The value of a veteran player and the lessons he disseminates to younger players, and rookies in particular, is indispensible.
That fact was reinforced on Friday night during the pre-game warm-up session in Chicago at the United Center.
There I was sitting and chatting with former Raptor Lindsay Hunter when rookie Derrick Rose came over and said "hello."
Rose then turned to the 16-year veteran after Hunter said "Hey man, don’t do too much."
Hunter continued to warn Rose about leaving it all on the floor in the warm-up.
After going through his shooting session, Rose was cautioned by Hunter that you can do too much in the pre-game and then come out flat when the lights come on at game time.
Hunter explained that it has happened to him before turning to me and saying, "Remember Alvin?"
I nodded as I remembered how many times I heard former Toronto assistant coach Stan Albeck, chasing Alvin "Boogie" Williams off the floor because Williams had been out early in the pre-game and looked like he had played an entire 48-minute game.
After Hunter’s words of wisdom, a nodding Rose took it all in and then asked, "Who was Alvin Williams?"
At that point Hunter responded in a high pitched voice "Boogie? Hey man, Boogie could play. He had good size, played hard and was tough, man. What else would you expect from a Philly kid?"
Hunter’s words conjured up memories of days gone by watching the bulldog-tough Williams in his days in a Raptor uniform. In fact, it may have been Williams’ tough mindedness and willingness to play with and through pain that cut his career short.
Hey Derrick, listen to Lindsay.
There was more reminiscing during the pre-game as Jamario Moon remembered that the United Centre was the spot he made his first NBA start. He recalled being called into the office and being told he was going to be starting and guarding Luol Deng.
The game itself produced a win for Toronto that snapped a seven-game losing streak. It just seemed that every player reverted to their assigned roles with Jose Calderon back in the line-up running the team from the point.
Maybe it can be attributed to his mere presence, but for whatever reason with Calderon in the line-up, Toronto seemed to play with more energy, particularly on the defensive end in the second half.
There was one sequence in particular during the third quarter when Jermaine O’Neal went to the floor for a lose ball to keep an offensive possession alive and then minutes later, sacrificed his body by taking a charge.
One other telling play in the same quarter was Chris Bosh jumping out on a switch against Kirk Hinrich, who did his best to break down Bosh on the dribble. It didn’t happen as Bosh moved his feet and eventually made a steal.
Calderon’s presence was just what the Raptors needed late in the game when Toronto went on a 23-4 run to close the game and seal the victory.
The run included a big three-pointer by Calderon followed by a celebratory dance that looked like a takeoff, albeit a poor man’s impersonation, of Mike Bibby’s "wobble walk" after he hits a big shot.
In the locker room post-game Jason Kapono called it the Spanish Mambo, while another member of the Raptor organization wondered if that was the Spanish Fly?
Sunday’s contest is the second of back-to-back for the Sacramento Kings.
Following Saturday night’s 106-104 loss in Milwaukee, the Kings, who are playing more like Queens this year, are 1-12 on the first night of back-to-back contests and 3-9 the second night as they head into Toronto.
Kings interim head coach Kenny Natt was a former roommate of Raptor head coach Jay Triano when they were in camp together in Utah vying for a spot with the Jazz back in 1983.
But Natt has other connections to basketball in Canada as well as he was the former director of player personnel for the Hamilton Skyhawks of the World Basketball League. The WBL was a league that featured players 6’5" and under and the Hamilton outlet was owned by former NCAA official and inventor of the FOX 40 whistle, Canadian Ron Foxcroft.
"Foxy," who has officiated seemingly every important basketball game from NCAA Final Fours, CIS finals to Olympic and World Championship games, came up with the idea for a new whistle about 20 years ago.
It bears noting the whistle that every official in every sport, and heck even armed forces outlets around the world use, is still made in Canada.
It was invented when Foxcroft was, in his words "embarrassed," that the cork pea in the old school whistle, perhaps soaked with saliva, got stuck when he was "tooting" the 1976 Olympic gold medal game in Montreal between the USA and Yugoslavia.
It happened again in the pre-Olympic tourney in Sao Paolo, Brazil during the 1984 qualifier and that was it. Forxcroft had enough and the first FOX 40 whistle was sold in 1987. Since then not only has the whistle gone big-time, but the FOX 40 company has perfected the precision timing system used in arenas today in conjunction with the whistle.
During NBA games the clock is stopped by the whistle, eliminating some of the slower or quicker home-town trigger fingers of the official time keeper. You will see all officials wearing packs on their belts to start the clock when the ball is put into play, again eradicating some of the human error as all four people (time-keeper and the three officials) hit a button to start the clock when the ball is thrown in and is touched by a player on the court.
As for Natt and the Skyhawks, they had the likes of Milt Wagner (DeJuan’s dad who won an NCAA title at Louisville) and John Starks, he of the New York Knicks, playing for them at one time.
Oh, the league? Well it went under as Mickey Monus, the owner of the WBL and big wheel with Pharmor drug stores, was convicted in what was at the time, the largest corporate fraud case in U.S. history just before the Enron boys topped him. The basketball, in what some NBA guys referred to as the "Business Man League," was pretty good.
Another story for another day.
