To read much more from Mark Madsen, go to markmadsen.com.
Monday, Feb. 26, 2008
It's kind of surreal when one of your teammates is in the dunk contest one moment, and then getting traded to Houston the next. Such was the case with Gerald Green. In fact, Gerald's locker was right next to my locker and it made me sad to see him go. Gerald really does have a huge, all-encompassing personality. I'm not sure how many of you readers out there watched the NBA All-Star dunk contest, but Gerald really did some special things. I first learned about how he was going to blow out a candle on top of the NBA regulation rim while dunking the ball on our recent flight to New Jersey. "I've already got the name for the dunk," Gerald said. "I'm going to call it 'Birthday Cake.'"
It's hard enough to dunk a basketball with style and grace, let alone get high enough to be looking at the rim head-on and blow out a candle on top of a cupcake. I do hope that Gerald gets a great opportunity to showcase his skills on the Houston Rockets. This will be one of the first times in his career that he will be on a winning, playoff-bound NBA team. I'm excited for him.
There have been so many trades before this year's deadline. I got a text message from Wally Szczcerbiak last week and let's just say that he was elated to be going from a non-playoff team to Cleveland, a championship contender with LeBron James. I know that LeBron is going to enjoy playing with Wally, because with Wally, he can score the basketball in a lot of different ways. LeBron will be able to throw it to him at the three-point line and know it's going to be a good shot.
I was surprised to see Jason Kidd finally traded to Dallas. I grew up playing against Jason in High School. In fact, I was a sophomore when he was a senior and one of my first varsity games was against St. Joseph's igh School—Jason Kidd's school. Our high schools were about 30 miles apart and Jason was legendary growing up in our area. He's still legendary in the NBA. There was a lot of talk about how the trade couldn't go through at first because one of the players involved, Minnesota native Devean George, decided to exercise the "no trade" clause in his contract. Initially that appeared to derail the entire trade. I read online that there were some fans in Dallas giving Devean a hard time. Personally, I was proud of Devean and the way that he conducted himself. Trade clauses and other clauses are in contracts for a reason and Devean decided to exercise his contractual right to deny being traded from Dallas to New Jersey as part of a package deal. It wasn't the easy choice for him, but it was the best decision he could make based on all of the information. In the end, it worked out for everyone, especially Keith Van Horn. Devean was able to stay in Dallas and other players were packaged as part of the deal. All sides got what they were looking for.
Now is a very big time of interest for politics. The other day, Barack Obama visited the Target Center and a few of the guys on the team were able to attend the event. It's very interesting talking politics inside of the locker room. The biggest issue for me is Health Care. I think it's amazing that we, the richest nation in the world, cannot find a way to give health care to everybody. This is something that we've got to find a way to stop. There's really no good reason why we can't do it.
With the season winding down, most of the guys in the locker room are fighting even harder to win games. I think statistically, the odds are slim of making the playoffs. The thing that I am happy about is that every night when we take the floor, everyone is playing extremely hard and with passion. This is what makes me proud of all of our guys.
Monday, Feb. 12, 2008
Trades are part of life in the NBA, but the recent trade of Shaquille O'Neal to Phoenix completely took me by surprise. I remember when I played on the Lakers with Shaq and I really felt that there was no possible way Shaq would ever finish his career anywhere other than in Los Angeles. Now, since then, he's been over to Miami to win a championship and now he's almost coming full circle in going to the Phoenix Suns. It's always so fun to hear Shaq's quotes on TV or in the newspapers. There are two NBA personalities whose quotes I'm always interested in reading and those two people are Phil Jackson and Shaq. Here are a few quotes from Bob Baun's Associated Aress article about the Shaq trade:
"I'm a historian of the game, so I understand that on this team I'm probably a big role player, and I have no problem with that," O'Neal said. "I did my thing in my prime, and it's Amare's (Stoudemire) prime right now. I think it's my job to get him to the next level. Toward the end of my career, I have no problem coming here and just fitting in and just helping these guys get to the next level."
You gotta love the "I'm a historian of the game" comment. Most athletes would throw out the phrase "I'm a student of the game," but Shaq takes it to a new level by focusing on the historical aspect of the game. It is true in the sense that Shaq used to always talk privately and publicly about the great ones that preceded him like George Mikan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Ewing, Hakeeem Olajuwan, etc.
Shaq compares his job to the role of an aging Kareem on the "Showtime" Lakers teams of Magic Johnson and James Worthy.
