Killer Crossover, page 22
Mason couldn’t shoot well, but he was a damn good defensive player. He could set picks like a brick wall. He could also handle the ball well for a 6-foot-8 guy weighing 250-plus pounds. But I knew that his shooting would be key for us. So one day early on in practice, I called him over and we got to talking. I got the sense that people didn’t really tell Anthony what to do, but I had an idea I wanted to share with him. “Anthony, we’re going to shoot today. We’re going to take shots from spots around the perimeter and make 50 each. We’ll make 50 on the baseline, at the free-throw line, midrange between the free-throw line and the top of the key. Like that.”
224 To his credit, he did it with me. We spent hours on it. I told him, “Mase, I know you can set picks, but if you don’t make jump shots, we don’t win.” I knew we were going to run a ton of pick and rolls together, but if defenses didn’t respect his outside game, they’d double-team me and we’d be ineffective. We’d have to make defenses respect his shooting. “You’ve got to make these jump shots here,” I said. “Once you do, we’re going to be dangerous.” And to Mason’s credit, he did just that. We needed him to make those damn jump shots! And you know what he got for it? He made his first and only All-Star team with us that season. Winning is about sacrifice, and Mason worked extra hard that year to help the team.
Eddie Jones was another good player. He’d made three All-Star games by the time he came to Miami, and Pat had wanted to acquire him for a long time. He was a great defender, slasher, and scorer. He made a big difference and gave us a new look that we didn’t have before. He was young, too, and helped us replace guys like Voshon Lenard, who we’d traded after the season for Chris Gatling and a pick. We also had Bruce Bowen, another up-and-coming skilled defender. Then, early into the season, Pat picked up the former All-Star Cedric Ceballos to help off the bench.
What hurt us that year, though, was obvious: the absence of Zo. Grant was a great replacement, but at just 6-foot-9, he wasn’t as equipped to battle guys like Shaq or Hakeem Olajuwon in the paint. Zo was taller and built more like a center. Brian was closer to a power forward. He still managed 15.2 points and 8.8 rebounds for us that season, but he was never meant to play 30–35 minutes a game in the middle, which is what he had to do with Zo out. If it wasn’t for his health issues—which I know 225is a giant “if”—our rotation would have been perfect. But that’s life. More than basketball, we hoped he would get healthy.
Without Mourning, we got off to a slow start. I was healthy and feeling good, but we had a lot of new guys to work into our system. It took time to click. It wasn’t so much a talent issue as we hadn’t played together as a unit. Though we’d worked together in practice, we still had a lot to learn about one another on the court. We were 6–10 after 16 games, and had already lost our bench spark plug, Ricky Davis, to leg injuries. He would be out for the year, appearing in just seven games for us. But Pat picked up Ceballos from Detroit after a couple weeks, who helped to bring some scoring off the bench. With the help of two five-game winning streaks and learning to play as a unit, we’d recovered and were 30–20 at the All-Star break. In the second half of the season, Zo was trying to make his comeback. Always a Greek God of a guy, Zo refused to believe any diagnosis could keep him from playing. He tried like hell all year to come back.
And by the end of March, with 13 games left in the season, he did. Zo, who made the All-Star game ceremonially that season, came back and even started the last three games of the season, averaging 13.6 points and 7.8 rebounds in those 13 tilts. In his first game when Pat called him to come in off the bench, Zo raced to the scorer’s table and ripped off his home white Heat warmups. He went so fast he didn’t even know who he was coming in for, and Riley had to tell him again as he was about to check in. Our home crowd went nuts, giving him a standing ovation. Our opponents, the Toronto Raptors, were even happy to see him back.
Zo came in with about 3:37 left in the first quarter and immediately made his presence felt. He forced a turnover down low, 226and he was so hyped he put his hand up and pointed the other toward our basket like a wide receiver making a first down. Heat ball! With him back, though, we were all off our game a bit and ended up losing to Vince Carter and company. But the Raptors were a good team and that didn’t matter. We had our big man back. We finished the year 8–5 with Zo, and our record at the end of the season was 50–32, good enough for the third seed. In the first round of the playoffs, who did we match up against? Not the Knicks! Instead, it was the sixth-seeded Charlotte Hornets.
