D-League

End Route

CHN — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:57:36 -0700

by Matt Caputo
For the second time this season, Shaun Livingston has a second chance at the NBA career many thought he’d have. The gruesome knee injury almost ended Livingston’s playing days in 2007 is now a distant memory, it’s taken . After the Miami Heat tested the still-recovering Livingston, signed him and traded him to Memphis in January. Dishearteningly, the struggling Grizzlies released him on the same day the deal went down. Livingston stayed under the radar for a minute before resurfacing with the Tulsa 66ers of the NBA D-League in early March. Three weeks after signing with the 66ers, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s D-League affiliate, the big club decided to call the 23-year-old guard up and sign him to a multi-year deal.
We’ve been following Livingston’s progress pretty closely at SLAM. Back in Issue 111, Livingston spoke about his recovery process for our backboard page.
The Long Road Back
With his horrific, YouTubed injury in the past, one-time phenom Shaun Livingston is gamely looking forward.

FROM SLAM 111 / As told to Konate Primus
First and foremost, I want to thank all my fans, friends and family for staying loyal and helping me get through this time in my life. That goes for the ones in Illinois as well as L.A.
I don’t even know how to describe my injury. I didn’t really understand how bad it was. I thought it was just a dislocated knee cap or something—which it turned out to be, but it felt a lot worse. My initial feelings were like, Damn, I didn’t know it was that severe. There wasn’t really any need to panic. I’ve dealt with injury situations before; this wasn’t new, so I was just going to go with the flow and think positive. It’s so hard to describe…the pain was unreal.
Sometimes it feels like there is something out there that doesn’t want me to be the All-Star I know I can be. But I am a firm believer in “Everything happens for a reason.” Obviously this is a situation where people are going to say, “He’s not coming back, he’s not this, he’s not that,” but shit happens. I mean, things happen in life and not just to me. These types of things happen to everyone. It’s not being vulnerable; it’s just looking at life the way it is from a realistic standpoint. I’m a believer in God and I believe that he puts things in your path for a reason.
I had surgery about three months ago. They repaired my ligaments and snapped my knee cap back in place. The doctors haven’t given me any feedback on when I can return because this is quite a complex injury. The timetable is not set in stone; it’s more playing it by ear and seeing how my knee holds up.

Since the injury, I’ve been doing my rehab and staying busy with a lot of work outside basketball. This injury gave me the opportunity to work on some of my offcourt goals and try to strengthen my website and my foundation, working with underprivileged kids and partnering up with other foundations to build up the community. I’m also becoming more business oriented. I’m getting my feet wet in real estate and I’m still out in L.A., so obviously the movie industry is something I want to get into. I’m really just exploring all options because of the injury. As of now I can’t hoop, run or work out my lower body. There are so many things I can’t do now because of my knee, so I have a lot of free time. A lot is on the backburner until I get my knee rehabilitated, so I’m using my time wisely.
Don’t get me wrong, though, basketball is still my number-one priority. I feel like I have plenty of time left. My camp and I are very confident that I will make a comeback. It’s not really a comeback because I don’t really see it that way—I’m just looking at it as an injury that happened, and I’m not going to rush anything. I’m walking, going to therapy five days a week and concentrating on getting back to the court. Everything else is just post-career.
Personally, I would say so far my career has been pretty inconsistent because of all the injuries I’ve dealt with since my rookie year. But like I said, everything happens for a reason. I could either stay down and complain or keep it moving. And if you couldn’t tell, I’m moving. Now you know!

