Boys Among Men: How the Prep-to-Pro Generation Redefined the NBA and Sparked a Basketball Revolution
Page 19
The Wizards, after all, were traditionally one of the NBA’s doormats. The organization had not won a playoff series since before Jordan had entered the NBA, in 1984. For Jordan, running a team would present a fresh, different test. He was 36 at the time of the dinner, ancient if he were still viewed as an athlete, yet a young age to chart one’s next stage in life. They announced the agreement in time for Jordan to watch the Wizards play out the string on another disappointing run. Washington finished the 2000–2001 season with a franchise-worst 19 wins as Kobe Bryant and the Lakers celebrated another championship. Only the Golden State Warriors (17 wins) and the remnants of Jordan’s former team, the Bulls (15), were more lackluster. Rod Higgins, Jordan’s assistant, represented the organization at the draft’s lottery that May. The process established the order in which the teams would select in the draft and was weighted to allow the worst teams higher probabilities at landing the best selection. On the way to catch his flight to New Jersey, Higgins stopped and pocketed a penny he found. He had been looking for a good luck charm. “I didn’t know the penny had a hole in it,” Higgins would painfully joke years later. As Jordan played golf to avoid the selection’s tension, Higgins squirmed as the process unfolded. Jordan and Higgins envisioned a long rebuilding process. They had already began shedding the large contracts of Rod Strickland, Mitch Richmond, and Juwan Howard, the team’s aging core, in order to create financial flexibility for the roster. A top pick would instantly fast-track the overhaul. The Bulls entered the lottery with the best odds of landing the top pick, but fell to fourth once the results were announced. The Warriors, with the second-best odds, dropped to fifth. The Atlanta Hawks had moved up to the third selection and the Clippers gained the second choice, leaving Washington with the top pick. “Michael is still everywhere,” quipped Alvin Gentry, the former Pistons coach who now headed the Clippers.
Jordan’s fortune was undeniable that evening. Not only had he landed the top pick, but he also scuttled the plans of Jerry Krause, who had coveted the selection for Chicago. But the pool of draftable prospects did not include a clear-cut favorite top pick, like a Shaquille O’Neal or an Allen Iverson. Instead, the players in that year’s draft came to signify a shift in the game’s evolution. The two top prospects were Shane Battier, a tested, senior forward from Duke who had won every major college award, and Pau Gasol, a multidimensional forward from Spain. They were joined by a trio of high school big men judged as having unlimited potential: Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, and Kwame Brown. No high school player had ever been taken first overall in the draft. The expectations for the top player were weighty, even for a college player. A top selection is expected to enter the NBA, contribute immediately, and transform a franchise. Most scouts predicted that Battier had already reached his ceiling as a college player and benefited from Duke’s team-oriented system. Gasol was an unknown commodity. Pollin had declined to scout Kevin Garnett just a few years earlier because he was only a high schooler. Now, his franchise’s future hinged on this draft class of talented prep players. Almost immediately, Jordan debated plucking one of the high school players and began to scout them earnestly.
He watched Chandler in Santa Monica. Predraft workouts had turned into something of a cat-and-mouse game between the organizations, agents, and players. The intimate sessions provided teams with a better, deeper portrait of the players they would shortly invest millions in. They became even more crucial once high school players trickled into the league. A scout could sit through a high school game, but how much insight could really be gained by watching a future NBA player tear through weaker competition? By hosting the player, the franchise could put him through its own set of drills, scrimmages, and personality tests. By this time, though, players sometimes refused requests for workouts. Kobe Bryant had privately dazzled executives and coaches from Phoenix to Boston before the Lakers homed in on him. Bryant’s agent, Arn Tellem, began denying requests from subsequent teams for individual sessions once Jerry West coveted Bryant. Eric Fleisher did not allow Garnett to work out for teams after Garnett’s impressive group performance and out of fear that his injury would be revealed. Some players declined workouts from organizations they did not want to play for. Some refused them because the team drafted past where they wanted to be taken. Some abstained because they did not want to be worked out and judged against their competition. For the players, the workouts were job interviews. Because their draft position coincided with the salary of their first contract, they had much at stake in each session.
