Longshot (27 page)

I sat at home for a week recovering from the ulcers and putting on some weight. John was in Italy and thus wasn't able to give me any immediate word on options or trades within the D-League from other teams. In truth, I was ready to call it a career.

John called me back late one night: “Lance, it's time to go back. A window is opening for you. Coach Gates will be giving you a call.”

Coach Gates called me, and after a long phone call, we were able to at least get some of the issues on the table. “Jeff is leaving for Turkey in two days,” he told me. “We need some bodies, plus Lukie may be leaving.” Jeff Graves had had an offer from Galatasaray, and Luke Jackson was looking at an offer from Spain.

I told Gates that I needed him to let me play through my mistakes. If I was continually looking over my shoulder toward the bench, afraid of making a mistake, I couldn't be as effective as I needed. He agreed and told me he would make a more concerted effort to do that.

I drove back up to Boise and met the team for the flight to Arkansas. Jeff had finalized his deal with Galatasaray, and all I could do was smile and wish him good luck. I found it so humorous that the same team that had mistreated me in the beginning, setting me off on this roller coaster of a career thus far, was now doing me a favor by taking Jeff Graves away, removing him from my path. Karma comes full circle.

In my first game back, against the Arkansas Rim Rockers, Pete Ramos broke his leg. He was done for the season. A week later, Mohammed Sene was recalled to Seattle. Within a week, I had gone from being a fifth and seldom used big on the bench to being the starting center. Things can change in the blink of an eye, and they often do. As bad as I felt for Pete and his leg, I also knew that one man's misfortune was another man's opportunity. I failed the first time, when opportunity knocked at the University of Utah after Chris Burgess broke his foot. I wasn't going to repeat that mistake.

What I did this time was dig way, way back to my high school days and dust off many of the moves and skills that Coach Rupp had developed with me.

In many ways, some of the skills that Rupp taught me were too advanced, too farsighted, for even the collegiate game, let alone high school. Rupp could tell that I had decent, but not the greatest, athleticism, but he foresaw that my size and quickness would be enough to compensate for lack of raw natural athletic ability. He taught me to be a face-up post player, to shoot over the smaller opponents and drive past the bigger ones.

Like college coaches in general, mine didn't want me to play the face-up game, preferring to have me play my back to the basket and pound my way inside. Part of the face-up game entails having a jump shot, and most college coaches don't like their big men “settling” for jumpers.
Rupp taught me to shoot the jumper. The rationale college coaches use against big men shooting jumpers is this: college coaches can go find shooters anywhere, while big men are a rarity; the big men, rather than trying to do what the other kids can do, should do what no one else can do, which is use their size and plow their way in.

This is a nice philosophy for the college game. But once I began to play professionally, I struggled. I'm not broad-shouldered enough or long-armed enough or thick enough to force my man back and muscle him into the basket, as the competition is now much stiffer and just as big as me—if not bigger, faster, and stronger. It wasn't until I finally told myself to go back to what Rupp had taught me that I began to excel in the professional ranks. Rupp told me to play not to my weakness but to my strengths—my speed and shooting touch—to counter the slow, brute force of most big men.

In my first two games as a starter, trying to dust off my old skills and mind-set, I averaged a respectable twelve points in about twenty-four minutes. Then in my third game, I exploded for a thirty-point and ten-rebound game and a win in Bismarck, against the Dakota Wizards. As I scored every which way with left-and right-hand shots around their shot blockers, everyone—the reserves on the bench, the players on the court, and the fans in the crowd—was asking, “Who is this white guy?” All they could think to do was yell at me from the front row, “Ivan Drago!”
*

People were quick to pass my thirty-point game off as a fluke—none more so than me, as I didn't know that I was capable of scoring thirty points in a game anymore. A week later, I scored thirty again, against Austin at home.

Then Coach Gates did something no other coach in my entire career has done: he admitted he was wrong, without any
but
s. He told my
father one day in Boise, “I made a mistake with Lance. He told me he could play. I should've believed in him.” Gates finally understood me and the player I was. He came to appreciate me and knew how to coach me. He became my friend and my ally.

That last month of the season, I averaged twenty-two points and thirteen rebounds a game. We clinched the best record well before the end of the season. Randy Livingston and I would just pick and pop the other teams to death. If I couldn't get a jumper, I'd roll all the way to key, creating space for Ronnell Taylor to cut through an open lane or for Ricky Sanchez to drift off for a three-pointer. We were deadly and efficient. We were patient, as patient as twenty-four seconds allowed us. We perfected the art of spacing. We created so much room for everyone to score that the defense had to either let us have a lane or else be called for a defensive three-second penalty. They had to choose their poison.

