Swift expected back for Griz The Commercial Appeal After one season in Houston where he struggled to fit in, Stromile Swift is back in a Griz uniform. He sat out the first few games with an injury but is expected to be back for tonight's game. To make his season debut against former team By Ronald Tillery Contact November 7, 2006 He stared straight ahead, giving careful thought toward what amounted to a sabbatical. It was akin to a college student who decided to spend a year studying overseas. Actually, Stromile Swift hopping to the Houston Rockets during the 2005 free-agent period was like crossing the street in the Western Conference. Swift, though, summed up his season away from the Grizzlies as though it happened abroad. He enjoyed the trip. He learned plenty. He just didn't speak the language. That said, Swift said he's a better person and player for having spent the 2005-06 season with the Rockets and coach Jeff Van Gundy, who visit FedExForum tonight. "It was a learning experience for me," said Swift, who is expected to make his regular-season debut tonight after missing the first three games with an ankle sprain. "I don't think it was bad. It was just that Jeff's terminology of the game was totally different. I was confused a lot because I was programmed to one thing. It was hard to pick up his terminology of the game." Swift heaped plenty of praise on former Rockets coach and NBA great Patrick Ewing. "He was great," Swift said of the former New York Knicks center. "He wasn't really the coaching type. He was more of a motivator, a mentor. He showed me a lot of things -- like mainly how to score." Yet the Swift experiment in Houston ended no sooner than it began. He didn't come close to fulfilling even half of a five-year deal. Swift's departure came quickly for a highly touted free agent, and with some of the same baggage he'd brought from Memphis. He endured injuries and inconsistent play. Swift also matured in a Rockets uniform. "It was a great experience for how he is now," Griz coach Mike Fratello said. "You can see he was coached well, and he's grown. He's better at how he does things. From how he looks on the floor and his approach, I see a great deal of improvement." Fratello pointed toward how Swift handled the ankle and knee injuries that forced him to miss most of training camp. Swift "was diligent with his work in a rehab situation" before completing a full-contact workout Monday, according to Fratello. The Grizzlies envision a scenario where Swift eventually starts alongside Hakim Warrick, who has averaged a team-high 19.3 points and eight rebounds. "He's another veteran body who can provide us rebounding, scoring and shot blocking," Fratello said of Swift. "He's experienced. The guy's played in X number of NBA games so that would be a nice piece to have return." Encouraging was Swift running the floor at full speed. He jumped and landed without discomfort, even blocking a couple of shots during practice. "Hopefully," he said, "I'll be able to do those things in the game (tonight)," Swift said. "It's still kind of sore but I feel like I can play. I'm going to go through shoot-around and see how it feels. But I feel like I can test it out in the game. I went pretty hard in practice. I just need to get my wind back." Asked if he hears the whispers from critics who still want to question his toughness, Swift defended his time off. "I put a lot of pressure on myself. I want to play," he said. "But I don't want to go out there and hurt the team or hurt myself when I know I can't perform at a high level." On that note, Swift doesn't accept being one of the scapegoats for the Rockets' poor season. "In this league you know anything can happen on draft night," Swift said, referring to the deal that sent him back to Memphis for Shane Battier and the rights to Rudy Gay. "I wasn't surprised about being traded. The only thing that surprised me was that it was back here. Other than that, I wasn't surprised. "We just had a lot of injuries. We didn't get a chance to get a good chemistry going. At one point, we were playing with seven or eight games. We just didn't get a chance to play as a group and get used to one another." http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/grizzlies/article/0,1426,MCA_475_5124030,00.html ---------------------- Errr... JVG alienated the guy?
What exactly had he been doing last year? Cannot figure out the coach's terminology after one freakin' season? Van Gundy must've used a different language.
I thought Swift has a class... Instead of blaming coach or anyone due to him getting traded, he handles the questions very well.
he's lying... The only thing Ewing showed him were where the best butt nakeds in htown were... which is why he was late to the games a lot of times. heh (I liked Swift though.. unlike a lot of people here)
To make Yao's transition easier, JVG coaches the team in Mandarin. I guess Swift had trouble picking it up.
So... had they used different terminology with him, Swift would have rebounded better and missed less rotations? Only if it were so easy. Anyhow, good luck to him, but as of now, I'm glad Hayes and Battier are getting the minutes Swift and Juwan Howard used to play.
An interesting stat from the game: Battier: 42 minutes, 12 points, 5 reb, 2 ast, 4 steals Gay+Swift: 40 minutes, 27 points, 4 reb, 0 ast, 1 steal, 1 block Round 1 goes to griz?
Actually, considering we don't need Battier to score as much as we got him for his all around game, I would still say that he looks better. I say this because, when you're looking at two people, that's twice as many shots, meaning there should be twice as many points - which there is; however, if you look at all the other stats, Battier has more. ROUND 1 : Rockets.
Swift is talented, but he needs to study the game. Whenever I watch him, it seems like his mind is always a few seconds behind his body. His reaction time was often bad, and it was almost as if he wasn't paying attention to what he was doing. If he can ever get his head in the game, he'll be a monster. But for now, he's a 6th man at best.