Players faced unrelenting pressure to perform and impress. Few high schoolers were as uniquely prepped for the scrutiny as Tyson Chandler, an elastic and scrawny post player from California. Chandler had decided early on that he would not duck any of the workouts. He was aware that he was already projected as a high pick and had more to lose than to gain. But he did not want anyone drafted before him. Chandler left his high school in Compton after leading them to a state championship in March. He took independent classes to graduate with his class, but high school was already clearly in his rearview mirror. Chandler moved in with Tom Lewis, a former basketball player at Pepperdine University. The pair trained constantly. Chandler was so skinny that people joked he had to watch for cracks in the ground, lest he fall into one when walking. He was 7 feet 1 inch and weighed only 205 pounds. He hoped to add about 20 pounds by the time of the workouts to withstand the physical toll the sessions would take on his body. Chandler would eat breakfast and ingest a protein shake in the morning and train and eat again before napping. He repeated the cycle throughout the day, slowly adding just enough weight to his frail frame in time for the workouts. He tried unsuccessfully to strip the emotions from them. Millions are not to be won or lost here, he tried convincing himself. He was not trying to woo the Clippers, the Wizards, or the Bulls. This was just like any workout he would be doing in the summertime. But the NBA dignities who watched him made it impossible not to be conscious of the stakes. Jerry West once walked into one of Chandler’s workouts, just as Jordan had. Chandler knew less about West as the great NBA player and more about him as the great NBA general manager with enough conviction to draft Kobe Bryant. West left Chandler’s workout shortly after he had entered. Man, I blew it, Chandler thought. He was comforted when West later told his trainer that Chandler had been like Bryant and he had only needed a fleeting glimpse of his play to know that Chandler had a bright NBA future.
Such predictions for Chandler’s future had been made for some time. He had spent the first few years of his life growing up on his grandfather’s farm in Hanford, California. Cleo Threadgill built the farmhouse himself. Chandler milked cows, fed chickens, and plowed fields. He listened and learned when his grandfather preached that success resulted from hard work and self-discipline. Chandler’s own father was not in his life. He was aware that Frank Chandler stood 6 feet 8 inches tall and had played basketball at San Jose State. In 1992, Chandler’s mother, Vernie Threadgill, accepted a job in San Bernardino and the pair moved. The contrast from the calm of the farm to the noise of the city was striking. They lived in a crime-ridden area when Chandler hit adolescence. He grew so fast that none of his clothes or shoes fit for long. He was gangly and scrawny, an easy target who was teased mercilessly. Basketball proved to be about the only thing his size was good for. One day, when he was 14, Chandler’s undermanned AAU team manhandled the Orange County All-Stars. Those opponents had been handpicked by Pat Barrett, a coach who was one of the most prominent figures on southern California’s AAU scene and on Nike’s payroll. He poached Chandler, lavishing him with Nike shoes and gear. The television news program 60 Minutes featured Chandler on a segment that highlighted the influence athletic shoe companies sought over young, impressionable basketball players. At an early age, perhaps at an age that even he is now uncomfortable with, Chandler recognized that others would try to take advantage of him, his future, and his potential earnings. He realized it was a two-way street and a means to establish his dream of playing in the
NBA. “It was no longer innocent and it was no longer wholesome,” Chandler said years later. “I had to understand it was a dog-eat-dog world.” Soon after joining Barrett’s team, Chandler changed high schools and traveled the 120-mile round-trip of California freeway from San Bernardino to Dominguez High School in Compton, where he could gain more exposure and a national following. Tayshaun Prince and Kenny Brunner, two of Barrett’s other players, also prepped at the school.
Unlike most of the players who had arrived in the NBA from high school before Chandler, he never treated college as a serious option. Most of the big-time schools did not even bother recruiting Chandler and he likewise never bothered taking any of the college entrance exams. He visited only one college, the University of Michigan, on an unofficial trip. Chandler borrowed against the credit from his future earnings with lenders. As a high school senior, he drove a Cadillac Escalade and wore a Rolex watch.