Taylor Made Ending

CHN — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 07:37:30 -0700

by Matt Caputo
It’s just-under two hours until tip-off at Madison Square Garden and Mike Taylor is warming up for a game that he might not play in. He’s smiling though - an hour before his more senior Clipper teammates make it to the gym, Taylor is burying deep threes on both sides of the key. His swishes echo throughout the empty arena when the blaring sound system being tested goes mute. Taylor, who became the first player selected in the NBA Draft directly from the NBA D-League, knows that he once doubted he’d get the opportunity to be there at all.
“I looked at it as my second chance,” Taylor says in the vacant visiting dressing room in the World’s Most Famous Arena. “Being able to make all my dreams come true. At the time, the only thing I knew was going through college to make it to the NBA. Coming out of the D-League was my second chance.”
A quick glance around the empty locker room before the game and you might not recognize the skinny kid with seemingly endless body ink as a member of the team. He’s a little shorter than the 6’2 and a few pounds below the 165 pounds the team’s media material lists him as. His name is trivial at best to several beat writers and college coaches (who should have been recruiting him) and he’s only scored a total of ten points in the four previous games before meeting the Knicks. But while much of the gathering (SLAM included) was wondering where Baron Davis and Marcus Camby was before the game, as early as the second quarter they were wondering where Taylor had come from.
Although he was born in Chicago, Taylor attended John Marshall High School in Milwaukee and was All-State Honorable Mention his senior year. He’d come to the school at roughly 5-foot-4 and left really only 5-foot-10. After being named Milwaukee public school player of the year (averaging 25 points per game) he enrolled at Chipola College in Marianna, FL.
At the Junior College level, Taylor competed with one of the best teams in the country. During his time at Chipola, Taylor helped the Indians capture two Panhandle Conference Championships, a Region VIII Championship, and a NJCAA Final Four Appearance, racking up a 62-8 record along the way. Being named All-Conference and his team’s Defensive Player of the Year as a sophomore, Taylor signed with Iowa State and things took a bad turn.
He was arrested in Wisconsin in August of 2006 for operating a vehicle while under the influence. The incident happened away from the ISU campus and it was never clear if the Cyclones ever penalized him for the infraction. It was ultimately ruled that it was not a criminal offense and resulted in only a fine and Taylor’s driver’s license was revoked for six months. It was the first of three brushes with the law that year.
On the court though, Taylor was starting to tap into the potential he always knew he had. Though he had to sit out an exhibition game due to academic concerns, he quickly became the Cyclones’ first offensive option. He averaged 16 points and 4.5 assists en route to earning All-Big 12 Honorable Mention props. Still, Taylor struggled with maturity and focus off the court.
In March of 2007, Taylor was busted for vandalizing an on-campus apartment building. The next month he was arrested for stealing a bottle of cold medicine from a convenience store and pleaded guilty to fifth-degree theft. After being suspended following the March incident, he received a vehicle registration violation and was ordered to pay a penalty of $69.80. After the series of legal setbacks, the Cyclones were forced to dismiss their leading scorer.
“I played against D.J. Augustine, I played against Mike Conley and Kevin Durant at Iowa state,” Taylor says before the game in New York. “To me, I always put up a tough fight. I was on the same level if not better than those guys, so, that was the thing that I kept in the back of my head.” At first, Taylor thought he would transfer and drop down a level in competition so that he could play right away. However, he wasn’t allowed back to Iowa State and had to make some kind of decision. He began considering turning pro.
“We had him on our prospect list, but we hadn’t anticipated seeing him for a couple of years,” says Chris Alpert, the NBA D-League’s VP of Basketball Operations. “He intended to go back to school and he never put his name in the draft of 2007. He decided in the fall that he didn’t want to go back to school and we were contacted by a representative who said that he wanted to begin his professional career. We met with him, decided to sign him, and we put him in our league.”
The Idaho Stampede signed Taylor in December of 2007. He found his role as the sixth man on a very good team that featured NBA sometimers like Luke Jackson and Randy Livingston. Taylor learned a lot about being a pro, he went to the D-League All-Star Game and was a finalist in the dunk contest and worked in the community with the “Read to Achieve” program in Idaho. The Stampede won the D-League Championship in 2007-2008, in a game in which Taylor dropped 27 points, including 4 consecutive three pointers.

