The Rise by Mike Sielski

Author:Mike Sielski [Sielski, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub

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THE BELIEF that Jerry Stackhouse, either during his collegiate career at North Carolina or after the Sixers selected him with the No. 3 pick in the 1995 draft, would be The Next Michael Jordan was at once flattering and nonsensical to the young man who bore the burden of such heavy expectations. Of course, it was an ego stroke to be compared to the player who was arguably the greatest in the sport’s history, but … the people making that comparison knew Jordan was a guard, right? Stackhouse wasn’t. He was a power forward in high school, and he was a power forward at North Carolina. He had never played guard in his life, hadn’t chased smaller players around and through screens, hadn’t come off screens himself for jump shots or drives. He could handle the ball a little, but most of his game was predicated on posting up, on having the ball in his hands while his back was to the basket, and he had a long way to go to understand the nuances and develop the skills that would allow him to thrive as a guard … which is where the Sixers planned on playing him.

Based on his background, Stackhouse, once he joined the Sixers and the Philly pickup circuit, stepped into a situation for which he was not fully prepared, and that context is critical to sorting out and separating truth from fiction or embellishment in the stories of that summer. There’s a natural inclination to grade Kobe on a curve, to elevate or exaggerate his feats in the Fieldhouse and at the Bellevue and at the other gyms that he and the Sixers and the other Philly pro and college players frequented, because he was so young and turned out to be so great, because the exaggeration amplifies his legend. Every person who shares an anecdote about Kobe’s participation in those games filters those memories through his or her own interests and perspective. John Lucas thought he had unearthed a secret diamond. Assuming that he would still be the Sixers’ coach and general manager in June 1996, he already had made up his mind that he would draft Kobe. He confessed this scheme to only those people in basketball whom he trusted most, and there is a powerful, prestigious legacy in being the coach who saw Kobe coming before anyone else did. Mo Howard was practically a brother to both Lucas and Joe Bryant. Jerry Stackhouse has had to listen to these stories for two decades, and every one of those stories is a needle pricking his ego, because implicit in every one of those stories is a slight on him and his career and his ability: Kobe schooled you one-on-one. Kobe owned you. Kobe wasn’t a high school senior yet, and he was demolishing the third pick in the draft, and the third pick in the draft was you.

And so …

Willie Burton, a journeyman NBA guard, had played for the Sixers during the 1994–95 season.

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