Got to Give the People What They Want: True Stories and Flagrant Opinions from Center Court

by Jalen Rose

Another night was an example of the bling-bling in the league, a trend that I was definitely a part of. (Remember my bracelet—“the Mansion”?) Players would regularly bring a heap of jewelry on the road, and during games we gave it to the trainer to hold, or put it in an envelope, wrapped tape around it, and left it in our bags. Not the most genius idea. One night in Milwaukee, my jewelry got stolen out of the locker room during the game. Everybody else had theirs, but mine had disappeared. I didn’t care if the bus was waiting—I wasn’t going to leave town without finding my stuff. They made everyone who was still working at the arena get frisked. My stuff didn’t turn up, and we left, but the aggressive approach worked. Whoever stole it must have gotten scared and thrown the loot under the bleachers. When I got home I was told some cleaning people had found it, and I sent Rizz from Indiana back to Milwaukee to claim it.

  That was a bad night. Truth is, there were a lot of disappointing nights after I got traded to the Bulls. In Chicago, while I embraced the role of being a veteran on a losing team, and played well, leading the team in scoring, I couldn’t escape the politricks.

  The 2002–2003 Bulls team—my first full season in Chicago—achieved some infamy a few years back when Jay Williams talked about players always being high, even on the bench during games. In the interest of getting things on the record, please know that I’m shaking my head right now. I’m not going to tell you that no one on that team ever smoked weed, but not during games.

  Jay was in a tough situation that year. He had been drafted to be a savior, to take Jamal Crawford’s backcourt position after Jamal hurt his knee. Jay and Jamal naturally clashed, and Jay felt like I was on Jamal’s side, because of our Michigan connection. The next thing you know, there were leaks about me breaking off plays and not listening to coaches. I don’t think Jay leaked those stories, but when players get frustrated, they talk to their boys and their agents and their friends, and those people talk to people, and that’s how the politricks work.

  Despite all that, I was the one who hung Jay’s jersey in our locker room after his motorcycle accident. Before that, I was one of the people who told Jay to get rid of that bike. Now we’re both at ESPN, and we’ve done the McDonald’s All-American game together and had a blast with it. We’re all good.

  With the Toronto Raptors, where I got dealt early in the 2003–2004 season, my luck wasn’t any better, and the politricks got even worse. In mid-February, we were playing against the Golden State Warriors one night, still in the playoff hunt, when I broke the fourth metacarpal on my left hand (I’m left-handed) trying to swipe the ball away from Clifford Robinson. I ended up missing more than a month after the surgery. By the time I returned, the Raptors were out of contention. Though I’m proud of one thing: I finished the game that night. I remember telling Donyell Marshall, our forward, to throw the ball to my right hand, not my left, when he passed it to me. When our coach, Kevin O’Neill, who I was a big fan of, found out I needed surgery, he broke a lamp in his hotel room and got into trouble with the team. Maybe he knew what was coming—he ended up getting fired at the end of the season.

  Now for the politricks in Toronto. They really didn’t involve me so much as the Raptors’ superstar-in-residence, Vince Carter. Vince was the second most gifted talent I’ve ever played with, behind Chris Webber. His gifts were simply amazing: His athleticism was off the charts (he’s the only guy I ever saw do a full-360 dunk in a game), he could shoot, and he was a good dude. He had taken an expansion franchise that had never won anything and, within a year of his arrival, had led them to the postseason. By the time I got there, though, the bottom had dropped out. The team hadn’t built well around him, and the franchise’s response was to dump on him. There’d be stories in the media about Vince, questioning his injuries and his durability (funny—he’s still playing more than a decade later), talking about his mom and where she parked her car, all kinds of stuff that was leaked from inside the organization.

  It came to a head one night in 2004 when Sam Mitchell, the coach of a new regime that came to the Raptors espousing a “new philosophy” (funny how many new philosophies come and go in the NBA), had words with Vince while he was on the training table before a game in Portland. One thing led to another, and next thing you know, they’re wrestling. Then Vince lifts old Sam up and body-slams him on the ground. I’ve told the story before, and Sam has denied it, but what else is he going to do? This happened, I was there, and so was almost the entire team.