“We’re a league of opportunity,” says Alpert, who has been with the D-League since it’s inception in 2001. “In terms of what happened in Mike’s background, ‘yes,’ we were aware of it, but as we discussed it, he was a bright young prospect who needed to mature a little bit. We felt as though he did so admirably. He was a model player in our league, there were no issues off the court with Mike.”
After a year in the D-League, Taylor was still eligible to be drafted into the NBA. His agent got him into the Orlando pre-draft camp and competed against the top college players in the country. It was there that Taylor earned attention as seriously being a draft worthy prospect. The Nets, Heat, Kings, Clippers, and Bulls all worked out the scoring strong combo guard, but it would be a while before anybody picked him.
“What I was hearing was I could go anywhere from the last five picks of the first round to the first five picks of the second round,” Taylor says thinking back. “I started tuning in around the 25th pick. The Clippers had the 35th pick and when I didn’t hear my name called I just went into my room and wasn’t even watching it anymore.”
A little while later, Taylor’s little brother rushed into his room to announce the Trailblazers had taken him with the 55th overall pick in the 2nd round. Quickly after, Portland traded him to the Clippers, where Taylor says he had big best pre-draft workout. In a talent heavy class, most of which was taken about 45 picks before him, Taylor’s story as the first player from the D-League selected in the NBA draft went more or less unnoticed.
Running with the Clippers in the Vegas Summer League, Taylor averaged a promising 10 points and just-under 5 assists. Despite the presence of a few guards, he found himself a spot on the roster. Taylor scored 20 points in his first preseason game and scored in double figures seven times during their exhibition tour. Still, he had time to bide.
In L.A., he became tight with Tim Thomas before he was sent to the Knicks and ultimately to Chicago and now spends a lot of time absorbing knowledge dropped on him by Baron Davis, whose playoff performances he says he’s inspired by. Despite the fact that “everything hella expensive,” he likens L.A.’s hot and sunny winters to Wisconsin’s frigid temperatures. When he did get in the game, he showed he was race car quick and that he could score. Over time, his teammates already knew what he could do.
“He’s non-stop, he’s non-stop! Imagine trying to guard him every day in practice,” says the Clippers veteran leader Baron Davis. “Imagine him picking you up full and running you all around the court.”
Even on a team that came to New York with a record of 17-54, Taylor had only seen action in 40 games before he came to the Garden. He was averaging less than four points per game and played a total of 31 minutes in the last three games. But, in a building sometimes called “The Garden of Dreams,” Taylor got his chance to run the team.
After a pretty toneless performance by the Clippers in the first quarter, Coach Mike Dunleav sent Taylor into the game and he went into attack mode. He drove to the basket with a fearless sense of urgency and quarterbacked a comeback from a 16-point deficit. It was as if he began using the most rugged tactics to score, defining the term “instant offense.”
In 36 minutes, including one overtime period, Taylor hit 14 of 20 shots from the floor and all seven of his foul shots. He scored 17 points in the second quarter alone, eclipsing his previous career high by two points. Taylor said he found the zone that had made him the MVP of the D-League finals. More than that, he found himself out there.
He finished with 35 points off the bench in a game that essentially killed the Knicks playoff dreams. He had the single best scoring game by a rookie in the Garden since Allen Iverson dropped 35 in ‘96, who he mentioned once before the game and once after the game. The Clippers earned a five point OT win over the Knicks and it’s because of Mike Taylor.
“I thought he carried the team,” Davis says, walking out of the locker room. “He didn’t want to let us lose this basketball game. He got into a good groove and hit some jumpers and I thought that really got his confidence going. He’s tough getting to the basketball because he dribbles the ball so well.”
Taylor felt comfortable, he says, for the first time this season. He provided the spark that closed out a rare Clippers victory. More so, he got his chance on the world’s biggest stage and didn’t buckle. Still, people might not know where Mike Taylor came from, but he’s likely to stay where he is for a while to come.
“To me, I want to be a franchise player one day,” Taylor said before the game. “I want a GM or a Head Coach to build a team around me. I know I have a long way to go, but every chance I get I’m going to get better.”

“He’s still playing?”

