Killer Crossover, page 15
145 Growing up in Chicago, I learned how to play fast on the playgrounds and run an offense like a floor general in organized games. My grammar school coach gave me the fundamentals, and my high school coach taught me how to lead. Don Haskins at UTEP taught me to be patient and understand my teammates. It’s important to know where a guy likes to get a pass, when and where he’s most able to score, who can handle the ball, who is a shooter, who can defend and rebound. I brought all these tools with me to Miami, and it made me a perfect fit for Riley and the burgeoning Heat Culture.
But after that first half-season, my contract was up. The Heat had a lot of salary cap room when a number of our players became free agents. Up north, the New York Knicks signed New Jersey Nets point guard Chris Childs to a five-year, $20 million deal. And though I was playing for the Knicks’ blood rival (thanks to Pat), I wondered if they might show interest in me. But I guess they just assumed I would stay in Miami because the Knicks never reached out. I was surprised they didn’t pick up the phone … and so were their fans. I thought I could have thrived in New York and Madison Square Garden with those rabid fans. If the money had been right, I could have been playing in blue and orange, which might surprise some people today. That could have been wild!
The Knicks, though, chose Childs instead, but everything worked out for the best. Things happened for the right reason. So I stayed in Miami on a four-year, $18 million deal with lots of incentives. Part of me was mad that I signed for such a conservative deal, though. I thought Pat lowballed me and that I could’ve gotten more (especially when Childs had only started 65 games in his two years while I was already a three-time All-Star). I 146signed a similar contract to the one Scottie Pippen got with the Bulls, which he ended up also not being happy about. We each chose long-term stability over the possibility of bigger paydays down the line. Maybe I should have signed a one-year deal and bet on myself. Thing was that I’d been hurt, coming off my ACL injury, and I wanted the security of a multi-year deal.
If you bank on yourself and something goes wrong, that could be it. For example, during the course of that first half-season in Miami, my back went out on me. That was a first. And coming off some weight issues, Pat wanted to put incentives in my contract that I would stay trim and would average better than a three-to-one assist-to-turnover ratio. If I achieved both, I’d get one million dollars. And if I played well during the deal, I knew I could be rewarded with another big contract later. Besides, I was excited about our prospects in Miami. With the team’s extra cap space, Pat signed bruiser P. J. Brown from the Nets and shooter Dan Majerle from the Suns.
He even considered signing Gary Payton from the SuperSonics, but Gary was not a fan of long practices. He famously used to sit most of them out in Seattle, so I knew he wouldn’t feel at home under Riley’s rule. That’s the NBA. There are always a lot of moving pieces. It was the same for me after the initial trade. The news had come in while the Warriors were in Seattle preparing for a game. So after I found out the Heat got me, I got on a plane and flew back to Oakland. The Heat had said I could report in a day or two. I didn’t want Yolanda and the kids to uproot their lives until I knew where I’d be for the following season, so I lived by myself for the first few months in a decently sized hotel room. After the season, I decided to go out driving to look around a few neighborhoods in Pine Crest. I walked around and checked 147out some of the houses for sale when I stumbled upon this one home on a 2.5-acre plot. When I talked to Yolanda that night and told her about it, she was excited to see it. Later, when she and the kids moved out from Oakland, we bought it and lived there happily for many years. One of the nice aspects of the area was that there were a lot of families with kids, and ours got to grow up with lots of friends.
In the end, it had been a long year that had started in Northern California and ended in Southern Florida, some 3,000 miles away. I loved my time in Oakland. I’d tallied 5,000 points and 2,500 assists there faster than any player in NBA history (except for the great Oscar Robertson). And while I was sad to leave the Bay, I was hyped about my new home in South Beach. Sadly, after trading me, over the next fifteen years, the Warriors would become one of pro sports’ biggest laughing stocks, losing big every season. They’d just lost too much talent. Oh well—nothing I could do about that now.
