I went to "Intermediate School" with Steve Francis. He was a little dude. I remember being shocked years later when he showed up on the Terps.
I have a funny Steve Francis story, but I will not tell it to the internet.
Now, I know people in Vancouver are still pissed off at me for forcing a trade out of there. I damn near cried when I got taken by the Grizzlies at No. 2. I was not about to go up to freezing-ass Canada, so far away from my family, when they were about to move the franchise anyway. I'm sorry but ... actually, I'm really not even sorry. Everybody sees the business of basketball now. That team was gone. The only thing I'm sorry about is that I went up there and gave probably the rudest press conference in NBA history before they traded me.
You could have at least given someone a chance to explain that Vancouver has MILDER WINTERS than your native DC. Overnight lows in January and February are a full 10 degrees warmer! Would you complain about freezing-ass Seattle? And as if Houston isn't far away from your family.
Dude, everybody knows Canada is colder than D.C.
That is a good story. Also, I looked up his first game against Gary Payton and it's interesting to be reminded how quickly both teams fell apart after their mid-90s peak. The rosters for that game were:
HOU: Francis / Walt Williams / Shandon Anderson / Barkley / Hakeem (with Cuttino Mobely as the 6th man).
SEA: Payton / Brent Barry / Ruben Patterson / Horace Grant / Greg Foster (no wonder Payton took 24 shots) with Vernon Maxell as the 6th man (and Vladimir Stepania 7th in minutes).
TBH the Rockets' lineup wasn't much more impressive at their peak, it's just that Hakeem was that good.
Fantastic article. I've never seen something like this in the Players Tribune before actually. It's all "This is why I am thankful to take the next step in my career".
I thought his career was ended by chronic migraines or some other neurological thing that kept him from playing. He just blames it on being on bad teams, and too much drinking. Interesting.
5: Hakeem was that good, but they had Clyde Drexler one year. And Robert Horry could always shoot.
I just think it's funny that I remember this much.
Fantastic article. I've never seen something like this in the Players Tribune before actually.
Dion Waiters wrote a similarly autobiographical article last year which was also very good (Zach Lowe called it one of the best pieces of basketball writing of the year).
Everybody in our hood loved Rhamik. He was just a legendary kid. The thing people knew him for, other than ball, was skating.
See, in Philly, skating was a huge deal. Still is. I'm not talking about, you know, Tony Hawk. I'm talking about roller skating -- the brown skates with the four wheels. Every Sunday, we used to have these skating parties run by Ms. Doris. If you were up to no good in school (which I usually was), Ms. Doris would catch you at the door and be like, "Dion! You're banned from the skating party until you start acting right."
That was a dagger. You did not wanna be banned from the skating party. That was the spot for meeting girls. If you're picturing some disco thing, that's not what it was. This was like 100 Philly kids skating around to Rick Ross, doing the Philly Bop.
And Rhamik was the best skater, period. He could skate his ass off. Before I knew how to skate, I'd just go and watch him and be like, Damn. I gotta learn. This dude is killing it.
So for, like, four years, it was ball and skating, ball and skating, every day. If you were looking for me, there wasn't no, "Where's Dion?" It was always, "Yo, where's Dion and Rhamik?"
(Last paragraph should also be part of the blockquote)
TBH the Rockets' lineup wasn't much more impressive at their peak, it's just that Hakeem was that good.
True, and they weren't a dominant regular season team. Looking at their stats on basketball-reference they weren't a dominant playoff team either. In 1994 (the first title team) their margin of victory in the 4 playoff series were 5.2, 5.0, 4.2, 0.8 -- which is solidly good but lower than many title teams.
6.1: Did you see that Kevin Love wrote an article about his panic attack and going to a therapist?
In a bit of a reverse scenario, I recommend this piece from a Times-Picayune photographer on the story of his interactions with a former local football star turned homeless across several decades. Maybe I've recommended it here before? Or maybe that was just Twitter?
Hakeem was that good, but they had Clyde Drexler one year.
Leads me to reprise a short rant (which I *do* think I've visited here before) on Phi Slamma Jamma (U of H with those two players) losing to NC State for the national title (I was living in Houston at the time). The coverage of the whole thing was infuriating with the veneration of Jim Valvano (even before we had to feel sorry for the fucker when he got cancer) leading his "disciplined" (10-loss) team over the unruly, thuggish negroes from U of H--you know guys like Hakeen and Drexler .... A time when the sports media and NCAA were fighting to hold back the "Connie Hawkins to Dr. J" future of the sport. Also see characterizations of Georgetown at the time. Game was ridiculously officiated.
I don't have the patience to write it out coherently but trust me it was bad and infuriating.
7 - Drexler was close to the end of his career though he played well in the championship run; in retrospect, Sam Cassell was better than he looked at the time, though, and Horry was on a lot of championship teams. Still maybe the worst supporting cast to ever win a championship.
I recommend this piece from a Times-Picayune photographer on the story of his interactions with a former local football star turned homeless across several decades.
Wow, that's an amazing story.
Unfogged favorite Elizabeth Holmes has, finally, been charged with fraud.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/14/theranos-chief-executive-elizabeth-holmes-charged-with-massive-fraud/?utm_term=.36bdcdb46439
Thanks, I knew there was another good one. The Dion Waiters one is also awesome. And from a current player! Usually they wait to retire before they say anything interesting.
15 Hopefully she'll do a Shkreli.
"The government has ordered assets of Elizabeth Holmes to be seized, including the one-of-a-kind Beach House album she purchased for $2 million in 2015"
18 made me google. Now I'm going to get ridiculous ads.
I don't know a thing about sports, but it was a good article. His life story aside, it was interesting to see a window into the DC area back then. I know intellectually that it's changed a lot, but still, wow.
Still maybe the worst supporting cast to ever win a championship.
Looking at other championship teams without much star power I discovered a statistic that could make a good bar bet. Did you know that Mitch Kupchak had the top PER and WS/48 (in significant minutes) on a championship team.
20.last: Chance emerges onto the street in Being There.
21: I didn't know that and that was the absolute peak of my basketball fandom. But I don't think anybody knew about those fancy statistics back then.
Holmes had the perfect backstory: a college dropout turned chief executive...
A nation of rubes.
Something a lot less notable back in 2015 and 2016 when the first investigations and sanctions were coming out: Jim Mattis was on their board, apparently advocating on the inside for DOD to use them.
All this Rockets talk and no mention of Mutombo.
15, 17 - don't get too excited, this is a settle and sue where she agrees to a (looks to be not that severe) settlement and the government files a (negotiated) case that is immediately resolved. The SEC gets to look fake-tough, Holmes gets a bit of a break and pays some acceptable amount, everyone moves on. No criminal charges yet. Her privately held stock is prob worthless but that was prob true for a long time. I'm not a big believer in "prosecute the banksters!" Or whatever as a meaningful legal strategy but the SEC's ability to come down hard on unimportant stuff and go easy on big stuff is now pretty well-known and sad for a storied agency.
15: Totally pwned. This is what I get for not keeping up with all of the threads.