Leon Smith article

[opi@unesco.org]

Walker's thoughts on friend
Celtics Notebook/by Steve Bulpett
Sunday, November 21, 1999

MIAMI - Antoine Walker is keeping an eye toward a young friend these
days. The Celtic co-captain knows Dallas rookie Leon Smith from their
Chicago roots and was saddened to learn of the strange turn Smith's life
took last week.

Having trouble coping with his new circumstances just a few months
removed from high school, Smith ingested some 250 aspirin after kicking
in a window on a visitor's car. When found by police, his face was
smeared green and he said he was an Indian fighting off Columbus.

``I know him personally and I feel bad for him,'' Walker said. ``He
comes from a group home. He doesn't have that adult role model around
his life. It's just hard sometimes for him.''

Smith was a ward of the state of Illinois, his parents having left when
he was 5.

``He just doesn't have that adult around him,'' Walker said. ``Even now.
He's going to need people, and it may have to come from some of the guys
around the league to kind of motivate him a little bit to get back on
his feet. He's got a great personality. He's a good kid. He's just never
had the proper guidance throughout his life.''

Walker, who was planning to speak with Smith (who has since been moved
from Parkland Hospital to an undisclosed location), noted the strange
events of this episode and said: ``He does things like that. Not that
specifically (the aspirin and the pseudo war paint), but . . . he's just
different, man. He's one of those different people, very difficult to
understand. You've got to have a willingness to want to understand him.
But besides that, he's a good guy. He's just hard to read.''

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Hi list:
I'll never understand some of quirky personnel moves Don Nelson and sons
do down in Dallas. I doubt anyone other than Nellie thought Leon Smith
was a first round draft pick in terms of talent, physical development or
mental maturity. As a first rounder, at least he's got a guaranteed
3-year head start in life financially. I guess teams these days are
desperate to gamble on ANY true center prospect (Fred "Edel" Weis etc.)
No true center prospects have emerged in the prep senior and junior
classes, and there's nobody in college much better than last year's guys
(Todd MacCulloch and Evan Eschmeyer). I've never seen Chris Mihm play
yet, though.

The thing I appreciate about the Herald reporters is that they show a
knack for getting the Celts players to open up and seem more natural and
human. By contrast, the Celts players (not just Antoine, but mainly him)
seem to clam up and sound increasingly defensive & dull when they talk
to the Globe. The Fortson article from last week (where he talks about
his "nasty" food diet etc) is IMO a good example of a player sounding
relaxed in the presence of a good and honest reporter (Bulpett).

For what it's worth, I also really enjoyed Bill Cooper's posts this
weekend (great balance of original insight, humor and essential game
details) and even felt an urge to e-mail them to the editors of the
Boston Globe. If not a "rookie of the year", he'd certainly take the
Globe by storm as the "Adrian Griffin" of the sportswriting world.  BTW,
did you all notice that Mike Madden filed the Miami stories, instead of
Peter May?  Maybe he just gets the sun & surf assignments out of
seniority or something. But I honestly sense that the Globe's editors
would be just as glad to see May take his act elsewhere, after judging
his performance so far this season.

Incidentally, I thought Madden did a good job of extracting quotes out
of the Miami locker room. It's very amusing to see how personally these
Miami players took last year's "El Sweepo".

What the weekend newspapers (especially the Sportsline article that
Kevin posted) all failed to report is that our much younger, more tired
starters basically sound like they held there own down there. I also
feel that our starting backcourt (9-29 shooting) and the bench (with
Cheaney and later Fortson) are really capable of playing much better
next time around. I don't want to make a litany of further excuses, but
the Miami arena is becoming increasingly known for the many dangerous
grease spots on the court, what with "El Greaso Loco" roaming the
sidelines.:-)

The Celts "Payback Tour 1999" hopefully begins with a great effort
against Indiana tonight and continues into December when we host the
Heat. I have no clue how Pitino intends to defend the Spurs on
Wednesday, though, and certainly hope we don't take a losing streak into
that game. I guess Pitino might activate Marty Conlon and even start
Pervis Ellison at power forward, out of desperation more than anything
else. It looks more like an inevitable Walker versus Duncan affair (with
Griffin guarding Chucky Brown), which should be very interesting and
hopefully not too scary.

Go Celts!

Joe

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