  Bill Simmons and other guys get on me for defending Vince, but I saw it from the inside. I saw a guy who was committed to his franchise and got hung out to dry, and then, about a month after the incident with Sam Mitchell, Vince was traded. And you know that the franchise didn’t know what they were doing with that deal because of what happened with one of the guys Vince was traded for—Alonzo Mourning. Zo had no interest in coming to Toronto and a losing team, which led to a sticky situation. The Raptors thought they could convince him to play in Toronto, which wasn’t going to happen, and they ended up having to buy him out. A year later, Zo had an NBA title with Pat Riley and the Miami Heat.

  Meanwhile, for me, the 2005–2006 season had some crazy twists and turns—starting with a night in Los Angeles, when you might say Kobe Bryant got his ultimate revenge on me for the Finals a few years earlier.

  Phil Jackson was back with the Lakers after his hiatus, and since Kobe was all the Lakers had, he was a scoring machine that year. Sam Mitchell had the idea to defend him with a 1-2-2 zone, and it kind of worked in the first half. Kobe had 26 points, but we were up 14. After halftime, the Black Mamba decided he wasn’t going to lose to the last-place Raptors and went to work like arguably no one in the history of the NBA. He scored 55 on us in the second half—it almost sounds impossible—to finish with an immortal 81 points. Only Wilt scored more, in his famous 100-point night. We were on our way to a twenty-seven-win season, so it wasn’t LeBron scoring 45 points against the Celtics in Game 6 of the conference finals. It wasn’t even as impressive as when Kobe had scored 62 points against the Mavs a month earlier, a team that would make the NBA Finals. Still, I don’t think anyone will ever approach that number. A handful of guys in the league are capable of putting up 60 on any given night, but I don’t know if we’ll see 81 again.

  Kobe didn’t say a word that night. Not one word. But way in the back of my head, the voice I heard was simple.

  This is basketball karma. This is what you get—even five years later—when you mess with Kobe Bryant.

  —

  THAT SEASON, my contract was a year from expiring. Toronto wanted to deal me, and this time, they didn’t want to get burned doing it. And who was interested but the New York Knicks, whose general manager was none other than Isiah Thomas, and whose coach was none other than, yes, Larry Brown. It was as surprising to me then as it is now, but the word was that as Larry was trying to remake the Knicks during a disastrous season at Madison Square Garden, he thought I would be a good addition. The man who helped broker the deal was William Wesley, aka World Wide Wes. Today, he’s well known for his connections all across the game, functioning as an uncle to many guys in the league, and a consultant for the Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Then he was more in the shadows, helping to squash the beef between me and Larry. Wes knew both of us well and worked to get us to get over what was between us.

  As the rumors about me coming to the Knicks were flying, I got on the phone with Larry. He said he regretted what had happened in Indy, and it would be different in New York. I appreciated that. I also talked to Isiah, who gave me a lot of love, too. I said, “Great, I’m in, I’d be happy to play for you,” and I got traded for Antonio Davis. (The second time in my career I got traded for Antonio. He was also a former teammate.)

  Two days later, I picked up the paper in New York, and Larry was quoted as saying he didn’t want me there. It was the same old Larry Brown—the guy who loves everybody who’s not on his team, but then once he gets them, he doesn’t want them. Apparently that went
for guys that had even been on his team previously, like me. Larry’s like the guy who wants to date every girl, but once he gets them, he can’t stand them anymore. I was furious, but I was stuck.

  The Knicks were the third losing team I’d be on since Indiana, and without question, they had the most dysfunctional locker room. We talk a lot on the podcasts about the “Keep Cashing Dem Checks” All-Stars, guys who strike gold with a huge contract, even though the most significant thing they do during the contracts is cash their checks, and the “All-Velvet-Rope” All-Stars, guys who do their best work at the clubs late at night. The Knicks’ roster was full of both.

  Larry had a five-year contract worth more than $50 million, which he saw as bulletproof protection from getting fired, and a crazy strategy. He was going to tear down this team and show everyone how he could build it back up the next year. The process was so ugly—between Larry and Isiah, and Larry and the Knicks’ owner, Jim Dolan—that the Knicks did end up firing him. They paid him almost $20 million in severance. I’m sure Larry had no problem cashing that check.

