Like free elections, a system of checks and balances, and the right to trial by jury, the open tryout is one of the great glories of democracy: “Open to all and closed to none,” like the inscription on the base of a noble statue. Surely the present administration would be overjoyed if 10 years from now there were open tryouts in gyms throughout Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Provided they have gyms in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, which I’m not sure they do.
This past weekend the Austin Toros held open tryouts for their 2006-2007 season at the Dr. Exalton and Wilhelmina Delco Activity Center, near the corner of Manor and 183. In case you missed my blog last week about the structure of the NBDL (available now as a book on tape, narrated by John Houseman and featuring Ethel Barrymore as the third contessa of Milquetoast), each team in the league is required to bring at least one player from an open tryout to training camp. That player isn’t guaranteed a spot on the team’s roster, but he is given a chance to make the team. So any man off the street with $175 dollars in his pocket and a sure sense of his own basketball worth can come and take a shot at the NBA dream. Populism at its best.
Granted, it’s a long road from D-League tryouts to a starting spot with the Houston Rockets, but it’s a long road from anywhere to anywhere, and sometimes a man has to slap down his hard-earned $175 and start walking. On Saturday there were 90 players on the court at Delco – local guys; out-of-towners; tryout-chasers; guys who had played professionally in Europe and Asia; guys who hadn’t even played in college; young, fresh-faced kids out of high school; 35-year-olds with something serious in their eyes; guys for whom, I would imagine, $175 doesn’t come cheap – and they all came to walk.
Unfortunately, it would be short walk for most, as 90 would be reduced to 25 by closing on Saturday, four by the end of business Sunday, and then to one or two by the time training camp arrives November 11. Democracy isn’t easy.
But directing them along this perilous path would be Toros coach and NBA legend Dennis Johnson, who was kind enough to sit down with me on Friday and shine a light on what he would be keeping an eye out for when he got out on the court Saturday. “What I’m looking for is the guy with good footwork,” he said, “the guy with some skills. Not necessarily the best shooter out there because the best shooter is not always going to be the best player in a lot of situations.”
Johnson was keenly aware of just how serious these tryouts would be for most of the guys on the court and how much responsibility he had as the decision-maker; he also knew how much hope and optimism there would be in the gym, and how many busted-up dreams. “At the end of the day,” he said, “I have to make 90 people unhappy. I have to let them know that [they] don’t have what I’m looking for. I’ll have a few guys mad, I’ll have a few guys upset, I’ll have a few guys tell me I’m crazy. The toughest part is you only have two days to impress us. Some of them – a lot of them – are going to be off their game. And they’re probably going to come to me in the end and say, ‘Today wasn’t my best day.’ I understand that, but today has to be your best day.”
Johnson was assisted in his search by two local high school coaches, Curtis Knight from Round Rock High School and Celester Collier of Bowie (who, on an odd little side note, played the role of the basketball coach in the 2005 Elisha Cuthbert movie The Quiet, which means at some point in his life he was in the same room as Elisha Cuthbert, which fills me with jealousy of classical proportions). On that first day, Collier and Knight ran the tryouts like boot camp, lining the 90 players up on the floor for stretches and barking them through footwork drills and set plays from Johnson’s training book. And the players acted like fresh recruits, shouting their responses and throwing themselves into the drills with the zeal of new converts: Slide forward! Slide back! Feet apart! Hands up! Ho! Ho!
Johnson, meanwhile, sat back and played the part of the wise father-figure, very quietly guiding players around the court, showing them exactly where they should be, what their hands should be doing, in what direction their feet should be facing. He was patient and decent throughout. And I’ll have to get him a microphone if I’m going to have any chance of hearing anything he says to his players during the course of the season.
Near the end of that first day, the coaches divided the players by position and set them up for quick scrimmages. Five in, five out; just enough time to catch your breath and a cup of water before you’re back on the court. Being right down on the sidelines made me realize just how high the level of athleticism is among these guys. I play ball every week at a local court, and despite my skill level (which we’ll call “formative”), I’d like to think I have an intellectual handle on the game. I think I understand the principles behind the pick and roll and the subtleties of zone defense. When I watch NBA games on TV, or even in the stands, I can see and understand the plays unfolding before me; everything happens at a comprehensible tempo. Out there next to these guys, though, I was shocked to see just how fast basketball, when played correctly and seen up close, really is. Back cuts and screens are happening all the time, battles are constantly raging beneath the basket between big men, tiny guards are buzzing incessantly around the three-point line. Everyone is angling or running or pushing to get to the place they need to be in order for the entire system to run smoothly. One cog out of line, and the whole wheel falls apart.
Despite my initial shock, however, by the end of these scrimmages I was beginning to see just a little bit of what the coaches must have been looking for. At first, all I could see was the sheer number of people on the court. They all looked good to me; they could shoot threes and pass and they moved with grace and marvelous speed. They may as well have been all the same player. After a few hours in the gym, however, I began to notice the differences: how some guys seemed more confident in tight situations, how some could find seams and passing lanes in a sea of bodies and always seemed to know where their teammates were or would be, how some could shoot under pressure and get back on defense every time. I began to notice how many of the players’ flashy skills and twisting moves to the basket ended in a turnover or a scrum for the ball beneath the basket, how many of them lost faith at that last crucial moment and, instead of dishing off to a cutting teammate or shooting a high-percentage shot from the top of the key, would go crashing into a wall of bodies and throw up a prayer. I was beginning to pick out the guys who had court vision and not just athleticism, the guys who slowed the game down and who saw where all their teammates should be and directed them wordlessly but insistently to be there: the guys who molded the game into what they wanted it to be. I watched it all unfold before my eyes, and I found it remarkable.
I also found it disheartening and depressing. By the end of that first day of basketball tryouts, I had resigned myself to an anemic little life of bocce ball and crossword puzzles.
Part two – in which we meet some of our heroes and witness the heartache and triumph of first cuts – to follow soon …
This article appears in October 13 • 2006.