148
9 Pat Riley
I Was small growing up, so my cousins nicknamed me “Tim Bug” because they said I scooted around the house like a little bug. I’d run through people’s legs and was almost too small to tackle when we played football. On the basketball court, I could dribble everywhere because I was so low to the ground. In the NBA, though, my Miami Heat teammates started calling me “Bigs” as a nickname. At first it was because I was a bit over-weight. Like I said, that’s what happens when you don’t play a lot for a while, which was the case due to my last year on the Warriors. In Miami, Voshon Lenard called me Bigs first, because I was a little bit chunky.
But as my career went on there, I started to hit big shot after big shot. When that happened, I flipped the name Bigs and it came to mean all the big buckets I got. Reporters would ask, “Oh, they call you Bigs for all those buzzer-beaters?” I’d smile and nod, “Yup!” But even as I slimmed down, I was still burly. I was strong and played that way. It’s how I was raised in Chicago. No crying, no backing down. Like my dad said, there are no 149positions on the court. If you want to play down low, play down low—but you have to be ready for it. In grammar school, I learned how to post up. Drop-step. I did the George Mikan layup drill repeatedly. The game can be dirty, so I made sure to always be ready for anything. Some guys might be 6-foot-2, but they make a seven-footer look tiny. That’s what confidence—or lack thereof—can do for you.
With a new contract and the starting job, I knew this was my redemption year. My first full year with the Miami Heat was my best in the NBA. Pat brought in a slew of great talent, too, including Dan Majerle, P. J. Brown, and center Isaac Austin (who won the Most Improved Player that season). Pat also tried to sign Juwan Howard but the league vetoed that move for esoteric salary cap reasons and he later signed with Washington to be with his friend Chris Webber.
Majerle was the consummate pro, a great teammate, and an excellent shooter and defender. He made big shots, but was also dealing with back issues at the time. P. J. was our best low-post defender. We had a formidable roster for the 1996–97 season, and it was bolstered midway through when Pat traded Kurt Thomas for the 20-point scorer Jamal Mashburn from the Mavericks via the University of Kentucky. We had a good crew, but we just couldn’t stay healthy the whole way through. Dan, Zo, and Mash dealt with injuries, but thankfully we were all healthy around playoff time. The NBA season is long, and durability is an important part.
We were winning and having fun doing so. But I wasn’t looking at the season through the lens of number of wins. We wanted to win the whole thing. Yes, victories are important for seeding, but I had the long view in mind.
150 Some might ask how I developed chemistry with my team. I’m one of those guys who prepares ahead of the season. As a point guard, I study my roster. I know where each guy likes to rock, when they like to catch it. Point guards have to know their personnel. The thing I focused on ahead of the season was conditioning. Pat’s famous five 17s. That’s when you run from sideline to sideline on the court 17 times faster than basically humanly possible. I’d heard how gruesome they were. With only a two-minute break in between. They were tough, but I got through them. I proved I was ready for the new year.
That season, I was able to play in 81 games and had my best overall year as a pro. I led the team in scoring, assists, and steals, I made First Team All-NBA, finishing fourth in NBA MVP voting. For Riley, the season was all about having something to prove. He assembled a group of guys he thought all had chips on their shoulders; players who he thought the league had all but written off. But that wasn’t my personal take on it. I just thought he put a good team together, and I was ready to come out and play. Do what we needed to do, what we’d done our entire careers. I knew we could win at a high level.
Riley, who often seemed like a General, never gave the team a speech about me getting the car keys like Don Nelson had when I was a second-year player in Golden State. It was just assumed that I was the lead dog. For a while, Pat never thought anyone could match his Basketball IQ, other than Magic. Thought that no one could have control of a team like him. But when he saw what I could do, that took him back to his old Showtime days. He knew he had a six-foot guard that could do what the 6-foot-9 Johnson could. I think it surprised him a little that I could go out there and command the team. But it created quick trust.
151 For Pat, who took over the Heat at fifty years old and became “The Godfather” of the team, Miami was his new home after years in Los Angeles and New York. (People ask me if he has mafia ties and I’ll just say he knows a few people.)