  Fortunately, after the season, Isiah played me fair and worked out a buyout with my agents for the last year of my deal, leaving me free to sign with any team I wanted. And with a choice of some contending teams who were looking for a veteran to help them out, I picked Phoenix, which in retrospect was a mistake. If I could do it over, I’d pick Miami, where I would have played for an all-time great, Pat Riley. Instead, I barely played with the Suns. With my media career becoming more and more the focus, I retired from playing after the 2006–2007 season.

  At some point that year, I came to the realization that it finally was time to meet my dad in person. We’d probably spoken three or four times since that initial phone call in 2000. He’d popped in and out of my head over the years—when I became a father, in 2001, and a few years later in Toronto, when I passed him on the all-time scoring list. Together, we’d become the all-time father-and-son scoring tandem in NBA history, which was a cool thing to share. (Sorry, Kobe and Jellybean Bryant—you’re not going to get me on this one; I’m only counting guys with 10,000 points or more.) Sometime in the spring of 2007, I tracked him down in Kansas City and made a loose plan to come there after the season.

  But in the beginning of July, right after I’d worked the Finals for Fox, I got a call from Dave Bing. Did you hear the news? he wanted to know. I hadn’t.

  Jimmy Walker had died. He was sixty-three years old.

  JALEN’S ALL-TIME CHAMPAGNING AND CAMPAIGNING HALL OF FAME STARTING FIVE

  (Simple Rules and Criteria: Must be retired—no active players—and must be in their respective Halls of Fame, or headed there, to be eligible for this honor.)

  G ALLEN IVERSON

  Subject of countless urban legends. Made cornrows fashionable. Almost single-handedly responsible for David Stern’s instituting a dress code.

  QB “BROADWAY” JOE NAMATH

  Wore a fur coat on the sideline. Guaranteed a Super Bowl. Epitomized cool.

  F CHARLES BARKLEY

  Every team needs an enforcer. Once threw a heckler through a glass window. Never a role model. Always made any party better.

  CB DEION SANDERS

  “Prime Time.” “Neon Deion.” Godfather of high stepping. Took a limousine to the NFL Scouting Combine, then ran a 4.19-second forty-yard dash. Urbanlegendly, that is.

  F DOMINIQUE WILKINS

  “The Human Highlight Film.” “The Chocolate Boy Wonder.” His exploits off the court went under the radar. His high-top fade did not.

  11. From BET to ESPN and All Points in Between, or Why Chris Webber and I Haven’t Spoken in Five Years

  Two months after the end of my NBA career, I finally met my father.

  I didn’t feel sad. I didn’t feel angry. I didn’t feel numb. All I felt was fear, fear brought on by seeing so few people at a memorial service for a sixty-three-year-old man. I’m not sure what the temperature was that summer day in Kansas City, but that was the coldest room I’ve ever been in.

  Jimmy Walker had thirteen kids (that people knew of). Besides me, only two others showed up to pay their respects.

  He’d made hundreds of friends in a great basketball career. Almost none of them had come to see him off.

  The man who had unknowingly, but undeniably, set my course in life, left this world, and hardly anybody wanted to say good-bye to him.

  When I got there, I had expected to see the body resting in a coffin—to lay eyes on him for the first time. Instead, he had been cremated, and all that was there was an urn with his remains. So that day I would have to settle for meeting my father through the speakers at the service. They each represented a different stage of his life and career. A woman named Gail Silva, who had been a longtime girlfriend and friend, talked about his days at Providence. Dave Bing waxed poetic about his time with the Pistons. And Darryl Mays talked about where he ended up, in Kansas City with the Kings. Years later, though, I can’t really recall one word of what they said. To me, the coldness of the room overpowered everything.

  Up to that moment, having Jimmy Walker as someone to compare myself to had been a positive thing. He was an NBA player, so I was going to be an NBA player. He was an All-Star, so I was going to be an All-Star. I had parted long ago with any bitterness or hostility. I was appreciative of how great a player he was. All told, he was better than me.

