Damage
fuckface
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If you have time, this is a great read.
It is 4:17 on a Thursday afternoon and Dionte Christmas and I are standing underneath the northernmost basket on the main court of Temple's McGonigle Hall, talking hoops. He's just come from the final class of his senior year, and he's decked out in a blue and white button-down and dark navy slacks. The outfit covers up his newly-filled-in 6-foot-5 frame and, if it weren't for a pair of dark basketball sneakers poking out from under his business-casual clothes, you might forget the fact that, in one week, Christmas will officially be a professional athlete.
After discussing the 76ers' signing Eddie Jordan as a coach, the problems Jeff Van Gundy has coaching rookies, and why Avery Johnson is out of a job, I bring up the news of the day: The Sixers have just traded lunch-pail power forward Reggie Evans to Toronto for Jason Kapono, a bit player who doubles as the most statistically accurate shooter in NBA history. Christmas hadn't heard. "They did what?" he asks, hoping the news would be different the second time around. It wasn't. The 76ers added Kapono and, in doing so, effectively ended their hunt for a three-point marksman. A week earlier, Christmas had been pining for the job.
"They need a shooter ... I am a shooter. I think I'd really fit in here," he said of the Sixers. Now he's less enthusiastic. "Well," he says glumly, glancing up at the ceiling and untucking the Oxford from his pants, "I guess they're looking for a point guard."
Next Thursday is the NBA draft, and Dionte Christmas is on the bubble. Most mock drafts have the high-scoring guard going toward the beginning of the second round. For the past month, Christmas, 22, has been flying around the country to tryouts, exhibiting his skills and trying to improve on that. He was hoping his hometown team might take a flier on him. Now, probably, they won't. Christmas is not a point guard. Christmas, like Kapono, is a shooter.
Five minutes after our conversation, now outfitted head-to-toe in workout gear, he begins to show it. He rises up from beyond the three-point line and easily drains a jumper, then steps back and hits another, then another, then another, just like he did 107 times last season and 319 over his college career — both Temple University records. On the court and in front of the cameras, he doesn't look like the guy who's worried about an NBA journeyman stealing his dream; he looks like the first guy to ever lead the Atlantic 10 in scoring three years in a row (no one else has done it even twice). Tomorrow, he'll go to a tryout in New York. He's hoping the Knicks still need a shooter.
Continued...
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2009/06/18/what-does-it-take-to-make-the-nba
It is 4:17 on a Thursday afternoon and Dionte Christmas and I are standing underneath the northernmost basket on the main court of Temple's McGonigle Hall, talking hoops. He's just come from the final class of his senior year, and he's decked out in a blue and white button-down and dark navy slacks. The outfit covers up his newly-filled-in 6-foot-5 frame and, if it weren't for a pair of dark basketball sneakers poking out from under his business-casual clothes, you might forget the fact that, in one week, Christmas will officially be a professional athlete.
After discussing the 76ers' signing Eddie Jordan as a coach, the problems Jeff Van Gundy has coaching rookies, and why Avery Johnson is out of a job, I bring up the news of the day: The Sixers have just traded lunch-pail power forward Reggie Evans to Toronto for Jason Kapono, a bit player who doubles as the most statistically accurate shooter in NBA history. Christmas hadn't heard. "They did what?" he asks, hoping the news would be different the second time around. It wasn't. The 76ers added Kapono and, in doing so, effectively ended their hunt for a three-point marksman. A week earlier, Christmas had been pining for the job.
"They need a shooter ... I am a shooter. I think I'd really fit in here," he said of the Sixers. Now he's less enthusiastic. "Well," he says glumly, glancing up at the ceiling and untucking the Oxford from his pants, "I guess they're looking for a point guard."
Next Thursday is the NBA draft, and Dionte Christmas is on the bubble. Most mock drafts have the high-scoring guard going toward the beginning of the second round. For the past month, Christmas, 22, has been flying around the country to tryouts, exhibiting his skills and trying to improve on that. He was hoping his hometown team might take a flier on him. Now, probably, they won't. Christmas is not a point guard. Christmas, like Kapono, is a shooter.
Five minutes after our conversation, now outfitted head-to-toe in workout gear, he begins to show it. He rises up from beyond the three-point line and easily drains a jumper, then steps back and hits another, then another, then another, just like he did 107 times last season and 319 over his college career — both Temple University records. On the court and in front of the cameras, he doesn't look like the guy who's worried about an NBA journeyman stealing his dream; he looks like the first guy to ever lead the Atlantic 10 in scoring three years in a row (no one else has done it even twice). Tomorrow, he'll go to a tryout in New York. He's hoping the Knicks still need a shooter.
Continued...
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2009/06/18/what-does-it-take-to-make-the-nba