It was Zo’s former team and, more importantly, the team we’d traded Jamal Mashburn and P. J. Brown to, and they wanted revenge. In that series, Mash and Brown got the Hornets prepared and they took it to us. They were obviously mad at Pat for dealing them after how hard they’d played for our team. It didn’t help that I was injured in the series, too. As soon as we got Zo back, I was sidelined. My left foot was killing me, and I missed the final three games of the year heading into the playoffs. I found out I’d fractured my fifth metatarsal, which I’d been dealing with for a while. The only way to fix it, the doctors said, was if it broke. I just had to deal with the pain. We tried different shoe inserts, but nothing was quite right. Eventually, later while I was playing in Denver, it broke.
What sucked was that the injury kept me from being effective or even really playing much in the series against the Hornets. I only played 17 minutes in Game One and we lost by 26 at home, 106–80. Mashburn had 28 in that one and Charlotte’s up-and-coming burly point guard Baron Davis scored 23. Game Two was a blowout as well, which we lost by 26, 102–76. I only played 18 minutes, and aside from Eddie Jones we couldn’t get anything going. The whole situation was deflating.
227 By the time the series got back to Charlotte for Game Three, we knew we were cooked. We were down 10 after the first quarter and 27 at the half. Mash and Baron absolutely killed us. Charlotte’s record may have been worse than ours, but they were the better team, flat out. We lost the game, 94–79, and were outscored in the three-game series by 68 points. It was a big disappointment, to say the least. My injury wasn’t an excuse, but it still sucked and was horrible timing. I had no chance against Baron Davis hobbling like that. He was too good.
It was the most games I’d played in a season in three years, and I’d averaged 14.9 points and 6.3 assists. Even so, I knew it would be my final year in Miami. It was also the last one for a lot of guys on the team. Mason went to Milwaukee, Majerle went back to Phoenix, and Pat traded me to the Dallas Mavericks for a second-round pick. I’d helped take the Heat to six-straight playoffs and was the team’s all-time leader in assists. Now it was all over. The deal came down later in the summer on August 22, but I wasn’t mad. The NBA is a business, and I liked where I was going. Dallas was coached by my old friend Nellie, and the team boasted skilled guys like Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki. Time for a new challenge.
* * *
That summer, a few months before I was dealt to Dallas, our Hardaway family expanded. Yolanda and I were already parents to Nia and Tim Jr., but now we welcomed little Nina Hardaway into the world, on June 2, 2001. We call her our “Sydney Baby” because she was, well, conceived when we were in the Olympics in mid-September. It’s funny. A few guys on that team, including 228Ray Allen, ended up having kids the following year like me and Yolanda. We got our wives pregnant in those close Olympic quarters! But amid all the turnover in Miami, it felt great to have a growing family at home.
As soon as we got to know little Nina, it felt like she’d been here before, like she’d done all this in another life. She had an old soul and picked up life quickly, having a deep understanding of the world as she grew up. Today, she’s often on social media, whereas Nia and Tim Jr. largely grew up without it. Nina knows what she wants and goes out to get it, while her siblings are a bit more considered or reserved. Nina is the aggressive child. Her philosophy is that she’ll deal with the repercussions later. She’s not like her siblings, who mull things over. But it takes all kinds, and I am just happy we have such a terrific family.
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13 Old Friends, New Role
While I didn’t mind going to Dallas, I didn’t totally appreciate how I left Miami. Pat didn’t show me a lot of love on the way out. All I’ve ever wanted in my career was to win, and Pat knew that. But in the summer after our first-round loss to Charlotte, Pat let me know that he thought our backup point guard, Anthony Carter, was better than I was, and he was going to be the team’s starting point guard for the upcoming season. Drafted in 1999 out of Hawaii, Carter averaged about six points off the bench in his first two seasons with Miami. But now Pat thought he was the one who should lead the team. Maybe it was my injuries, maybe he didn’t want to pay me, I don’t know. But the real issue was that Pat didn’t tell me he wanted me coming off the bench to help tutor the guy or to give our bench unit more pop or to preserve me or that I could try to win the Sixth Man of the Year Award or that I would have been more effective for the team. He just said Anthony was better, and that was that. “You’re going to come off the bench for Carter,” Riley told me. And I was like, “Nah, nah, nah.” What I wanted to say was, “Pat, 230you must be out of your fucking mind. Anthony is not better than me on a bad day. Not better than me on three or four bad days! Not better than me on three or four bad months!”