CHN — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:20:52 -0700

By Matt Caputo

Mateen Cleaves knows how to dance. Back in 2000, Cleaves led Michigan State to the national championship and was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. Cleaves, the Spartan’s career steals leader, is Michigan State’s only three-time All-American. He was named Big Ten Player of the Year twice – leading college and conference in career assists with 816. After four years at Michigan State, the short and stocky entered the NBA draft.
Cleaves slid into the League early in the first round. The Pistons took him with the 14th pick in the first-round, but Cleaves struggled to fit in after his rookie season. Although he was named to the NBA’s All-Rookie Team, he didn’t make the playoff roster when he was shipped to Sacramento, where the Kings went to the Western Conference Finals. Since then, the majority of his NBA career has been spent trying to keep his dream alive. He bounced from the Kings to the Cavs before making his first stop in the D-League with the now defunct Huntsville Flight. He’s shuffled back and forth between the big and little leagues, even spending decent stretches of two seasons with the now non-existent Seattle Supersonics, where he played sparingly. Though he’s been to camp with the Nuggets, Celtics, Raptors and Nets, he hasn’t found a permanent place on any roster. Over the last three seasons, Cleaves has brought a ton of veteran knowledge to the Bakersfield Jam of the NBA D-League.
SLAM recently spoke with Cleaves about his March Madness memories, NBA and D-League career after practice with the Jam.
SLAM: What are you up?
Mateen Cleaves: I’m hanging in there. I just got out of shoot-around; we got a little game tonight. We’ve got to play the Dakota Wizards tonight and pretty they’re decent. I couldn’t watch today because we had practice, but I’m fitting to go and watch the tournament right now.
SLAM: What are your Final Four predictions?
MC: Oh man, I filled out about three different brackets. I got Michigan State, UCONN, Pitt and Memphis or something.
SLAM: This time of year, you have to think a lot about the 2000 National Championship.
MC: You always do. I think Magic Johnson told me that it gets better every year. He said that you wouldn’t appreciate it until you get older and that’s how it is. I still get chill bumps, the memories come back and the phone start righting, you know (laughs). It’s always a good time of the year. People took for granted how athletic our team was and how good we were in transition. I think we showed that against Florida when they tried to press us. Coach Izzo had a hell of a game plan, him and the rest of the staff.
SLAM: What’s your most vivid memory of the 2000 Title?
MC: Finally just winning it! I sit down with my brothers and my father and watch the tournament every year. As a kid, you fantasize about being in it and winning it, but at that time it was only a dream. We started out with Valparaiso, the next game we beat Utah, after that we beat Syracuse and Iowa State. We played Wisconsin and we beat Florida. To actually have it happen was priceless.
SLAM: What was the most intense moment?
MC: I would say, it was probably when we were playing Syracuse and we were down. Coach called a time our and Morris Peterson came in and we called our favorite play a “back-door lob.” Mo said “Coach, I think I can make it.” I came off a screen-and-roll, turn around and come back, dribble at Mo’Pete and he cut backdoor. He caught it and it went through. We went on to win and it was a great moment for us.
SLAM: What made that team a championship team?
MC: What made us special was that we needed our entire team to play well if we were going to win. Everybody on that team brought something different. Morris Peterson has did a lot of things, Charlie Bell was our do-it-all type of guy, AJ Granger played a hell of a role and made great plays. Andre Hutson was probably the most underrated player on that team. I don’t think he really got credit for how great he played throughout that whole year, not just in the tournament. We had Jason Richardson and David Thomas coming off the bench. We didn’t care who got the credit or who scored the most points; our main goal was to find a way to win by any means necessary. We all depended on each other.
I’m constantly in touch with those guys, like Morris Peterson and Charlie Bell. Coach invites us back for a football game and a big dinner ever year. We all managed to stay in touch over the years.
SLAM: Coach Izzo’s son’s middle name is “Mateen,” after you.
MC: Man, that’s an honor. Our coaches put in so much work to build the best possible game plan. The players played, but the coaches did a hell of a job preparing us. Coach Izzo was big on playing one game at a time and not looking ahead. Our theme that year was “leave it all on the floor.” Basically, we didn’t want to come back to the locker rooms with an ounce of energy left. That’s something we kind of took to heart.
SLAM: Can you compare playing in the D-League to playing major DI ball?
MC: It’s different, to be honest. DI, especially like Michigan State, - it’s two different leagues. In the D-League, you’ve got some traveling guys and some guys who I think could play in the NBA. Everybody here is hardworking and trying to move on to the big leagues. Other than that, I can’t compare the two to be honest.
SLAM: You’ve moved from the NBA to the D-League to the NBA and back. How much have you seen it change in your time there?
MC: It has changed. They’ve done a heck of a job. I played in Huntsville, Alabama and the bus rides were eight hours. Nowadays these guys are flying mostly everywhere. The league has grown. Even the Coaches have NBA experience, they have played in the NBA and they have grown. I’d like to take my hat off to the people that are running it, because they’re doing a heck of a job.
SLAM: You’ve got a lot of experience now, that’s for sure.
MC: I done been in every possible situation. I been an All-American, the superstar on the team, I’ve been the guy on the end of the bench that don’t play that much and has to just come to practice and work hard. Every situation I’ve been in has helped me out. In the D-League, and even when I was overseas, I’d come to practice and work guys out, so, being in all these situations has helped me a lot. There are little things you can do that make everybody better.
SLAM: How long do you see yourself continuing to play?
MC: Everybody I’ve spoken to tells me to play as long as I can and play until I get it out of my system. The veterans and the older guys tell me to keep going until I can’t anymore. I’m not going to play until I’m crippled, but I’ve got a good three or four more years. After that, I do have a passion to want to coach.

