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Boykins
I mentioned Earl "The Squirrel" Boykins as a player I wouldn't mind seeing
fall to the Celtics after rosters are cut down. He's smaller than Tyus Edney,
but he's quick and smart. I doubt it will happen, but here's a NY Post article
I thought I'd pass on.
MIGHTY MITE BOYKINS IS NETS' BMOC
By URSULA REEL
No one ever said it to his face, but Earl Boykins
has heard it
second-hand his whole life.
"Guys would come up and say, 'So-and-so said you
won't ever
make it because of your size,'" the 5-foot-5,
145-pound Boykins
said yesterday before the Nets hosted Orlando. "No
one ever had the
guts to say it directly to me."
Growing up, Boykins' only basketball role model
was his dad, a
5-foot-8 Cleveland police officer, who lit up the
local rec leagues
with flashy passing and deadly shooting.
"I always wanted to be like my dad," Boykins said,
denying he had a
hero in the NBA. "I just wanted to grow up and be
better than he
was."
It wasn't until high school that Boykins, the
eldest of three, realized
he wouldn't be very big.
"I say everyone else growing and I wasn't keeping
up," he said with a smile, adding that with a 4-foot-10 mom, he knew he'd
never be a dominating center. "But it didn't bother me. My size never was an
issue for me."
Boykins said he never drank extra milk or hung
from the rafters to
stretch his limbs. He never cursed his plight or
picked fights to prove
his manhood. In fact, he says, no one was ever
cruel about his
stature, likely because Boykins, quiet,
mild-mannered and
well-spoken, couldn't invite meanspiritedness if
he tried. Boykins
did have to quiet the persistent whispers,
however, and he did it by
playing.
He was wooed by big-time colleges, including
Wake Forest and
Xavier, but chose Eastern Michigan because he was
promised a
starting job. It was landing this scholarship that
gave Boykins hope
he could make it at the professional level, giving
credence to his dad -
his only full-time, never-wavering supporter.
"I knew getting that Division I scholarship was
key," said the point
guard, who was second in the nation in scoring his
senior year with
25.7 points per game. "After that, in my heart, I
knew I could play in
the NBA."
While Boykins is not guaranteed a spot in the
league - whispers
about his size still abound - he does bring
remarkable confidence and
poise to the court. He also has an edge. Boykins,
who acquired a
reputation as a trash-talker in college - a
moniker he denies - has been
laying low with his Net teammates, but he did
recently give in to a
game of one-on-one with the 6-5 veteran Kendall
Gill.
"He kept bothering me about it so I finally said
OK," Boykins
offered, pretending to be nonchalant. "So I beat
him two out of three
times."
Boykins remembered each of the scores - 7-6 and
7-2 Boykins wins
sandwiched around a 7-6 Gill victory - and says he
won mostly on
outside shots. He tried to hide his pride, but it
didn't work. The stats
were impressive, but after checking with Gill, it
was apparent
Boykins was talking smack about the contest.