That just wasn’t going to work for me. But the thing was, I had an out in my back pocket. Don Nelson, the coach of the Dallas Mavericks, was asking around about me. He liked the idea of me backing up Steve Nash. Thought it would be a good spot for me in my career. He was open and welcoming, while Pat had been harsh and cold. Even at our lowest points, I never told Pat that Phil Jackson or Jeff Van Gundy were better than him. That’s not how I do things.
A coach needs to know his personnel, and Riley should have known me well enough by then. That’s how I took it. I thought he was giving me the wrong message, and hurting all of us in the process. If Pat had done right by me, I would have been like, “Alright, cool, I understand.” But to come to me and say Carter was better didn’t rub me the right way. Nothing against Anthony. I’m just better than him, that’s all. He was a fine player, but over his thirteen-year career, he averaged just 4.8 points per game. He wasn’t a five-time All-NBA player. So, I thought, Cool, I’ll go to Dallas and play under Nellie and behind Steve Nash. And I told Pat, “Trade me.”
* * *
From the moment I arrived in Dallas and met with my new team, Nash started picking my brain. The future two-time MVP had been in the league for five years already—two in Phoenix and three in Dallas—and hadn’t yet made an All-Star team. But that was all going to change this season. I’d also known Steve 231from years before, when he was at the University of Santa Clara. He would come to Oakland during the summers and find his way into pickup games with the likes of me, Jason Kidd, and Gary Payton. Steve was a dog, too. He’d come to the gym every day and take all the shit we gave him—and we gave him a lot.
We’d hound him, taking away his shots, not letting him get to his spot. We’d bag him up. At the time, he was too small. Didn’t have enough weight on him. But he was there every day asking us questions, talking to us, watching us throughout the summer during those pickup and summer league games. I gained a lot of respect for the guy during those hot summer months. To be clear, we weren’t abusing Steve, but giving him all he could handle. He absorbed it all and learned to use it to his advantage. And when I got to Dallas, he’d evolved into a damn near complete player.
There was still a lot to talk about, though. We’d exchange notes on what we saw coming off pick and rolls, what we saw in certain defenders in various games. Normal stuff that point guards always chat about. I hadn’t worked with Nellie for six or seven years by then, so Steve would bring me in on what coach wanted and I’d tell him stories of the old Run-TMC days. In Miami, for example, we never switched on defense. It was all about going under the screen, going over it, getting around it however you could. But in Dallas, we switched everything and that was hard for me to grasp at first. Thankfully, Steve helped me through it.
It just goes to show you: what goes around comes around. You never know which skinny kid in a hot Oakland gym might become an eight-time All-Star and your future teammate. Dirk Nowitzki was also on the team, the big German seven-foot 232shooter. It was fun to get to know him a little bit. Dirk is a great guy. He was always working on his game. Maybe more than anyone else, Dirk paid attention to details. Being around him, Nash and scoring forward Michael Finley reminded me of the old days with me, Mitch, and Mully. These incredible trios who just talked and talked in order to get on the same page with each other.
When you looked into their eyes, you knew they wanted to win. That they would do anything for a victory. You saw determination. We’d trade stories about growing up, talking hoops from Chicago to California to Germany. I met Dirk’s famous personal coach, Holger Geschwindner, who was a great guy, too. Dirk always knew what he had to do to get better. He didn’t try to be anyone he wasn’t. His secret? Balance. He focused more on footwork than almost anyone I’ve ever seen. Spinning, his famous one-legged fadeaway jump shot. A lot of people don’t know, but the key isn’t the fadeaway. It’s the balance he has on that leg. Dirk wasn’t really falling back—he was often going straight up with his other knee out to create space. But he had to learn to be able to do it all with just one leg and foot on the ground. That took hours and hours of concentration. Just as Run-TMC used to talk about it, we all got together to dig into where everyone liked the ball. How to pass it to Finley or Dirk coming off a pick on the right side or left side. Finley used to tell me that if a guy was guarding him with a three-quarter stance, he’d spin and I could just lob it up to him and he’d get it. He’d just give a quick flicker of his eyes or eyebrows upward, and that would be the sign.