"Kareem was fortunate enough to have those style of players around him toward the end of his career, and I sort of feel like him now," O'Neal said. "I'm no idiot. I'm not going to come in here trying to take over and take 30 shots. I'm going to fit in very nicely – rebound, outlet to Steve, get some easy buckets, play some defense. That's all we need to do."
Just the very thought of Shaq simply rebounding and then throwing the "outlet to Steve" is a dramatic understatement of what he can do for the Suns. Just watch when the playoffs come around how much Shaq will take his game to the next level. But I will say that putting Steve Nash and Shaq together on the same team is going to be very special to watch. This is putting one of the most dominant players this game has ever seen alongside one of the gifted passers in the history of the game. Cleary the Suns are reacting to the growing threat of the Lakers and San Antonio with all of the size they have on both teams.
In fact, the sense in our locker room was simply that with Andrew Bynum continuing to blossom in Los Angeles under Abdul-Jabbar's tutelage and with the recent addition of Pau Gasol to the Lakers, the Suns really had to do something to counter the Lakers size upfront. So they went and found a way to add one of the greatest players ever to an already stacked roster.
The All-Star break is here and in my mind Al Jefferson would be able to walk into the All-Star game and "get buckets," as is the common parlance in the NBA. Even though he wasn't voted onto the team, Al Jefferson in my opinion has All-Star caliber talent and a future that is extremely bright!
Monday, Feb. 5, 2008
During the hard and long grind of an NBA season, it's nice to be able to unwind at a teammate's house and enjoy some relaxation. Gerald Green opened up his home to the entire team a few days ago for a team building dinner and a chance to get together and watch the Super Bowl. Antoine Walker was in charge of the food and had some of the best Italian food I've ever tasted catered in from Vescio's Cucina. It was a great night to spend some time with friends. You learn a lot about your teammates on a night like this.
The first interesting point that came up was that Mike Doleac is no stranger to being in Super Bowl commercials! Mike shared with us how a few years ago, his Miami Heat teammate, Shaquille O'Neal, was doing a commercial for Verizon and approached Mike about being in the spot. Mike told us that he decided not to say anything to any of his friends about the fact that he was going to be in a Super Bowl commercial. After it ran he was fielding a ton of calls/voicemails from his friends who saw him and loved it. One of the guys at the party asked if Mike got paid for the appearance in the advertisement. The short answer from was yes.
It was fun to meet a lot of Gerald's friends from his hometown of Houston as well. Gerald told me over the past month that he is getting ready to try to defend his crown in this year's dunk contest at he All-Star Game in New Orleans. I told Gerald that he should fly someone down to the game so that he can jump over them and dunk. I'm not sure if he is planning on that or planning on something else, but whatever he does, I'm sure it will be great.
Getting back to basketball, a few nights ago we played against a very tall player. Yao Ming is the first real superstar basketball player who is from China. At 7'6" and about 330 pounds, Yao is not a small human being. What makes him even more difficult to guard is the fact that he is extremely skilled and he can shoot the outside shot. But I think Yao's personality is much bigger than even his physical dimensions. I think that Yao can give additional meaning to the phrase "larger than life."
When we were playing against Yao in Houston several months ago, there was a call by the referee that was against Yao. He was clearly upset and I watched him go over to plead his case to the referee while we were shooting free throws. In all my years of playing basketball, I've seen a lot of reasoning, pleading and even heated dialogue with officials and I still have yet to see one foul call reversed after an animated exchange. But if anyone can come close to winning over a referee, or fans for that matter, it is probably Yao Ming. The guy just has a huge personality. One time before a game, I asked him if I could get a pair of his signed shoes personalized to me. He said "Sure, what's your name?" I started to tell him, but then he just started laughing. He was just messing with me.
When Houston played us a few nights ago at Target Center the Wolves organization hosted "Asian Night" and there were tons of young Yao Ming fans in attendance. It's just so refreshing to see someone like Yao blaze the trail for the thousands of future, great basketball players that will undoubtedly be coming out of China in the years to come. I hope it opens doors for other players from countries in that part of the world. In fact, there is one other Chinese basketball player in the NBA right now with star talent - Yi Jianlian, who plays for the Milwaukee Bucks. Several weeks ago the Bucks played the Rockets. The world audience that tuned in to that single NBA basketball game was bigger than the TV audience that watched this year's Super Bowl, which was one of the highest rated ever! If you don't believe me, Google it!