Randy loved playing with me, because I never got cute. I never put the ball on the ground. He would just pass and I'd just shoot it, whether it was for a jumper from the elbow after drifting from a pick or for a layup while rolling. Randy would lead me with a pass and I'd finish. He got me buckets and I got him assists. If I didn't have an immediate look, I wouldn't try to force it and dribble my opponent down; I simply kicked it back out to Randy or to Ronnell as he cut through a lane.

We cruised through the rest of the regular season, and Randy finally was called up to Seattle for the last week of the season. This was an integral call-up, as it marked the tenth season Randy played in the NBA, thus making him eligible for pension upon retirement. After Randy left for the last week, we continued on and won our last two games, clinching the best regular season record in D-League history. Randy was named MVP, and Gates was named Coach of the Year.

A first-round bye was awarded to us from the playoff seeding, but since Randy had not been on the roster at season's end, as he was in Seattle for the last week, he wasn't eligible to come back down and play with us for the postseason. He did come down to sit on the bench and support us, coaching us through the West Conference semifinal game.

John Greig was at the game, and so were Pax and Sam. It was televised internationally on NBA TV, and I did an interview in the pregame show, talking about my writing and the books I was working on, but mostly answering questions about how I had managed to come onto the scene after sitting on the bench for most of the season.

“How did you manage to stay in shape?” one interviewer asked.

“You always take that extra stride in practice, whether it be in drills or in scrimmages, and if you're not needed down on the other end, you still run down there. That extra stride will always carry you just that much further, especially when you're asthmatic like me.”

I had twenty-four points and seventeen rebounds in that playoff game, but we fell in overtime to Colorado.

I had no regrets. I had returned and left it all out on the floor, knowing I had done the best I could, lighting the D-League on fire, averaging twenty-two and thirteen in the last month of the season. But by this time it was too late to really be considered for a call-up. Time had run out.

I'd have to wait through another off-season of hype and politics, just like the NASCAR drivers do on a maintenance lap, allowing the others to catch up. I knew I was never the type of guy who'd get a job based solely on hype. I was going to do it only through my actions on the court. My comeback dream wasn't yet complete.

I started out that summer
by joining my teammate Ricky Sanchez down at his home in Puerto Rico, playing for a club there, in Humacao. As tradition would have it, I left Puerto Rico with only half of what I had been guaranteed, because people who know I'm deaf and struggle to understand a foreign language also like to think I'm stupid and thus won't notice that they're cheating me out of money. But the team did give me a small shirt that fits on me like underarmor on a football player. It was gracious of them to give me that shirt in lieu of the $7,000 they still owe me. I framed that $7,000 shirt.

I flew to Seattle so that I could train with John Greig and several of his other clients for summer camp. The Boston Celtics had been energetic in getting me to commit to them for the summer, well before the NBA draft. I was hesitant to at first, not knowing what rookie they'd take in the NBA draft later that month. I didn't want to commit early to Boston for the summer only to have them draft a rookie big man. At the end of the day, I appreciated their enthusiasm, and they said I'd get decent playing time. I liked what I was hearing, and so I went to Seattle with John, getting in the best shape I could for the Celtics' summer camp in Las Vegas.

I was feeling good about things until the NBA draft, when Boston took Glen “Big Baby” Davis in the second round. He just fell to them. The fact that he went that late in the draft had surprised many. I knew I was done for. I was upset that I had locked myself in with Boston for camp. If I was gunning for an NBA team, the only way I was ever going to be considered was by being a deep reserve who would probably never see the floor during games but would find his use on the practice floor. Glen Davis was in that same role as an undersized but energetic and bulky rookie. A résumé like mine wasn't nearly as presentable as one like Glen Davis had: MVP of the SEC (Southeastern Conference) and a
final-four appearance. The writing was on the wall. No matter how well I played, “Baby” was going to get the bulk of the minutes, and he would get the nod over me if it was anywhere close to debatable, because Boston fans would know the name and immediately be excited about him. Whereas for me, who is Lance Allred?

My fears were confirmed when I walked into the gym upon arriving in Vegas to see Glen Davis and Leon Powe being taken through individual workouts before any of us had arrived. Boston had already made up their mind. It was a done deal. All I could do at this point was just go play and have as much fun as possible, regardless of what happened around me. I played well with what I had been given. John came down and watched the games, and was happy with the way I played. “Just keep doing what you're doing,” he told me. “You're making the most of your opportunity, and people notice that.”

I left Vegas with no regrets, with people whispering to me, “Danny Ainge really likes you,” Ainge being the president of Basketball Operations for the Celtics.

