Quote:
|
Originally Posted by greensborohill
I think this is the same as the ESPN insider article if anyone wants to C & P
|
I'd like to know how to C&P it from the digital magazine....
So here's the whole story:
Grandma's Cooking
When the Mavericks asked Josh Howard to remake his game, he paid a visit to a woman who made him a man.
By Ric Bucher
Photographs by Alessandra Petlin
If you need to know where Josh Howard is from, just look at his body. Tre-4, street slang for Winston-Salem, is tattooed on his left forearm. The street number of the house that was his home away from home nearly covers his left pec. Even the two theater faces inked into his right forearm describe an emotional road he's traveled: Cry now, laugh later.
Knowing who Josh Howard is … now, that's something else. Even he wasn't sure as recently as last summer. Was he a budding all-around star or a defensive stopper? Leader or loose cannon? Young man with a cause or rebel in search of one?
Lucky for him, he knew just where to go to find out. The directions were written all over him. The player currently running the Mavericks' offense as a point forward and spearheading their defense by smothering an opponent's primary perimeter threat wasn't honed in the weight room or on the basketball court. No, the new J-Ho sprang forth form a single-story, 400-square-foot house fronted by a dying lawn, at 1500 E. Sedgefield Dr. in Winston-Salem, N.C.
The guest bedroom in Helen Howard's home is barely big enough to fit a twin bed and a bookshelf crammed with old basketball trophies and older R&B records. But it has always offered more than enough space for her grandson's development, from hobbled infant to teenager with a wild streak. So when it came time for Howard to remake himself again, no other place made sense. "My grandma has a lot of wisdom," he says. "She taught me how the world is. I knew I had to hang with her."
The result of their summerlong dialogue shows all over the Mavericks' season, as well as Howard's resume, which now includes an invitation to try out for the next U.S. Olympic squad. Dirk Nowitzki is the Mavs' top talent, coach Avery Johnson is their ramrod and Jerry Stackhouse is the wise old sage, but in Howard, all the elements coverage. When Kobe was going off for 62, it was this young guy who clotheslined him and later said his only regret was not having done it sooner. "One of the things my grandma told me is, 'Don’t back down from anyone,' "Howard says.
With that now the collective creed, these are no longer your foo-foo Mavs, rolling out a red carpet to their rim. They still have a wide-open style and an array of sunny edge as well. One that could clothesline any preconceived ideas of who will represent the West in the Finals this June.
Helen Howard and her grandson bonded out of need. Hers. Joshua, as she calls him, was 9 months old and living with his mom down the street when Gaddy Little Jr., the firstborn of five and Helen's only son, was killed by some thugs who held him up. Gaddy was 35. "We don't have a lot of boys in our family," says Nancy Henderson, Helen’s daughter and Howard's mom. "She gravitated toward him after Gaddy died, and I never discouraged it."
Helen's house these days is a shrine to her grandson: pictures everywhere, a scrapbook thicker than a pillow. He still calls her three or four times a week. His mom, stepdad and younger sister live in Orlando, but there was never a doubt where he'd spend February's All-Star break. He took the first flight to Winston-Salem. "It's where my heart is," Howard says.
When he visits, local kids lie down in front of his car to gain a moment's attention, and wash his rig without his asking. When he's not with grandma, he's hanging with old friends at the rec center. He turned down that invite from USA Basketball because it would keep him away from his summer camps. "Those kids have nothing to do," he says. "I grew up with their brothers. I'd rather have them in the gym and off the street."
Howard low-keys it in Dallas, too. He doesn't have a big house; instead, he owns a condo on a quite street 10 minutes from American Airlines Center. It's as modest as Helen's ranch house. "I like that it's discreet," he says. He decorated the three-story unit himself in dark wood and earth tones; low, rectangular furniture conveys a slightly Asian vibe. The dining room table, like the one in grandma's kitchen, is always set. And his home, like hers, is always open to his friends. Displayed prominently in the living room is an array of family photos, including one of Helen standing in front of her house. Close by is the Winston-Salem Proclamation of March 26, 2003, that heralded Josh Howard Day.
His lineup of all-American cars back in Winston-Salem is also characteristically not showy: a 1973 Impala, a limited-edition '89 boxed Chevy Caprice. "I know where I come from," Howard says.
Tre-4—and he came up rough. He says his father had issues that kept him from being around. In the hood, word is his dad had game before the street got him. His granddad, Helen's husband, Johnny Jay, was an alcoholic. Howard smiles as he recalls the time a drunk Johnny picked him up from school with a big ol' tire in the backseat of his Buick and no further explanation. Josh watched Johnny deteriorate before he died, eight years ago. "I was getting close to him at the end, but he didn't even remember me at times," he says. "It was hard."
Howard owns the poster, DVD and VHS of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, to him "the funniest movie in the world". He plans to use it to warn the kids he'll have someday about drugs.
