a believer that finishing second is the same as being first loser—though as I’ve got older and played more and had more experiences, I’m not quite as disconsolate of a loser as I was—just a little bit better, but not much.

  Finishing third in the nation was a nice accomplishment, and I was pretty happy that my parents had been able to come down however briefly to see me play. I wasn’t a star, but I contributed substantially to our success. I also was glad to get to know Corliss and his family better. I remember the first time we met when he joined the Sixers. He lived in Russellville, thirty or forty miles outside Little Rock just off Interstate 40. A tall, lanky guy as a grade-schooler, he was like that proverbial young colt on spindly legs that hasn’t quite developed the coordination he’d exhibit when he became a true thoroughbred. When he was thirteen, one of his cousins gave him the name Big Nasty, and it stuck. The NASTY (Not A Sure Thing Yet) nickname would only apply to him for a few more years. Later, his skills and power amazed me just as his awkwardness had before. He played for the University of Arkansas and entered the draft one year before me in 1995. He played in the NBA for twelve years and was a legend in Arkansas.

  Many people consider him the finest high school player the state ever produced.
He was a three-time all-conference and all-state selection. He was also named Gatorade National Player of the Year in 1991 and 1992. As a senior Corliss averaged 28 points and 9 rebounds per game. His sophomore year at Arkansas, in 1994, he helped the Razorbacks to a 31-3 record. I sat and watched the NCAA tournament that year feeling all kinds of pride and a little bit of envy as he was named its Most Outstanding Player. He led the Razorbacks to their only NCAA basketball championship under Coach Nolan Richardson by defeating the Duke Blue Devils. Corliss earned every bit of the recognition he received. I only wish, and I know that he does too, that they’d been able to repeat as national champions, but they fell just short, losing in the final in 1995.

  Corliss is a great guy and a good friend, and the Big Nasty name is kind of funny when you consider that when his high school team won the King Cotton National Holiday Tournament, he blocked Jason Kidd’s last-second shot to seal the win in the final. Corliss was voted the Most Valuable Player of the tournament, but when he was standing on the podium with the rest of the all-tournament team, he gave his medal to Jason in a show of sportsmanship.

  It’s too bad our Sixers coach couldn’t have had the same attitude. Whether he was serious about his threat to not let us play on his team didn’t matter. We stuck with the Spirits for the entire season and for every season after that. I wasn’t bitter about it, but either because of our choice or just because we were immature and took the game so seriously, even when I was playing for our school teams with some of the other guys who were still on the Sixers, as soon as the season ended and it became AAU time, we stopped talking to one another. We were fine when we were teammates, but when we were on opposite sides, we just flat out didn’t communicate with one another and barely acknowledged one another’s presence.