Those are the conversations you have to get better as a team. You have to talk and talk and talk and talk. There’s no other way. And while I didn’t spend a ton of time hanging out with those 233guys off the court, I loved them nonetheless. A lot of the time they’d be sitting in the back of the plane, and I’d be up front trying to be the veteran setting a good example, which was my job. When you get to the end of your career, a veteran is supposed to show the future stars how to be in it for the long haul and be professional. But I tell you this: Dallas had one of the nicest planes in the entire NBA! Dallas and Portland were leading the pack there. It makes sense, too. Both those teams had young, rich owners. And they took care of their players. Both teams had 747s and both had satellites. That was a luxury, man. I believe they have the same planes today, with all the amenities. I could have stayed in Dallas playing with Steve and Dirk under Nellie for a few more years, but my time was cut short there on February 21, 2002, when I was traded midseason to Denver after playing in only 54 games. I’d averaged just under 10 points and just over four assists in my time coming off the bench for the Mavs, which I thought was solid.
But Dallas wanted to go in another direction, and Denver had a few players they coveted. I was collateral damage, with my $3.3 million contract needed in order to make the salaries work in the deal. The Mavericks were 37–17 when I was traded and on their way to making a pretty deep playoff run. Denver, on the other hand, was 16–35. The full deal included me, Juwan Howard, and a first-round pick to Denver for Avery Johnson, Raef LaFrentz, and Nick Van Exel, who was a former All-Star and wanted out of Denver to get to a contender. Dallas, which also liked the idea of getting the shooting big man LaFrentz in the deal, pulled the trigger. The trade out of Dallas bothered me at first. I know it was a good move for the Mavericks, but I wanted to stay there.
234 I was at home when I found out about the deal. I was getting ready to go to practice when Nellie called. He said, “Hey man, I just want to call you and say we made a trade.” He told me the details of the deal, and I said, “Nellie, I appreciate you calling me. We’ve always been cool and respectful to each other, and I appreciate that. Thank you and good luck on the season.” And that was that. As I’ve said before, this is a business, and the longer you’re in the league the more you understand that and stop taking things personally.
In Denver, I was reunited with my former Heat teammate, Voshon Lenard. While I was glad to see him, the experience was very difficult. I’d gone from a team that was 20 games over .500 to one that was 19 games under .500. It was, by far, the worst team I’d been on in my career. I was used to winning, and Denver was in no position to do that. The squad’s best player was my former Team USA buddy Antonio McDyess. An All-Star the year prior, he was injured now and out for the year (he’d also miss the following season). The only good thing was that I started in all 14 games I played for the Nuggets.
But I wasn’t able to start in every game that season due to a silly suspension. Near the end of the year, I got booted for two games after I, ahem, tossed a TV monitor onto the court during a game in Orlando. One of the officials in that game was Marc Davis, the shaved-head overly buff guy who has a tendency to insert himself too much into a game. That was the case in this one, too, on March 15, 2002. I’d already tallied six assists in just 17 minutes when Marc blew his whistle. T-Mac had scored a basket when the Magic’s Monty Williams started jawing at me. But I didn’t want anything to do with that. I was a veteran and knew to stay out of any altercation.
235 You’re not supposed to get a technical foul called on you when you stay out of it. But Marc, who is also from Chicago, thought I’d stuck my nose into something that I shouldn’t have. He said I was instigating. So, he called a tech. I shouted, “Why’d you call a tech on me, Marc?” He said, “You initiated it!” But I told him I’d done no such thing. Marc said, “Yes, you did.” Now I was getting angry because Marc was calling me a liar. All I’d done was try to stay out of the issue and not make it anything big after Monty started yapping. Even though I wasn’t happy in Denver, I was still just trying to be a good vet and bring some wisdom and professionalism. But now I was heated.