Pat liked to dabble in mind games. Sometimes that meant him talking about the contract I’d signed. “I know it’s not where you want it to be,” he said to me, “but I don’t want to hear you talking about it in public.” I told him I understood, but there were times during the year when the press came up to me saying Pat was talking about it to them. I had to approach Pat and say, “If you tell me not to talk about it, what makes you think I want to hear you talking about it?” I wasn’t upset, but I wanted to clear the air. I knew I’d signed a below-market deal, which I did for security. And that was that. I just wanted to keep moving forward. But that was Pat. He would poke and push—everything to try and get the most out of his players. During the course of a season, he liked to sit us down and preach. On one occasion, after one of our practices—which were always closed to the outside world—he sat the whole team down.
He was hooting and hollering about something and during his talk, he looked at me and said, “What do you think, Tim?” I looked up and replied, “Pat, you know what, man? I hear your message. I hear what you’re saying. But I’m just not with how you’re saying it. Your demeanor. Your face. You’re upset, you’re yelling. But I’m just not that type of person.” Know that I’m the type of guy where I’ll do what the coach says, but I’m not going to get all revved up about it. I play. I know what a coach wants, and I’ll go out and do just that. I’ll give my team confidence and put us in a good position to win. But I’m not going to tear my teammates’ heads off doing it.
152 Ever since the eighth grade, I’ve been through coaches who would yell and scream. That doesn’t faze me. I listen to the message, not the shouting. Pat, though, didn’t like that response because he thought I was calling him out in front of everybody. He wanted me to say, “Yeah, yeah, sounds good, Pat!” So after practice, he brought me up to his office. “Tim, I didn’t like that,” he said. “You didn’t like what?” I asked. He replied, “I didn’t like you saying that back to me because we’ve got young players and I need them to buy into the program.” After our meeting, I decided to use that conversation as a learning moment for us both.
Pat was a good coach and a good man, and there was no sense creating barriers or getting us off on the wrong foot as head coach and point guard. I said, “Pat, you know what Nellie used to do? When you’re going to ask me something, why don’t you tell me beforehand? Tell me you’re going to come to me during practice with such-and-such and that you need me to agree on it. And that will be that. When I don’t know what you’re going to say and you ask me for my opinion, I’m going to speak honestly about it. But I didn’t know you were going to point to me, so I’m sorry for how I responded.”
I added, “Next time you’re going to do that, just let me know first. Then I’ll go with it.” (Fun fact: Nellie actually replaced Pat in New York for 59 games when Riley had left.) Personally, I didn’t mind getting yelled at. If it has to be my day to take it, so be it. But if anyone asks me for my opinion, I’m going to give it honestly unless I know we need to be on the same page ahead of time. That day, we both learned something about each other, which benefited us moving forward.
When I was first traded to Miami, Rex Chapman was quick to tell me that New York hated Pat. “You’re going to hear boos, 153boos, boos, boos, boos,” Rex said. “They’re going to let him have it. They’re going to let us have it. They’re going to let everyone have it when we come to town.”
* * *
Now a full team, one that would start the season as a single unit, we began from the jump and kept our feet on the gas. We were … well, on fire. Starting the season, we took five of our first six games, and though had a three-game losing streak after that, won seven in a row heading into our first matchup against the Knicks … which was at Madison Square Garden. I remember Knicks fans booed Pat relentlessly, and he slyly waved them on.
Even if Coach didn’t say it, we knew this was a big game for him. We were 12–4 (with two of those losses coming against the Bulls), but that didn’t matter as long as we beat the Knicks. Pat had crafted the Knicks into a well-oiled machine, and now took that mindset to Miami. Before the game, he even said to the press:
“We’re gonna play a team that’s a facsimile of us. This isn’t going to be as much about strategy as it is going to be about energy and what I call ‘big muscle movement.’” It would be Pat against his former assistant, Jeff Van Gundy. It would be Zo against Ewing. It would be me against Chris Childs and former Heisman Trophy winner from Florida State Charlie Ward. Plus Zo’s former adversary in Charlotte, Larry Johnson, was now a member of the Knicks. Add P. J. Brown and Charles Oakley and you have fireworks ready to go off. Just before the game, Pat came up to me. I was the last one to leave the locker room and I was tying my shoes. He said, “Can you win this one for 154me?” Already, we’d beaten Golden State for me, Phoenix for Dan Majerle, Dallas for Jamal, and Charlotte for Zo. Now Pat wanted his revenge game. I looked him in the eye and knew he was serious. Out there on the court, I told the guys we had to do it for Pat.