His Dominguez High team played across the country during Chandler’s senior season. In December 2000, Chandler played in St. Louis against Eddy Curry in the Shop ’n Save/KMOX Shootout. Curry was the only player rated as high as Chandler. He was projected as the second coming of Shaquille O’Neal. He had a mammoth frame, soft hands, and nimble feet. Curry had grown up wanting to be a gymnast and, while his body outgrew acrobatics, he retained uncanny agility for a 300-pound man-boy with size-17 sneakers. Curry prospered at Thornwood High School, a small school in the Chicago suburbs. He committed to play college ball at nearby DePaul. Bill Bradshaw, the school’s athletic director, once hosted Curry’s family. It struck him as curious when Gayle Curry wondered whether her son would play if Steven Hunter, then the school’s center, remained at the school for another year, instead of opting for the NBA.
Here is a kid who is going to be a lottery pick in the NBA if he wanted to be, one of the best freshmen in the country if he decided to go to DePaul, and his mom is legitimately concerned about how much playing time he is going to get if Steven Hunter is here, Bradshaw thought. “He will get as much playing time as he wants,” Bradshaw responded to her queries. Curry remained easygoing and jovial, despite his giant stature, which drew stares. The hoopla had taken Curry’s parents by surprise. Eddy Sr. was a truck driver who drove a rig cross-country. Gayle worked for a day-care center. The offers came all of a sudden out of nowhere from everywhere. Colleges offered them new jobs and to pay their bills if their son chose to play for them.
But as the game against Chandler approached, college looked to be less of an option for Curry. It seemed as though all of the NBA had packed into the Savvis Center. A glance around the arena revealed Pete Babcock of Atlanta; Rick Sund, who had moved on from the Pistons to Seattle; and Glen Grunwald of Toronto among the 13,000 attendees. Jerry Krause, forever clandestine, attended with his deputies, Gar Forman and B. J. Armstrong, and sat far away from his peers. Only two of the NBA’s 29 teams had failed to send representatives to the matchup. Babcock, for one, felt awkward as he found his seat. He was still hesitant about scouting high school players, yet could not fully explain why. It just did not feel right and it was not where he wanted to be. But the matchup provided a rare glimpse of equal talents at that stage of their game. Curry and Chandler had failed to meet in the AAU circuit and, while both had been attendees at Nike Camp for two years, they never matched up against each other. The executives wanted to see whether Chandler could handle Curry’s size and if Curry could contend with Chandler’s athleticism. Chandler had greatly looked forward to the game. He knew that a few games would play a role in determining his future and this matchup was one of them. Chandler had heard that Curry was large. Upon initially seeing him, he realized Curry was not just large, but huge, and already had a body made for the NBA. Chandler also thought Curry was out of shape. He planned to take advantage of that by sprinting as fast as he could up and down the court. The game would provide a relief for Chandler. Only a week earlier, Dominguez’s coach, Russell Otis, had been suspended after being arraigned on charges that he had molested a student who had formerly played on the team.
Few high school basketball games had been more anticipated. The game failed to live up to the buildup, however. Curry had been sick that week and missed a practice. He had to adhere to the long-standing policy of his coach, Kevin Hayhurst. A player who missed a practice for any reason could not start the next game. The crowd booed the announcement that Jeff Briney would begin the game in Curry’s place. Curry subbed in at the first dead ball, 44 seconds into the game. Curry and Chandler refused to exchange any pleasantries or offer any acknowledgment. Curry promptly missed his first seven shots. Chandler was faster than Curry, but having to wrestle with someone who outweighed him by 100 pounds quickly tired him out. He grabbed only one rebound. Both of the top prospects finished with 16 points. Neither wowed anyone. Curry missed 13 of his 18 shots and drifted away from the paint far too often on offense before fouling out with 24 seconds remaining in the game. Chandler converted 7 of his 10 first-half shots, but faltered in the second half when he managed only four points. Chandler’s Dominguez team squeaked by with a 54–50 victory. “It was anticlimactic,” Sonny Vaccaro recalled years later. Curry, afterward, told reporters he was suffering from the flu and had trouble breathing. “Only he knew if he was sick or not,” an 18-year-old Chandler said after the game. “I was always taught not to make excuses. If he was on the court, he was playing.”