Strong Willed

CHN — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:56:25 -0700

by Matt Caputo
Originally published in SLAM 127
After going undrafted in the ’05 NBA Draft, Will Conroy was left looking for a place to play. It might not have seemed like much at first, but the NBA D-League had a spot for the former University of Washington point man and the Huskies’ all-time assist leader. He’s now the little League’s leading scorer and a quick first step away from a full-time position in the NBA.
After playing four seasons in the Down-Low, Conroy has matured into a lethal offensive weapon. In 2007, he earned two NBA call-ups, one from the Clippers and a second from the Grizzlies. Since then, he’s been in consideration for spots with the likes of the Cavs, Bobcats and Lakers. While he hasn’t been able to stick yet, his official stints have been a big part of Conroy’s solid work experience.
“This is the fastest route to the NBA for guys who don’t get drafted,” says Conroy, whose college teammates included first-round picks Brandon Roy and Nate Robinson. “There is a guy or two on every team down here that could be a full-time player in the League.”
Now, Conroy is working toward another shot in the show. His stats for this season in Albuquerque speak volumes about the maturation of his game—26.4 points, eight assists, 4.3 rebounds and 2.1 steals per night. He’s had eight 30-point games, ranks fourth in assists and recently made his second D-League All-Star Game appearance in Phoenix. Doesn’t seem like such a bad job after all.
CALL-UP TIME
by Tzvi Twersky
Trey Johnson—Now in his second season in the D, Johnson has found himself dominating opponents every time he steps on the court. With season averages of 20.1 points per game, just under 5 assists and over 3 boards, the 6-6, 216-pound Johnson is more than ready for an NBA call-up.
Blake Ahearn—The Spurs made this 6-2, 190-pound scorer the first call-up of the ’08-09 NBA season. Now playing for the Dakota Wizards, he is averaging 24 ppg and 6 apg and had a great ASW by winning the D’s Three-Point Shootout and co-MVP of the All-Star Game.
Eddie Gill—For a man who has been in the A on and off for years, the news that the Bucks called him up February 10th shouldn’t have been shocking. The 6-0 guard, who was averaging nearly a double-double in the D-League (16.2 PPG, 8.6 APG), carries the hopes of his hometown Colorado 14ers on his back, as well as every
other D-Leaguer.