Monday, Jan. 28, 2008
Sometimes you play in a huge basketball game that you will never forget. Playing against the Celtics in Boston last week was one of those games, and it reminded me of a game I played in a long time ago in college during my junior year. Stanford was hosting Connecticut for a huge non-conference game during the middle of the season. The hoopla kept growing around this game. Both of our teams were highly ranked with UConn relying on a group of players (including former Minnesota prep star Khalid El-Amin) who would end up playing professional basketball. I even ran into Dick Vitale before the game who asked me, "Did you circle this game on your calendar at the beginning of the season?" I think I told him I had circled the game, even if was more of a figurative type of thing because I had been looking forward to it for a long time. We ended up losing the game, but it was very close and emotions ran high and I will never forget it because the arena was packed and the atmosphere was unbelievable.
I felt similar excitement for the Celtics game in Boston this past week. It had all the makings of a great game. We were going out there to play against our longtime teammate and old friend, Kevin Garnett. I have to admit that seeing Kevin in a Boston Celtics uniform is something I never thought I would see. In the second half, we started to take control and I wondered why Kevin wasn't in the game. There was no foul trouble for him and his team continued to lose momentum. I wondered where he was and why he wasn't out there on the court. Finally, with a few minutes left in the game, KG ended up coming back into the game. The Celtics battled and battled and ultimately ended up winning with KG getting a huge steal right at the end of the game to seal their victory.
The Celtics game was a game that was winnable for us. We had a three-point lead with about a minute left and yet Boston somehow found a way to beat us. In the next few days after the Celtics game I learned that KG actually had to leave the court because of a shooting pain that was in his stomach. He went back to the locker room to tell the doctors what had happened. After examination, the doctors told him that he could re-enter the game even though his own trainer did not want him to.
Now a few days after the fact, it turns out the media is saying that the injury is an abdominal strain or an abdominal pull. This injury sounds like it's not a big deal but it's actually an injury that is very painful. The injury is very common in hockey due to all the twisting and occasionally happens in the NFL as well. Shaq had the same injury years ago which kept him out for a very long time. Shaq's abdominal strain got so bad that he finally saw one of the world's specialists on the injury, Alex McKechnie (based in Toronto). Alex got Shaq better and he now credits Alex with saving his career.
One morning in my second year in the NBA I woke up and realized that it hurt to move around. I thought it was jus soreness so I kept on playing. Finally when I could not run and could barely walk, I sought help from Alex. I ended up being out about a month or two with an abdominal injury, but abdominal strains just take time and if you make them worse, then you never really get better.
The interesting twist on the story now is that Alex McKechnie was so good that the Lakers locked him up into an exclusive contract years ago and he now travels with LA and is constantly working the Lakers players to build their core and strengthen their power center/abdominal area. Whatever happens I just hope that Kevin gets better and that he's able to return to action soon.
Monday, Jan. 7, 2008
We played the Dallas Mavericks recently and I saw my old buddy Trenton Hassell. Trenton used to play here in Minnesota and is a good player and a great person. When I see Trent, it brings back old memories of the days of our old locker room with Kevin Garnett, Trenton and others. There are a few particular incidents that came to mind when reflecting on the past and what it means to be a good teammate. Part of being a good teammate is bringing a sense of humor to a sometimes-tense locker room.
One cardinal rule in our locker room is: Never wear gear from another NBA team. When our new assistant trainer from Oklahoma had a Dallas Mavericks screensaver on his cellphone, Kevin Garnett found it and enforced the penalty. When I say penalty, Kevin made him sprint two hundred yards from our team bus to a pickup truck parked in the distance and then yell out, "I love the Timberwolves!" three times.
When Craig Smith came into practice wearing some Golden State Warriors practice shorts, Kevin brought out the entire team and had Craig go to center court and hold up the shorts and say "I will never wear these shorts again," while he held the shorts up and walked around three times. Everyone was laughing. Craig was laughing, too. KG loves Craig on and off the court. I had never seen a rookie big man like Craig come in and win over the trust and confidence of Kevin so quickly, like Craig did last season.
I never thought I'd see KG apprehended by our own locker room fashion police. But, it did happen at one point. It started after practice one day when a few of us got into the locker room to get ready to go home. KG was still down in the weight room lifting weights. Rashad McCants went over to Kevin's locker and pulled out his shoes and put them out for everyone to see. "What the heck are these?" Rashad asked as he pointed to Kevin's shoes. As everyone looked down to Kevin's locker we were shocked to see that his shoes had the words "Portland Trailblazers" alongside the Trailblazers logo! All of this was of course in the Trailblazers' red and black colors!