MSG is crazy. “They think this is Gotham City,” Pat told us. “They think they’re bad! But the rim is still 10 feet tall and the court is still 94 feet. Just play your game!” While we were sloppy with the ball to start, we took a 47–38 lead into the half. In the third we kept pushing and were up by almost 20 when things began to get a bit chippy. I’m sure the Knicks didn’t like getting pushed around at home, so of course Oakley and Zo got into it a bit. At the end we took them down, 99–75, which was a big chip on our shoulders.
Three days later, however, we were home against those very same Knicks—though this game would be a different story. New York wanted to beat us at our home like we’d done at theirs, and put a lot of pressure on. While back and forth heading into the third, they outscored us by 12—including a three by Allan Houston as time ran out to put them up 74–66 heading into the fourth. They kept their momentum from there, and even John Starks was trash talking our fans at one point. And while they were up, we kept up our physicality, which Larry Johnson didn’t like as he swatted at our forward Keith Askins. It was his second tech of the game which meant he was thrown out, and as tempers were flaring I tried to calm him down, but he just pushed me away. Then as he was leaving the court some fans threw stuff at him, further igniting the bad blood between the two teams. Both Zo and P. J. fouled out of the game, and our winning streak ended at nine at the hands of the Knicks by a 155score of 103–85. We knew this would be a team we’d have to battle the entire season.
By the time the All-Star game came around in February, we were 36–12. I was named to the All-Star team again for the first time in four years. That meant a lot to me after my battle with the ACL injury and the issues in Golden State. For a while, I was the only guy to come back from an ACL tear and make the All-Star team. Most guys couldn’t get back to that status, but I did so and, again, became one of the league’s best players. I attribute that success to maintaining my confidence and hard work. Really, I’d just wanted so badly to come back and prove my career wasn’t done after just a few years. I wanted to show everyone I was still that badass, that killer crossover king. That’s what motivated me from the first day of practice. To Pat’s credit, he kept me and the whole team in tip-top shape. But I pushed myself to be the best simply because I knew I could be the best again.
Fully clicking as a unit, we mostly coasted through the season, finishing 61–21 for second place in the East (behind the 69–13 Chicago Bulls). And I was fourth in MVP voting behind Karl Malone, Michael Jordan, and Grant Hill. Tell you the truth, though, I was mad.
This is the first time I’ve ever spoken on it, but I was fucking mad that I didn’t win MVP. It was my best chance to do so. I’d played well, averaging 20.3 points, 8.6 assists, 1.9 steals, and 3.4 rebounds. I really thought the award was mine, but the Heat ended up losing three out of our last five games—we were exhausted—and I think that took me out of contention. I think I was at the top of the list before we slid. Malone ended up winning it. His Jazz team was first in the West at 64–18, and NBA 156writer Jackie MacMullan had written about Karl saying that it was his time. Fuck, I was pissed. I let it slip through my damn fingers. Right out of my hands.
* * *
One of the best parts of the season, though, was getting to know my new Miami teammates better, including Zo. There are cliques on every team. Sometimes personalities clash or sometimes certain guys just get along better with others. But for me and Zo, we got along real well. We were like the East’s Stockton and Malone. In fact, our whole team was close, including Isaac Austin, Mashburn, P. J., Voshon, Askins, and Majerle. We played hard for one another, and despite the occasional spat during practice after an errant elbow—which is always bound to happen—we had each other’s backs. We genuinely liked each other.
