Jamario Moon's Globetrotting

[wuck]

From the PD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz5yTUEB8kY

Jamario Moon's Globetrotting? It was an out of this world experience for Cleveland Cavaliers forward
By Jodie Valade
December 19, 2009, 7:36PM

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- On occasion, Jamario Moon has been known to leap halfway to his namesake when he launches -- especially if there's a ball to catch on the arc up, and a hoop to slam it through on the way down.

When people see how Moon can soar, they expect great things from the Cavaliers forward when he's on the receiving end of an ally-oop. When he fails to deliver, there's generally some disappointment.

Whenever he failed to deliver when he played for the Harlem Globetrotters in 2004, however, he experienced some of his greatest shame as a professional basketball player.

He'd hear silence. Groans. Whispers.

"Ohhhhhhh, nooo!" the fans would say. "A Harlem Globetrotter did not just miss a dunk. He's not supposed to miss a dunk."

"I know I felt bad when I missed one," Moon said, shaking his head.

Everyone has done it, of course, even pros. But with the Globetrotters' reputation for high-flying fun, fans expect spectacular moves -- and for the Globetrotter to always, always make the dunk.

It was a pressure to perform that Moon hasn't felt since joining the NBA. But he still counts his season with the Globetrotters as among his best times playing professional basketball. The 29-year-old has logged time for 19 teams in his career, and is in only his third season with the NBA -- making him one of just a handful of players to play for both the legendary Harlem Globetrotters and the NBA.

Before the Globetrotters come to The Q on Dec. 28, Moon reminisced about one of his most stressful and demanding professional stops, one that he says he's still honored to have experienced.

Moon played the 2004 season with the Globetrotters after fending off offers from them for about three years. Globetrotters scouts first saw Moon on a Lakers summer camp team, and particularly liked the way his spring-loaded legs launched him into the air. When you think Globetrotters, you think tricks and you think dunks. Moon could definitely deliver on the dunk part.

Plus, he'd be making about $2,000 a week, which was more than he'd been making playing for minor-league basketball teams.

"I always saw them play on TV and I heard people talk about them," Moon said. "So when they called, I was like, 'Hey, I'll go do it. I've played everywhere anyways.' Of course I'll do it. To go have fun and laugh? That's all I do."

That's the part that Moon remembers most fondly -- how he genuinely had fun playing basketball with the Trotters. He might have been playing the second game of a day during a never-ending stretch of travel, but he always managed to find a way to smile once he got on the court.

"Anytime you say the Globetrotter name, everybody automatically thinks of laughing, smiling and having fun," Moon said. "You've got to have a pretty good personality to deal with people every day."

That's evident from old-time players like Curly Neal, now an ambassador who travels to promote the team before games. Neal still smiles broadly and shakes hands with everyone he sees -- and everyone from former Cavalier Campy Russell to current Cavalier Shaquille O'Neal knows Neal at a glance.

Every basketball fan knows legendary Globetrotters like Neal, Meadowlark Lemon, Marques Haynes and the whistled "Sweet Georgia Brown" theme song. The tricks are well-known, too -- but fans still want to see the bucket of confetti, the pulling down of the referee's pants or simply participating in the famous passing circle.

"We used to have people who'd follow us city to city just to be in the water gag," Neal said. "I said, 'OK, bring your raincoats and umbrellas and we'll get you.'"

The Globetrotters' combinations of tricks, gags and basketball is what makes them as entertaining now as they were when they first began playing and racking up wins in 1929 -- and why Moon still values his time with the squad. True, he still moans about bus rides to tiny towns and playing more than 300 games in a year. But he also recalls fondly the time he shattered a backboard in Texas and his teammates improvised the scripted play on half a court. There were always the times when he made a kid smile with one of his high-flying dunks.

"What people don't understand is that the Globetrotters do a lot of tricks and have a lot of fun, but at the same time there's some really good basketball players on that team," Moon said. "A lot of these guys played at colleges. Right now they're entertainers. But it's the same as we [the Cavaliers] are. You see how crazy we act? LeBron out there dancing and doing all his stuff? It's the same thing."

Except with maybe a little less pressure to nail the dunk every time.

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2009/12/jamario_moons_globetrotting_it.html