A Tale of a Tricky Month

By Adonal Foyle, with Irwin Soonachan (Courtesy of Basketball Digest.)

October 28, 2001

I came into this league as one of the "smart" people. There is a feeling from some others that because of that, I'm not as good a player as I could be, because I have alternatives off the court and I could choose not to play basketball.

People seem to think of that as negative. I hear things like, "The reason he's not doing as well as he could is because he is doing all of that extracurricular stuff with Democracy Matters and going back to school." That's just a load of crap. I have made a conscious choice to be a basketball player, and I'm not afraid of that commitment. When a person has nothing else but basketball and they're desperate, that doesn't necessarily make them a better basketball player.

Democracy Matters is a national student organization I founded to help college students participate more fully in our democracy. It is run by my mom, who retired from being a college professor at Colgate to manage the organization full-time. To say reading a book or taking a class or writing a paper will have a negative impact on my game is to say that I can't hold two thoughts in my head at the same time. It's like saying that if you are a father, you have to be a horrible parent to be a good basketball player. It is a completely ridiculous notion.

This has been bugging me for a while because I have heard some insinuations. It is very insulting to me to hear that having other interests means I am not taking my profession seriously.

November 7, 2001

[Soonachan] Keon Clark of the Toronto Raptors blindsides Warriors rookie forward Troy Murphy with an elbow to the head. Murphy stays in the game, and Clark later receives a $7,500 fine and a one-game unpaid suspension by the NBA. It is the latest in a series of incidents in which opponents have tried to bully Murphy.

November 11, 2001

The atmosphere around the team is excellent. We're starting to believe that we're good. That belief has been built and sustained on this road trip. I don't know why, but for some reason when a team is on the road, perhaps because they're out of their routine, it's very difficult to win. For us to go on such a long road trip and to persevere reinforced to us what a good team we are. Even at our worst, we've been able to stay in games, and for the first time, win. That is truly awesome. We haven't had that before.

The first game of the road trip in Toronto was tough. I only played four minutes. I was pissed, to say the least. I try never to worry about substitution patterns, but there were 46 family members and close friends in the stands who came to see me play. There is a large Caribbean population in Toronto, and after the game the local Caribbean association had a big event for me with a huge cake. It was fun. I got to see all of my family.

We lost the game against the Raptors, but we've grown a lot on this road trip. We understood, for the first time, what it means to have a deep team. On any given night, it is possible that somebody different will be the player who defines that game and determines, to some degree, the outcome. In one game on the trip, Jason Richardson had a huge game. In another, Chris Mills had a big game. And we all played well in New York vs. the Knicks.

November 14, 2001

The flight in from Memphis was horrible. We were all aware of the plane crash in New York that day. The guy next to me threw a bunch of towels over his head and screamed at every bump the plane hit. I told him I was going to kill him if he didn't stop. Another guy was almost on all fours and was basically freaking out. He was grabbing flight attendants right and left. Someone was holding onto the guy next to him so hard the guy's arm probably turned black and blue. His arm was basically being squeezed in a vice.

It was really nutty. It's normally a little bit like that, but this trip was even more intense. Everyone was on edge. When the plane hit turbulence, everything was magnified 20 million times. I passed the time watching "The Sopranos" on my laptop.

Tonight's game is going to be interesting, especially in light of what happened to Troy in Toronto. Hopefully we're going to go out and think of this game in terms of payback. We have to take it personally when a team hurts one of our players. I would like to take out our vengeance with wins, as opposed to fighting or scuffling--that's wasted energy. But clearly, there is a time when you have to defend yourself. Troy will have to decide to fight back at some point, because a lot of people have been going at him.

I don't know if I would be conspicuous about it, but you have to get a guy back when he cheap-shots you. It might not be the very next play, but it could come as soon as two or three plays later. My rookie year, I used to just run into people to let them know I'm not going to go away. I didn't get into any fights. I just kept coming at people. The more angry they got, the more I came at them. It's subtle. You have a lot of minutes to punch and throw elbows. You don't want to hurt anybody, but you want to let them know that they can't intimidate you.

November 20, 2001

I had a few stitches in my lip after the Chicago Bulls game. I feel like somebody tied a bag of bricks to my jaw and it's pulling my lip down. Every time I move my tongue I feel it, which is really annoying. I also can't eat, which is probably a good thing.

We lost a couple of close games to the Seattle SuperSonics and Toronto last week. It's annoying because this team is on the cusp of being really, really good. When things are so imminent, my dad calls it an exquisite moment. We're so close that it's painful. It's frustrating, but it's fun. We're over .500, and we've continued to make great strides. We bounced back against the Bulls and had a good win. When we have a team that we know we can put away we have to put them away. We didn't do that right away with the Bulls. We let them hang around, but we were good enough to win at the end.

When we have a team in that position, we can't give them that kind of leeway because they can hurt us. They are hungry to get a win. We have a team coming in tonight that we beat handily in New York. We can't give them any air. We have to come out and really beat them, and not give them a chance to get back into the game. That is going to be important for us.

November 25, 2001

After the Los Angeles Lakers game, Chris Mills called a team meeting. The whole team and the coaching staff were there for half an hour right after the game. It is very good to try to clear the air when things are not going well, but these meetings tend to be baloney. Most of the time, they don't do what they're supposed to do because everyone is afraid that there could be repercussions for what they say. In this case, the meeting helped. People didn't say everything they had to say, but they said enough to put their minds at ease.

We haven't been ready to go out and play. To me, one of the biggest problems here is that there are no consequences for mediocrity. If you don't have consequences for mediocrity, you're in big trouble. If I'm underperforming, someone needs to do something about it, even if it's just sitting me on the bench.

Everybody is fired up for the New Jersey Nets game. I don't think everyone is buying into the idea that our team can be a winner, but this game can help change that.

December 1, 2001

We had a tough road trip. We were ahead by 20 in Dallas, passing the ball really well and getting everybody involved, but then we started thinking too much. In the NBA, every team makes about two runs. Their first run brought the Mavericks back into the game, but we withstood it. We didn't beat back the second run. When you have a team on the ropes like that, you have to kill them. You have to execute even better. We're learning that.

I haven't been moving as well in some games lately because it's tough when you come into the game at the end of the second quarter, or in the second half. Especially in Dallas, where the gym was freezing. Sitting on the bench and not doing anything then trying to get up and go into the game is hard. In the first quarter I am ready, but it gets tougher later on in the game. I use heat pads, I stretch, I jump up and down, but I haven't found a sure solution. Mentally you can be ready, but your body shuts down if you sit long enough. I played better in San Antonio against the Spurs because I came into the game earlier.

I'm still adjusting to the unpredictable rotations that Coach is using. If you have an idea how you're going to be used, you can conserve your energy until the time you think you're going to be needed, and then get yourself ready. If you don't know, it's hard to navigate yourself. Either way, you have to be ready when the coach needs you.

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