Loose Balls: Easy Money, Hard Fouls, Cheap Laughs and True Love in the NBA
304
Loose Balls: Easy Money, Hard Fouls, Cheap Laughs and True Love in the NBA
304eBook
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Overview
No inspirational pieties or chest-thumping boasting here—instead, Jayson Williams gives us the real insider tales of refs, groupies, coaches, entourages, and all the superstars, bench warmers, journeymen, clowns, and other performers in the rarefied circus that is professional basketball.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780767909389 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Crown Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 01/08/2002 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| File size: | 860 KB |
About the Author
Steve Friedman is a contributing editor at Esquire magazine and a former senior editor at GQ. He has written for Outside, ESPN The Magazine, Details, and many other national publications, and his work has been collected in The Best American Sports Writing. He lives in New York City.
Read an Excerpt
Dumb & Dumber Don't Even Begin to Describe It--My Years with the Philadelphia 76ers (Following a Brief Detour in the Desert)
The only thing I knew about Phoenix when I came out of college was it was hot and it had a lot of pickup trucks. So when the Suns drafted me out of St. John's in 1990, and when the guy at the podium said, "Going to the Suns is Jayson Williams," I said, "Oh, no, I'm not. No, I'm not." Actually I didn't just say it. I yelled it.
Unfortunately, the TV cameras happened to be focusing on me at that moment, scowling and waving my arms, yelling, "Oh, no, I'm not." I don't think that helped me with the Phoenix fans.
I waited two months before going out there. The night before the trip, I went to a party at Tunnel, a New York City nightclub. I had my last drink at 5:30 a.m. The plane left a little after 6:00 a.m. Then I was drinking on the plane, and when I got to Phoenix, I had some drinks from the minibar in the hotel room. Then I passed out. And you know how sometimes when you wake up in a hotel room, you don't know where you're at? That was what it was like, but worse. I look outside and there's nothing but desert. And as far as I knew I was still in New York. I had forgotten all about the plane ride. So I look outside and there was nothing but desert, and the heat just smacked me. It was 122 degrees that day. And the heat just knocked me down. I get up and there's the desert again. I think I'm still in New York and all I see is desert.
"Holy smokes," I say, "they dropped the bomb."
Now I'm all bug-eyed, trying to call the front desk, ask what the emergency evacuation plans are, who bombed the city, are the phone lines down, can I get in touch with my parents? And I hear a loud knock on the door. I answer it in my underwear. It's Jerry Colangelo, owner of the Phoenix Suns. I'm sweating--stinking, I'm sure, like a distillery. I can feel the alcohol coming out of my pores.
Jerry looks at me.
"Jayson?" he says.
But I'm still in New York. At least I think I'm in New York.
"What happened?" I yell. "They dropped the bomb on us. Where am I? I need to get in touch with my parents to make sure they didn't get hit by the bomb. Can you get me a phone line?"
Jerry's still looking at me.
"Oh, my," he says. "We've got a problem."
When Big Daddy Lost His Voice
A few weeks later they call me to the office, Jerry Colangelo and his boys. I'm overweight, out of shape, and I hadn't played basketball in a while, because I had a broken foot my senior year of college. Also, I'm continuing to hate Phoenix. Jerry tells me I have an attitude problem. Then he insults St. John's, my alma mater. I think Jerry's trying to piss me off.
"Screw you!" I say. Then I knock everything off Jerry's desk. Tell him I'm going home.
He says he'll meet me at the hotel, we can work things out, we have to work things out. But I don't even go to the hotel. I just go straight to the airport, then fly home, to my father.
I figure he'll be happy to see me, so when I knock on his door and he opens it, I'm all smiles.
"Dad," I say, "I'm home!"
"What the hell are you doing here?" he says. "You're supposed to be in Phoenix."
"Dad, they were treating me real bad out there. They're calling me 'boy.'"
Now I'm crying.
"They're talking down to me, yelling at me, criticizing me, saying I'm the worst player in camp."
My dad puts his hand on my shoulder.
"Jay," he says, "let me tell you something. You're my son, and I don't care what, you ain't never got to do something you don't want to do. You don't want to go out to Phoenix, you ain't got to go."
As soon as he says that, briiing! briiing!
I pick up the phone and it's Jerry Colangelo.
My dad's asking who it is, and I'm telling him don't worry, I'll handle it. And Jerry's yelling at me. He's saying, "Son, you don't come to Phoenix, we're going to give you the minimum, a hundred and fifty thousand. And you're never going to make more than that in this league."
My father sees my face and he says, "Let me speak to him. Let me have him."