  Now that he was dead, I could see what he’d left behind, and fear replaced the sense of admiration. I realized that day that in my life I had to do everything I could to end up as far away as possible from that cold, half-empty funeral home.

  That day I determined to become a better man, a better role model, and, yes, a better father. I was also thinking about all the professional goals I still had. I had already decided I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my days just sitting on a beach somewhere. At that point, it would have been easy to congratulate myself on kick-starting my television work while I was a player, and to settle for a spot on a standard show, phone in the work, and collect my paycheck. But that wasn’t me. That wasn’t the best I could do.

  Since that day, I’ve always approached my second career with the same sense of competitiveness I took to the basketball court. I want to be better than my NBA peers who became part of the media when their careers ended. I want to do more than just be on a show. I want to have a multimedia presence on as many platforms as possible. I want to have the most Twitter followers. I want to win an Emmy. Really, it’s all about being a professional at the highest level of my field.

  It took me ten years to get myself to the top levels of the media business: to being a lead studio analyst on ESPN, to a prominent place on Grantland, and to the point where someone would pay me money to write a book. As the great Parrish Smith put it—“no shorts and no sleep,” right?

  People ask me why I always have a baseball bat resting on my shoulder in my Grantland podcast videos. The bat on my shoulder represents the chip on my shoulder, the same chip I carried around as a player at Southwestern, at Michigan, and in the pros. I’ve transferred it to media. People are surprised that I’m the lead studio analyst for ESPN? That I’m calling games in college and the pros, and all over Grantland? Perfect. That just feeds the chip. And my bat and I are just getting started.

  I’ve had plenty of time, as a player and as a member of the press, to figure out not just how media and fans misunderstand sports, but why.

  So now it’s my job to help set everybody straight.

  We get tricked into thinking that sports are a fantasyland, a magical place with a magical set of standards and practices. That the crazy-rich players should be happy with the money they get from their crazy-rich owners. That everybody should listen to their coach and fall in line behind the front office, no matter what.

  Within this fantasy frame of mind, when LeBron James moves from Cleveland to Miami, the story line is that he “abandoned” the Cavaliers. When Carmelo Anthony decides not to go to Chicago but stay in New York, he �
�doesn’t care about winning” and is just “all about the money.” When a player like Dwight Howard, or back in my day, Vince Carter, starts having problems with his organization and forces a trade, he’s turning his back on his teammates.

  That is the way those stories are depicted. And most fans believe the narrative the media, and the owners, spin for them. But the magical pedestals we put our sports figures on—and the values we assign to their moves—aren’t grounded in reality.

  Let me ask you a few questions. If you got a job offer for a better job at a better company, would you take it? If you had a chance to get a raise, would you take it? If your company was poorly run, and clearly headed nowhere good, would you speak up or look for a new job? If you’re the best at what you do in your field, you become a commodity. You have options about where you work and where you live.

  In sports, for some reason, we don’t expect the athletes to act like everyone else does in relation to their jobs. People who follow sports should make more of an effort to see an athlete’s actions from the athlete’s perspective.

  Flipping to the other side of the equation, there’s the game that pro athletes have to play with the media. Many of those athletes could learn how to manage their reputations a little better. LeBron and “the Decision” is a cardinal example of how not to play the game. LeBron said so himself when he returned to Cleveland. (That return, by the way, was the cardinal example of how to do things.) The problem was never that he went to Miami, a better organization at the time, with an iconic leader ready to guide him to the promised land. The problem was how he went about it, and that’s on him.

  The central rule here is pretty simple: You have to win first, and build the image second. Now that LeBron’s won titles, no one can criticize him in quite the same way they once did. To take another example, go back to Vince Carter. You might remember that situation a few years ago with him in Game 7 of the conference semis against the Sixers. He went to graduation at North Carolina in the morning and flew back just in time for the game, which his team lost by a point. There were a lot of people who found what Vince did that day admirable. There were also a lot of haters, who thought of him as soft for not prioritizing winning over everything else. If Vince had asked me for my advice, I would have told him not to go. As significant as it was to graduate from college, at that moment it was more important to do his job and build the case that he was a superstar. He had a lot more great games in him—he still might—but he never reached a higher plateau in his career than on that day.