I've never seen so many guys so excited to bust Kevin's chops. When Kevin finally got up to the locker room, he walked in and saw his shoes out for everyone to see. Kevin busted out smiling and yelled out, "Who was in my locker! I don't know who was in my locker!" Rashad stood up and called out, "I peeped it out when you walked in here this morning!" Trenton Hassell was having a field day. "Throw those shoes in the trash," he yelled out. It was my job to take the shoes and stomp on them and then take them to the garbage can. Kevin was laughing so hard. Adidas had sent out a bunch of walking shoes to Kevin and the shoes all had logos of different NBA teams.
Kevin told us how he had gotten up that morning and tried on the Portland shoes and that they had looked good. So he asked his wife "What do you think? Can I wear these in to practice?"
"Well Kevin, I don't think so. I mean, the Trailblazers are in your conference and you play against them, right?" she said.
Kevin decided to wear the shoes anyway and explained how he "had pushed his jeans down over the Trailblazers logo and walked into the locker room really quickly." He even showed us how he had pushed his shoes way to the back of his locker area under his chair so that none of us would see them. Well, nothing gets past Rashad fashion wise. We had a good laugh that day. But, the story didn't end there. Trenton Hassell called out:
"Man I'm going to use those shoes…I'm getting them out of the garbage can. I've got my guy in Chattanooga, Tennessee and he's 6'10" and wears size fourteen too!" I laugh every time I think of those stories.
Right now, we are struggling with only four wins this season. We still believe that we can recover and put together a great finish to what has been a tough year so far.
Monday, Dec. 17, 2007
It was 11 p.m. and our entire team loaded onto a plane going from Milwaukee to Miami. We had just played against the Milwaukee Bucks and we were scheduled to play the Miami Heat two days later on the road. Somehow the plane had not been refueled due to the blizzard conditions in Wisconsin. We sat there for an hour or so and then took off. By the time we got to our hotel in Miami, in was about 6 a.m. and I was hungry and ready to go to sleep. Kind of a strange combination, but after I changed clothes in my hotel room, I rummaged through the mini-bar and found a pack of Pringles and a big bottle of water. The next thing I knew I woke up and saw that it was past noon. It was nice of Coach Wittman to give us the day off.
One of the toughest things to do as an NBA player is to try to stay in shape and totally sharp if you're not getting a huge amount of minutes. It's even tougher when you factor in all of the late night flights and midnight mini-bar/hotel nutrition which normally consists of candy bars, chips, gummie bears, etc. It's kind of a catch-22 situation because you definitely need to get your calories, but you also have to keep your wind up and be able go into the game and perform when the coach calls your name. Most rookies try to get to the arena early on game days. They get there early to do extra running, play some one-on-one and even to lift weights on game day. And at the end of the day, you never know if the coach is going to call your name to get in. You can either be paralyzed into not working out on game day (to stay rested in case Coach calls you in the game) or you can just work out hard and be ready when the call comes.
During the past several weeks we've been witnessing some dominant performances from Craig Smith. Craig is about 6'6" and he routinely scores over NBA seven footers. He's had two recent games of 30 points, which is very hard to do in this league. I just love it at home games when Craig scores a basket and our PR announcer calls out in the microphone Craig's new nickname: "The Rhino!" Some people don't stick with basketball because they think they are too short to play. Craig is a living testament that with hard work and heart, height really does not matter. Whether it's a 5'5" guard (Earl Boykins) or a 6'6" power forward or center (Craig), hard work and heart are so much more important than the size of a basketball player.
All of a sudden the Holidays are here! For me, I celebrate Christmas and Christmas in the NBA is kind of like Thanksgiving in the NBA. You get a day or two off, or at worst, you have games on those days and just have to plan your life around the game schedule. I guess I've just been used to it for a long time so maybe I've forgotten what it's like to have a normal Holiday Schedule. This year, my family is having a gathering in Utah, so I am going to get out there for Christmas day and then fly on to California and meet the team in San Francisco.
Monday, Dec. 10, 2007
In one of my early NBA years I was warming up for a game in San Antonio against the Spurs when I saw a college basketball player on the sidelines that I recognized from the NCAA tournament and other SportsCenter clips. He was dressed in street clothes and said something like, "I really hope that I make the NBA someday." I gave him whatever advice I had at the time and went on my way.
