Hoop Dreams Down Under by Matt Logue

Author:Matt Logue
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-06-02T16:00:00+00:00

LUC LONGLEY

Playing career: 1986–2001

Luc Longley still has visions of the plane hitting the World Trade Center. He wasn’t directly involved in the events of 11 September 2001 – the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil – but he was working out at the New York Knicks’ gym and was close enough to see the madness reign over New York City.

‘The team was on the road and I was in the gym lifting weights with Allan Houston,’ Longley recalls. ‘The attack was being broadcast on the television in the gym. I, like so many people, didn’t take it seriously. I thought it was part of a movie or a hoax. It took me quite a while – five or ten minutes – to realise that it was the real deal and that I should get my arse out of the gym and get home and make sure my family was okay.’

Longley only had to walk outside to see how serious the attacks on New York were. He was 62 kilometres away from the World Trade Center but there was a sense of chaos as people were fearing the worst.

‘It felt like the start of World War III and we’re at the epicentre of it,’ he says. ‘On the drive home, there were already people filling up their cars with bottles of water and emptying the shops out. There were people boarding up their houses and locking everything down. There were cars just stopped in the middle of the street with no one in it. There was a growing sense of panic in New York. I was [living] in upstate New York but people were freaking out, as they should have been, because they didn’t know when the next one was coming and where.’

This monumental moment in American history also coincided with a crazy ending to Longley’s NBA career.

After limping through Australia’s 2000 Olympic campaign in Sydney with a foot injury, he knew his time in the world’s best league was drawing to a close. Longley was traded to the Knicks from the Phoenix Suns during the Olympics, but due to his injury he feared he wouldn’t be able to play to his full potential. This fear became reality for Longley when he battled through the first half of the season with the Knicks.

For all his struggles, he didn’t know how serious his foot injury was until it was examined by a doctor from the New York City Ballet.

‘He looked at my foot and ankle and recommended that I never run again,’ Longley remembers. ‘He told me that if I want to be walking when I’m 50, then [I] need to stop bouncing around on this because it is completely stuffed. So that was a bit of a shock, but I was just looking for the best in the field and he was the best guy out there. Team doctors are fantastic but you want to get second opinions. At the end of that season I retired on that advice and they paid out my contract.

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