Chandler correctly figured that it would not be the last time he would be matched against Eddy Curry. As expected, both would declare for the NBA draft within months of the game. Chandler anticipated that the top selection would be whittled down to a choice between himself and Curry. He did not take into account Kwame Brown’s sudden, meteoric rise. “Kwame burst on the scene at the last moment,” Chandler recalled. “Myself and Eddy, throughout our high school careers, had put in that work to establish where we were and I felt like Kwame kind of came out of nowhere and jumped us all of a sudden.”
•••
Billy Donovan sensed the hesitation in the voice of his prized recruit. Donovan had once been an NBA player, although briefly, and appreciated the forces that the elite amateur players now faced. Donovan coached at the University of Florida and had quickly lifted the program to great heights. The NBA’s lure began chipping away at his talent and now Kwame Brown, in the spring of 2001, had just informed Donovan that he would forsake his commitment to the Gators to become a professional. To Donovan, Brown sounded as though he were trying to convince himself of the decision and not Donovan.
“I understand,” Donovan said.
Donovan had watched Brown the previous couple of years. The two shared a close relationship, ever since an acquaintance informed Donovan about this 6-foot-11-inch sophomore out in Brunswick, Georgia. Most leads like that proved to be false. Donovan, more curious than anything, went to see Brown and left impressed. He offered him a scholarship soon after and, in November 2000, Brown signed his letter of intent with Florida. He possessed an innocence about him that Donovan enjoyed. He was a sweet kid, Donovan thought, a positive trait just about anywhere else, other than in a high-level athlete. In that capacity, a mean streak was often required for success. To Donovan, Brown was a high schooler with high school problems. Brown concerned himself with the prom and his grades—not about fast-tracking his way to fame and fortune. Donovan took notice when more and more NBA personnel began popping up at Brown’s games at Glynn Academy. In the crowd, the logos of various NBA teams could not be missed. Brown’s stock among NBA personnel slowly began to rise and then skyrocketed. He was projected as a late first-round pick, then a middle rounder. Donovan had scouted Brown for so long that he was keenly aware of his many positive attributes. He was also aware of his flaws and how he could overcome his weaknesses. His body seemed designed for the NBA. His game was all power and athleticism. Donovan felt that he could not argue with Brown’s decision. He had a future to secure and a family to uplift. What kid in his situation could walk away from a guaranteed fortune?
Joyce Brown wanted her son to attend college. But her family needed positivity in their lives almost as much as the financial boost her son’s declaration would provide. Kwame Brown was born in Charleston, South Carolina, as the seventh of eight children to Willie James and Joyce Brown. For years, Joyce Brown tried leaving the damaging relationship she had with her husband. He abused drugs and physically and emotionally abused her. No one was spared whenever his sudden, violent mood swings occurred. The cycle was destructive. Yet, he was always able to lure her back until, one day, Joyce Brown left for good and returned to her hometown of Brunswick. She finalized the divorce in 1989. A year later, Willie James Brown was confined to life in prison without parole after being convicted of the murder of his girlfriend with an ax handle. Brunswick, a port city of about 15,000, is located between Jacksonville and Savannah. The family lived in an area called Dixville and nicknamed “The Bottom.” They had nowhere to go but up. The neighborhood teemed with churches and bars. Most months of the year, the humidity made it impossible to step outside and remain sweat-free for more than a couple of minutes. Brunswick housed many of the service providers to the nearby Golden Isles, a group of four barrier islands where the rich sometimes vacationed and lived. Joyce Brown cleaned hotel rooms at the Brunswick Days Inn before going on disability in 1993 with a degenerative disk in her back. She supplemented her disability checks with babysitting gigs. A bicycle served as the family’s main means of transportation. Brown’s older brothers compensated for the family’s poverty by turning to crime. Willie James Brown Jr. drew a 12-and-a-half-year sentence for selling crack cocaine. Tolbert Lee Brown was convicted of a shooting for which he was sentenced to a 15-year stint in state prison.