Years later, he is a great player for the Los Angeles Lakers. But the thing about Ronny Turiaf that makes him special is how he recovered from serious heart surgery to become a very good player. Early on in his career, Turiaf didn't play a whole lot in games but he enthusiastically cheered his teammates on from the sidelines. In describing Ronny's supportive actions to the media in an interview, his coach Phil Jackson said with some self deprecating humor:
"There really is something nice about it as far as energizing this team," Jackson said. "This team has some deadbeats on it, anyway, and the coach [Phil himself] is one of them. It's good to have some people out there that are enthusiastic about the game."
(You gotta love Phil's quotes. I still go to LaTimes.com to see what quotes he's coming up with because they are great).
Whenever you watch a Lakers game, when Turiaf isn't doing great things on the court, you will always see him on the sidelines cheering his teammates on and being positive. Being connected to the game regardless of whether or not you are playing is one of the most important things in sports in my opinion. My high school coach used to say that you could tell the character of a team by watching the "men on the bench" during games. He even had a handout on it he gave out every year.
One of the things about our Timberwolves team this season is that everyone cheers for each other during games. Our recent win against the Phoenix Suns was a great example of this. In fact, our current group of players is one of the best I've ever seen in terms of cheering for each other. Sometimes players in the NBA feel that it's "not cool" to cheer your teammates on from the sidelines. I think that Antoine Walker and Michael Doleac have been a big part of rejuvenating the "bench culture" on our team. Antoine is a three-time All-Star and both he and Mike won championship rings in Miami two years ago.
When everyone on the team sees these two veteran players going crazy when Al Jefferson dunks or when Rashad McCants hits a three pointer, it makes everyone get excited and it shows that it's okay to be happy for somebody else. The players that are on the court at the time feel the positive vibe and how important the game is to the group as a whole. The feeling is amazing. I truly believe that having a great bench is a big part of championship basketball.
If you make it to a Timberwolves game in person this season (which, of course, I highly recommend) just take a look at our bench and you will see some great locker room chemistry.
On a side note, I caught up with Steve Nash after our recent win. I think I met Steve Nash 15 years ago in California. Two of my high school teammates were playing ball at Santa Clara with Steve and I met Steve through them. Even though the Suns lost the game Steve was about as gracious as I could ever imagine. He congratulated us on the win and we caught up about some mutual friends from Northern California. He even had time to take pictures with some friends of mine who are huge fans of his. It's nice when one of the best players in the NBA is also a class act off the court.
Monday, Dec. 3, 2007
There is a universal phrase that is used over and over again in the NBA and will likely be used forever in my mind. When we as athletes hear the phrase it constantly reminds us of the frailty of our job. When spoken to us by a fan, the fan is instantly legitimized as "knowledgeable." The phrase that is used over and over again is the simple two-word combo of "Stay Healthy."
When I first got to the NBA and heard this phrase used over and over again instead of the normal words "bye" or "talk to you later," I was surprised that I hadn't heard it more in college. In fact, one of my teammates with the Lakers (Jannero Pargo, now a point guard with the New Orleans Hornets) used to always tell me how funny it was that he would hear this phrase from refs, strength coaches, media members, trainers, other NBA players, even NBA personnel.
The phrase basically gets at the simple truth that if you can stay healthy and injury free throughout the year and eventually your career, your chances of helping the team win games goes up dramatically. Injuries are such a part of the game of basketball that the NBA actually charts player injuries and rehab schedules in detailed reports filled out by the medical staff.
Right now, three key Timberwolves players (Marko Jaric, Randy Foye, and Theo Ratliff) are out with injuries, and everyone else in the locker room probably hurts in some way every time we get ready for a game. One of the biggest challenges of the NBA game is knowing when you can play with an injury and when you have to simply say "I can't play right now."
Right now, Randy Foye is getting close to coming back from his injured knee. Last week Randy came out to warm up before the San Antonio Spurs game and for the first time in a month he was jogging, cutting and moving pretty fast while pushing off with his bad knee. It was great to see him work up a sweat and move around fast. He was so excited to be able to move like that with no pain! I looked over to see his reaction while doing so much movement and he said "It feels so good! I'm just afraid to jump really hard right now because I don't want to set myself back."
The flip side of the injury situation is that if you don't stay healthy then y
