Long before he was “The Matrix,” Shawn Marion was just a mere mortal, growing up in Waukegan, Illinois, about an hour-and-a-half drive from Chicago.
But even though he still has family in Waukegan (and his own place in Chicago), Marion moved around quite a bit before being drafted with the ninth overall pick in 1999. He played his high school basketball in Clarksville, Tennessee and his junior college ball at Vincennes University in Indiana before transferring to UNLV before the 1998-99 season.
Now 15 years into a career that puts him on the threshold of Springfield, the man known to coaches and teammates as “’Trix” finds himself in the starting lineup for the Wine and Gold. He’s been an NBA All-Star and an NBA Champion and now he’s spreading that knowledge to the Cavaliers’ remaining youngsters.
In today’s installment of “Growing Up …” the Matrix takes a look back on his younger days and the journey that took him from the shores of Lake Michigan as a kid to the shores of Lake Erie as a seasoned pro …
My first year … playing basketball was fifth grade. We won a championship.
At that time … when you play on a little team like that, everybody plays a certain amount of minutes and that’s it. But I took a liking to basketball back then, and I just started eventually getting better and better.
I had uncles that … were very athletic. My dad was pretty good too, actually.
My uncles used to … come toughen me up. But I got past them and then better than them pretty quick. When you’re talking about playing in the 60s and 70s versus playing in the 80s and 90s, it’s totally different.
Other than basketball … I liked football, of course. I ran track a little bit. But the schedules just didn’t coincide. Basketball is a year-round thing. I could never give anything else my full attention.
I experimented with … a lot of different sports, but I never made it past the Training Camp phase. I liked track. I like softball, baseball. I like a little bit of everything; it’s just a matter of what you have time for.
I got to a point … in high school where I really saw myself starting to get better. I could see the stuff I was working on was really starting to show up in my game and my athleticism was starting to really, really take off.
Once I started jumping … higher and higher, my friends and I would start setting goals for who could touch the top of the backboard. It became natural and everything else took care of itself.
I just couldn’t stop … playing ball. I wanted to play all day every day.
I physically grew … pretty gradually. I never went from 6-0 to 6- 7 like that. I gradually got taller every year and then all of a sudden, it just stopped.
I guess I first thought I could play basketball for a living … in junior college. I was just a natural basketball player.
A lot of good players … don’t have good instincts and they have to compensate with other things. But my instincts have always been very good. I’ve always been able to get steals, block shots, rebound and score the ball my whole life. I just have a knack for it.
I was the starting … point guard for my junior college team. But they needed to get me off the ball so I can score more.
My junior college coaching staff … they did a great job with the individual work, and I think the individual work does pay off a lot more than people give credit to.
The time you spend … on individual stuff gets you ready, and then you’re able to insert it into your game. Some guys are not able to insert it in their game. It’s all a matter of what you feel comfortable doing and what you don’t feel comfortable doing.
No coach at any level … ever tried to change my jumpshot. Why would they change it?! It’s consistent – I put the ball in the hole.
I remember my first dunk … was my freshman year of high school, but it was in AAU.
When you were younger … it was all about ‘two-hand glass.’ Everybody went two-hand glass. Put it off the glass and it’d be like: ‘Ooooooooooohhh, he just glassed you!
In AAU … I once got a one-handed dunk and it was just ‘Whewwwwwww!’ I was jumping so high, I was starting to get nervous up there.
It wasn’t a big deal … to dunk in a game, because I had been dunking for a while. But you can see how much energy sometimes you get from the crowd when you dunk on somebody.
That excitement lasted … all the way until I got to the NBA. My first year in the league, when you got on the break, you want to do something crazy. I’d windmill or something – cock it back!
At one point in my career … I probably would’ve done OK in the Dunk Contest. I could’ve maybe won it if I’d gotten in it. But, actually, I’d really rather dunk ON somebody.