"Dad," I say, "don't worry about it, man. I got him."
But my dad says, "Boy, I told you. You ain't gotta do nothing you don't want to do. Now, let me talk to him."
So I give my father the phone.
"Yeah, this is Big Daddy," he says, all belligerent. That's my father's nickname, Big Daddy. "What do you want?"
Then there's quiet.
"Oh, yeah?" he says again, but not so belligerent.
More quiet.
"Oh, yeah?" Real quiet now. "Ohh. Oh, man. Okay. Okay, thank you."
My dad hangs up the phone. Then he says, "Son, you've got to get your butt on the next plane back to Phoenix."
Car Trouble
When I'm back in Phoenix, because I'm the team's first-round draft pick, the team gives me a Pontiac Grand Prix. The second-round pick gets a Cadillac. I'm pissed off about that. So I take that Grand Prix and I drive into the parking lot and crash into every pole I can see, then I gave the car back to them.
So the owners tell me--they're being real cute--"You know, that car we gave you might have been too little. So we're gonna give you a big ol' Grand Marquis."
But I crash that one up, too. So finally they give me an LTD. Real Barnaby Jones model.
The day I get the car I have to go to the airport to pick up my brother Victor. I get there early, so I have a few drinks. For some reason I get drunker drinking at airports and Yankee games than anywhere else in the world. So when Vic finally arrives, I'm a little drunk, but we get in the LTD anyway, and I drive him back to the hotel.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | xi | |
| Introduction | 1 | |
| Chapter 1 | Dumb & Dumber Don't Even Begin to Describe It--My Years with the Philadelphia 76ers (Following a Brief Detour in the Desert) | 9 |
| Chapter 2 | The Meanest, Funniest, Smelliest, and Softest Players in the League and How Larry Bird's Better Than Most People Think, Hakeem Is Nastier, and Michael Jordan Is Much, Much, Much Meaner | 21 |
| Chapter 3 | Pleasures of the Flesh, Temptations of the Spirit, and How Charles Barkley Took Me Under His Wing and Proceeded to Shave Four Years off My Life | 45 |
| Chapter 4 | Bathroom Brawls, Cheating and Arguing with Teammates over Stats. Why I Love the College Game | 67 |
| Chapter 5 | Poverty, Wealth, My Plan for Making Every NBA Player Take a Nine-to-Five Job Laying Bricks for Two Years Before Entering the League & Why I'll Puke If I Hear Another Kid Say, "I'm Leaving College 'Cause My Mama Needs a New House" | 87 |
| Chapter 6 | Race, Racism & the Night Tom Gugliotta Told Keith (the Great White Hope) Van Horn, "There's One Sheriff in Town, and I'm It," Then Proceeded to Light Him Up for 35 Points | 103 |
| Chapter 7 | Dirty Tricks, Hidden Fouls, Head Games & Other Tools of an NBA Veteran's Trade | 119 |
| Chapter 8 | On the Road, at the Bars & in the Backwoods. L.A. Has the Best Cheerleaders, There Are Some Real Animals in New York City, and Milwaukee Is Strictly Laverne & Shirley. Plus, Why Utah Fans Are Crazy but Nice | 137 |
| Chapter 9 | Friends, Hangers-on, Entourages & the Relative You Haven't Heard from in Ten Years Who Wants to Borrow Fifteen Grand--Yesterday | 149 |
| Chapter 10 | What's Love Got to Do with It? Or Why Guys Who Really Can't Stand Each Other Can Be Great Teammates, Why Good Friends Occasionally Almost Kill Each Other & Who Hates Who | 159 |
| Chapter 11 | Riches, Fame, Celebrity, and the Night George Bush and I Put Our Heads Together to Figure Out What Was Up with UFOs, Aliens & Area 51 | 175 |
| Chapter 12 | Liars, Cheats, Tramps & Thieves. All About Coaches (with a Few Words on Refs) | 187 |
| Chapter 13 | What's Young & Skinny & Can Do a 580-Degree-Double-Pump-Backward Jam but Doesn't Know How to Shoot a Jump Shot or Set a Back-Side Pick? Meet the Future of the NBA | 211 |
| Chapter 14 | Trash-Talking, Violence, Toughness & Why Most Seven-Footers with Big Muscles Wouldn't Know What to Do If They Ever Got in a Fight | 219 |
| Chapter 15 | The Swamp Called the Meadowlands--My Up & Down, Loving & Hating, Bench-Riding & All-Star Career with the New Jersey Nets | 243 |
| Chapter 16 | What the NBA Has Taught Me About Life | 259 |
| Index | 267 |