“Yeah,” I said. “But how much?” They signed Glen Davis shortly after.

After camp was over, I was invited to go play in China with the NBA Development League all-star squad in the International Stankovich Cup. I was hesitant to do it, but John asked me to, feeling we needed that recognition on my résumé. Furthermore, Randy had been invited to be on the team and said he would go if I went. But Randy flaked out at the last minute, the day before we flew from San Francisco to China.
*

It was a strange setup. There were ten of us, and yet four of us were centers. I don't know who put the team together, but someone obviously just went with those with the best available stats who were willing to go. Four centers to share one spot, a spot that can be played by only one man at a time.

The notion that China is our enemy, a future threat to our stability, is preposterous. They f-ing love us! Or at least us American basketball players, who are almost NBA players. “Tracy McGrady!” they'd yell at us as we walked down the street. You would think that Yao Ming jerseys sold the most jerseys in his home country, but really it's Tracy McGrady.

By the second day I had come down with food poisoning, and for the rest of the trip I was in pain, dehydrated, and miserable.

When people find out I was in Hong Kong, they will excitedly ask if I had a good time.

“Yes. The knockoff shops were such a lovely attraction. If you're ever there, I recommend you go to the one just off the train at Lon Square. It was so much fun walking through sweatshops, taking advantage of all of those poor people to assuage our vanity.”

The Chinese love their cameras. And they love to use their cameras to take pictures of Americans. Especially tall Americans. As I walked down a busy sidewalk, the sound of each step I took was drowned out by the clicking of cameras. I often turned around to see a tiny lady smiling, giving me a thumbs-up as she captured my confused look with another quick snapshot.

I learned to combat this nuisance by pulling out my own camera to take pictures of the people taking pictures of me. It really did cheapen the moment for them, as they'd pull down their cameras to give me their own look of confusion, which I in turn would capture.

One girl spoke to me in broken English as I immortalized the disappointed look on her face: “No fun!”

Once I got home from China, I needed money, and Aunt Jeanette lined me up with a landscaping job. It was OK money, and I enjoyed learning how to build and design yards for when my own time comes. But I didn't like the late-night phone calls from my lonely employer, who left long, inebriated diatribes on my voice mail, talking about how she was still angry that she was never blessed with a child.

Helga was a demanding boss, and very impatient. I was hired to do the grunt work and ditch digging, but she also had a hired landscaper, Liz, working on her lawn, and the two of them bickered constantly. Like a child of a divorce, I was caught in the middle. It reached its worst point one day while I was working in the back of a truck bed, unloading a shipment of landscape rocks in the snow. I had not expected it to snow in October, and I was trying to get this project done before I headed back up to Boise to start the season. Snow or not, though, I was going to finish. Helga came out holding the phone and said, “I can't talk to her. She drives me crazy. You talk to her.”

I took the phone and apathetically asked, “Yes?”

“Lance!” Liz barked on the other end of the line. “What are you doing shoveling while it's raining and snowing out? You need to grow a backbone!”

As much as I enjoy lonely women calling my manhood into question, I wasn't really in the mood for it on this day. I rolled my eyes, standing there on a pile of rocks, which may as well have been a pile of shit.

No man can serve two masters, let alone two lonely women. I learned through all of this that no matter how much money I make, it's never worth the cost or hassle of having someone else do your yard work for you. Why pay someone to do something you can do yourself?

 

Throughout that summer, John called me often to inform me of offers to go overseas. Some were for ridiculously low pay, and some were quite enticing. But something kept telling me no. I needed to give it one more year in the D-League, give it one more push. I knew myself well enough to know that if I went overseas now, I'd be asking myself
What if?
for the rest of my life. I stayed. I was going leave no stone unturned. I was going to give this one last push.

“OK,” John agreed. “But you have to resign yourself to the fact that the day may come where you'll have to go back overseas.”

“I know, John. I'm only giving it one more year in the D-League. One more year is all I will allow myself. And if I don't get that call-up, I will just accept the fact that it wasn't meant to be, and we will finish my career overseas.”

I had this feeling in my stomach that my experience overseas had been so bad because I wasn't supposed to be there, that I was supposed to be in the States. And it was more than just about me: I also felt that to be playing in the NBA would inspire kids with other disabilities. If it had been only about the money, I would have just gone back overseas for the quick check.

The clock was ticking. It was a strategic move to stay, just as it was a strategic move not to go to any fall preseason camps. I knew the system well enough now to know that I was never going to outjump anyone in the gym or steal the limelight. I was never going to be invited to stay on a team through power of name or reputation. Going to a preseason camp would have ultimately been an exercise in futility, leading to more disappointment, and I was still stinging from the letdown with Boston.

