Feeling Squeezed in the Front Court

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

September 29, 2001 (first day of practice)

It feels kind of like the first day of school. It's strange to see everybody so healthy. Nobody's on the sidelines with an injury. There are no knees or ankles or shoulders wrapped. Everybody looks good. You're excited just to run up and down, yet you're petrified of all the sprints you have to do. It's an odd mixture of ambivalence and excitement. I've been doing this five years and I still get a tingle when I'm about to start the year.

The atmosphere is very different than it has been in the past. Last season was almost depressing. When you carry the legacy of the years that you have been in this organization on your back, and you walk out and the fans are disappointed and you're disappointed, there is a kind of gloom. You're looking forward to the summer, and you think, "Man, I need to get away." With something you love, there should never, ever be a feeling like that. By the end of last year, everyone was ready to get away from this place. To me, it is tragic when you have to think of your profession in that way.

This year, we have a young, exciting team. The atmosphere is different in part because we don't allow the young players to notice that we haven't had a winning season here before. We really can do it this year. We have the talent to win. This could be the breakthrough year for the Warriors.

Last year I also went into training camp in high spirits. I couldn't have anticipated that we would have so many injuries. If we stay healthy, we're going to be a team to contend with. If we get hurt again, we can't win. For the last four years, I've been predicting how good we're going to be. This year I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to keep knocking on wood. I love this team. That's all I'm going to say.

October 3, 2001 (fifth day of practice)

Practice has been tiring. It's not so much the practice itself but the two-a-days. We practice from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and again from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Your body just kind of dies after the first practice. You take a nap, then you have to wake your body up again for a night practice. Then you have to calm it down again so you can get some sleep to be up for practice the next morning. That sucks. I'd rather combine the practices, stay for however long is needed, and then go home and be able to sleep. You've got to keep beating your body to wake up and get ready to go.

Lately, questions have bubbled up about how Erick Dampier and I can remain friends while we're competing for playing time. Erick is probably having dinner at my house today. My chef is cooking, so he is probably going to come down to look for food. After practice tonight he'll be back again looking for more food. We started working out together this summer, pushing each other and working really hard. We have one goal: We want this team to be good. I want to play, and he wants to play. We both will play, but we both can't play all the time. It's the kind of a relationship where when we're on the court, we battle, we talk trash to each other and say things that we wouldn't even say to people we hate. I want to take his job away if he doesn't show up and play well, and if I'm not doing well, I want him to take my job away. He knows that I want him to do well, and I want to do well. If we both do well over 82 games, we'll have more than enough playing time, both together and alone. We try to get the best out of each other.

It has a lot to do with mutual respect. Erick got a bad rap over the last few years, and it wasn't right. A lot of people said he was lazy. I never believed that. He was in pain. They were brutal towards him in the press. I'm a big-mouth; if anybody did that to me I'd be right in their face. Erick isn't like that. He just sat back and let them do what they do. But it wasn't the truth.

October 12, 2001

We were in Hawaii for three days and I was in therapy the whole time. I had back spasms after practice that were so bad that I couldn't lift my arm. I didn't get to do too much. It took a few days to loosen it up, but it was fine. I did meet with some friends of mine from Pete Newell's Big Man Camp. One of them took me home and cooked me beef stew, my favorite dish. I also went out for dinner with my cousin, who goes to Brigham Young University in Hawaii. It was kind of fun. It felt like going home. I love the water and sitting on the beach just chilling, like we do back home.

The games were fun. It was the first time I'd sat on the bench and heard laughter, seen smiles during the course of the game. Usually everyone is so serious. We were winning the second game by 29 points and we were like, "This is kind of nice." It was a good feeling to be on a team that can do that.

October 18, 2001

[Soonachan] The Warriors stun the NBA by announcing that they have matched the Houston Rockets' offer sheet to forward/center Marc Jackson, a restricted free agent. The move immediately reignites trade speculation about Adonal, who this summer was the subject of trade rumors involving the New York Knicks.

October 20, 2001

With the team re-signing Marc, the trade rumors that were going on about me all summer have resurfaced. From the moment you become an NBA player, the one thing that is certain is that to a very large extent, you lose control of the day-to-day activities in your life that are basketball related. The only thing you can really control is how much you work on your game. The other stuff, you just have to roll with the punches. I'm not going to stress over it until a trade happens, because there is nothing I can do to prevent one-I don't have a no-trade clause.

I try not to talk to my agent too much, although I'll probably call him sometime next week. I don't want to know about trade talks. If I know, I'm going to stress over it and think about the what-ifs. It will distract me from what I want to do. When it happens, it happens.

I'm feeling great, and there are very good vibes around this training camp. Guys are very loose, and they want to pass the ball to each other. They like seeing another person get a dunk. That hasn't been the case in previous years, for as far back as I've been here. Guys laugh with each other, give each other a pat on the butt, call out to each other to say "good pass," and things like that. It's a team atmosphere. We really want to win. The veterans are tired of the negative atmosphere we've had here.

On defense, we're helping each other more. We're also yelling at each other more. We're letting people know where they're supposed to be. We have good communications, but it's something we have to keep working at. It's not easy. That sounds a bit like a marriage, and it really is. In fact, being on an NBA team is a very complicated marriage. We see each other for six intense months. We travel together, we sleep in the same hotel rooms and we play together every day. Whatever somebody's darkest, blackest secret is, you'll probably get an inkling of it on the road trips. It's a marriage you may not want to be in sometimes, but you're in it nonetheless. Like any other marriage, you have ups and downs, but you have to deal with it.

October 21-26, 2001

[Soonachan] Adonal's playing time diminishes through the last four exhibition games, as Jackson works his way into the lineup and Dampier and Fortson reclaim their starting jobs. He continues to produce during the minutes he's given.

October 28, 2001

We didn't play well the last three games, but we're still learning each other. We have a long season, and we just have to keep learning from the mistakes we make. We played well in spurts, but we couldn't hold it together overall.

I'm not getting as much playing time, but I'm going to wait my turn. Gone are the days when I get upset about playing time. If the coach has confidence in you, he'll find a way to play you. I'm not fazed in the least because I have confidence in my game. I've improved both offensively and defensively. When I get my opportunities, like I did in the fourth quarter of the Milwaukee game, I'll show them why they have me on this team.

It's been very busy the past few days. We played on the road and we also did a lot of Warriors community stuff. Outside the Warriors, one of my friends is moving and I helped her pack up, and I've been deep into a class on the psychology of sports injuries. I'm trying to finish it before the season starts, but it may drag into the first week. I could have taken this class with my eyes closed. Everything that it talked about I went through last year when I damaged a ligament in my shooting hand. The class discusses different theories about what people go through when they have an injury, including depression, anger, frustration, acceptance, rehab, thinking your career is over, and believing you can come back. It talks about how you get someone to start over and not fear getting injured again. The textbook was like a checklist of what I went through.

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