Having rolled over the Jazz for their eighth consecutive win, and with two days before their next game, the Mavericks get a midwinter slide from Coach Johnson. Rest is what Howard needs; rest and an MRI and treatment for a sprained right ankle. He missed the first 12 games because of a sprained thigh. Dealing with pain is something Howard has had to do since he was born. His legs were so bowed that when he was 5 months old, doctors broke them and put them in toe-to-thigh casts. Four months later, they broke and reset them again. Even though Howard was barely crawling when the casts went on, Helen says he went all Forrest Gump as soon as the plaster came off. He began to run and, like Gump, has never looked back. "My right foot still turns in a little when I run," Howard says. "But if they hadn't broken my legs, I'd be walking with a cane now."
In his senior year at Wake Forest, shin splints prevented him from playing for two weeks during the preseason. He considered redshirting. Instead, he ended up leading the Deacons to the 2003 ACC title (their first since 1962) and was unanimously selected as conference Player of the Year.
Still, NBA teams were lukewarm to him at draft time. Only nine offered workouts. (The Mavericks got him with the last pick of the first round.) Maybe it was the medical history of those legs. Or maybe it was his ability to do everything well but nothing great. Or maybe the scouts were turned off by his history. During his senior year of high school, Howard showed up drunk to class a couple of times, and a home-ec teacher had to put his desk in the hallway so he wouldn't be a distraction. ("If they said, 'Don't press the button,' I liked to press it," Howard says, "just to see what would happen.") He was labeled "dumb" as a Prop-48 with a bottom-scraping 610 on the SAT and "trouble" because he and a friend stole a cell phone from a cafeteria worker at Hargrave Military Academy. It couldn't have helped to hear he was 8 when he first met his dad, who gave him five dollars in change and five minutes later asked for it back.
"They see a guy's background and just automatically write him off," Howard says. "Just like people write our team off, because of its past, as not being able to play defense."
This is what the scouts didn't know:
Despite a nonexistent relationship with his dad, Howard still checks in on his paternal grandmother. And if his dad ever does go straight, Howard would like to get to know him.
He was a B-minus student who froze up when he took the SAT.
He stole the cell phone because he was homesick and knew his family couldn't afford to have him call collect.
Granted, J-Ho is still a work in progress. He wears his headband inside out because he is uncomfortable about being a shill for the league. Call a ticky-tacky foul on him in practice, and watch the ball rack fly. "We call it spazzin' out," says Stackhouse. "Josh does a lot of that." Call a ticky-tacky foul on him in a game, and watch to see if the mouthpiece gets tucked into his compression shorts. "That's when you know something is about to happen," teammate Marquis Daniels says with a grin.
But everyone agrees Howard has taken a giant step forward since last summer. After last season, Johnson told him it was time to be more than a late first-rounder who was just happy to have made the cut. Howard, the coach said, had to improve his dribble penetration and post game to allow Mavericks bombers Jason Terry, Stackhouse and Nowitzki to spot up freely. "We're so much better when he's handling the ball," Johnson says.
So Howard has become the glue for Dallas, posting career highs in six categories this season. In the first 50 games, he led the Mavericks in scoring nine times, rebounding 11 times and assists five times. "It was a matter of stepping out of the shadows," he says. "I feel comfortable in the shadows."
When the Ron Artest trade winds began to swirl last fall, Mark Cuban said it would take Artest and Jermaine O'Neal to get Howard. An exaggerated claim for sure, but no one around the league these days underestimates Howard's worth. "He's a scrapper with a real good feel for the game," says Blazers coach Nate McMillan. "You can run your offense with him, trap with him, play big or small with him." Johnson is more blunt: "There's no small forward I'd rather have."
The Mavericks owe grandma a hug. Howard crashed in that twin bed back in Winston-Salem last summer so he could confer with the person he trusts most in the world. In the front seats of his Navigator as he drove her to the market or at her kitchen table as he ate pancakes slathered with molasses, they talked it all out. Whenever Howard wondered if he'd already topped out as a player, grandma Helen said he was capable of far more.
As always, she was right.
Somewhere, though, in all that time spent basking in grandma's unconditional love and wisdom, it dawned on Howard: She won't always be around. Then he conjured an image of grandpa Joshua, sitting in his kitchen with his grandson or granddaughter. One last transformation. "I don't want her to go, but someday she will," he says. "And I want to be the one taking her place."
But not in the same place. Although he hopes to team with fellow Demon Deacon Chris Paul to provide for the youngsters in Winston-Salem, Howard is not expecting to raise a family there. "I'll be close enough but far enough," he says. "I want my kids to have a better opportunity."
Wherever he goes, though, 1500 E. Sedgefield Dr. will be with him. Because grandma's house signifies that no matter where you're from, there's no place you can't go.
Can Josh Howard get the Mavs deep into June?