I chose to stay home and prepare for the season in Boise, which would start back up again in November. Coach Gates was back; so was Randy. There were several reasons why Randy decided not to retire after that
year, in spite of earning his pension, being named MVP, and having a son on the way. But I know that one of the big reasons was for me.

“I need you to help me get there, Randy. You're the only way I can,” I admitted to him on the phone when I asked him to come back. And he did. Randy Livingston was my last crossing guard, to a place I had been chasing for so long.

Coach Gates called to tell me he had three new guys coming to the Idaho Stampede: Cory Violette, a former Gonzaga standout who grew up in Boise; Roberto Bergerson, a Boise State legend who had played for the Stampede back in the CBA days; and Ernest Scott, a kid from Georgia who had played for Gates in the USBL (United States Basketball League) at one time.

Coach wanted all three of those guys and me to go on a semi-pro preseason team that toured the country, playing at various colleges, allowing the coaches to gauge their team for the upcoming season.

It was a chance for them and me to get acquainted with each other and grow familiar with our traits and tendencies. It was a clever way to get the rust and kinks out before the season began, allowing us to ease back into the pace of an officiated game. They all agreed to go, and I agreed to join them. I had nothing else to do. It was a quick way to pass time, get in shape, meet my new teammates, and collect $600!

I was thrilled upon meeting these three, as I could tell they were quality people. In any business, if you want to win and be successful, before talent and skill, you need good people around you.

Cory and I took an immediate liking to each other, and we became roommates in Boise. We thought similarly politically and economically and could talk and debate for hours. Cory startled me the first night he and I shared a room on the road when I awoke to find him eating a pizza in the dark. He was either staring at me while doing so, or he was sleep-eating.

I was very excited about the upcoming season. Training camp started, and Randy flew into town. Camp began without any incident or ripped feet this year. I was in good shape, and it felt good to be back.

My choice to stay in the D-League proved immediately to be a wise one, as I charged out of the gates with the same fervor with which I had ended the previous season, scoring thirty points in the first game.

 

D-League travel is the best.

You're never departing from a major city for another one. You're always traveling from a small, secondary city like Boise or Bismarck to either Los Angeles or Denver or to another small city—the cities with markets in which a D-League team can thrive. Small cities like Boise, where there are no major pro sports teams, are the smartest markets for building a minor-league team.

With the D-League comes the luxury of the travel. This is the time when you're reminded of just how good you have it. You wake up at 5 a.m. every road trip and head to the airport, where you once again meander through the tedious security checks, sardonically reminding yourself that freedom isn't free as you take your shoes off and do your best to tuck in your big toe, which protrudes through the hole in your ratty sock. You walk through the scanner, with all eyes magnetically drifting toward your big toe, which has popped up to tell everyone hello, while holding up your pants by a belt loop as you wait for your gear to come off the conveyor belt.

Then awkwardly, with one hand, as the other is still holding your pants, you grab your things as quickly as you can and wrestle with your laptop, which you have to take out of your bag every damn time because for some reason everything metal, when wrapped in nylon bags—except, of course, for computers—shows up on X-ray scanners. Still holding up your pants, you try to clear out of the way as fast as you can for the sake of those behind, at least if you're someone who is polite like me, and then walk over to the two chairs that have to accommodate the thousands that pass through every day. You then just drop all your things on the floor and begin to dress yourself in public.

Then comes the plane flight, which is hardly an end to justify the means. Because of the simple, economic truth that we're in a small city, there are no 757s waiting for us. Seven-footers like me have to suck it up by getting on tiny two-seater commuter jets, with cabins that remind you of an MRI tube. A tube in which you do your best to refrain from wigging out in a state of claustrophobic hysteria, pounding the walls, begging for someone, anyone, to let you out.

You hit your head on all the open cabinet doors, each encounter more agitating than the last because you cannot see ahead but you know it's coming. You walk blindly down the aisle, as you cannot stand up straight. You can only bend at the neck and stare down at your feet and the white emergency exit lights, which will never ever light up for you
and let you live to tell of it. At least for me, these dormant Valkyries earn their keep by serving the semiredeeming, offhand purpose of guiding me in a straight line back toward the rear of the plane.

People then laugh and point at you and ask, as though no one else before or after them has done so, “Are you guys a basketball team?…

How is the weather up there?” They will then turn their heads and watch you maneuver, twisting and turning as you tuck yourself like a folding chair, a skill mastered over time. It's not pleasant or fun. It's simply what needs to be done.