Chron: Moochie starting camp with clean plate

Rocket starting camp with clean plate

By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

The rehabilitation of Moochie Norris might have begun with all those summer mornings sweating through the workouts driven by coaches he had barely met.

The beginning might have been seen in the afternoons matching up with Nick Van Exel or Sam Cassell. Or it could have been found long before the offseason workouts, going back to the night in New Jersey when he was unable to overcome his frustration and disappointment and sat alone and cried.

But with Norris, the place to start, at least one more time, is with the hair.

It's gone. The follicle explosion that had been celebrated as part of his Smurf-like appeal is gone, replaced by a shadow of growth that is barely noticeable.

The time had come, Norris said, for style to be forgotten. He would remake himself from the top down.

"I just cut the hair to get off to a fresh start, to start over," he said. "We're going into a new arena. We have a new coach. I wanted to start over and just be done with last year. I just thought cutting my hair off was just me changing.

"I've always been different, with different hairstyles and things. But I wanted everybody to know me for being a hard-nosed basketball player, going out there and giving my all on the court."

When he first broke through with the Rockets in February 2000, Norris was a quick-footed, overachieving discovery out of the Continental Basketball Association. He had become so popular former teammate Shandon Anderson called him "the next mayor of Houston."

Norris' approval rating since, however, has made him more like the governor of California.

So deciding he was to blame for the Rockets' failure to reach the playoffs last season, Norris all but moved into the team's Westside Tennis Club training facilities for the summer.

By Monday, he not only had dropped a puppy's worth of hair, but he was back with other players starting over. Though he is beginning his fifth season with the Rockets, his first included only 30 games, and 41 are required to count as a full season. So Norris reported to training camp Monday in Galveston with other players with less than four seasons' experience.

"It's not a problem. No big deal to me," Norris said. "It gives me a jump on the other guys."

That has been roughly the idea since his worst season with the Rockets ended.

Norris averaged just 4.4 points and 2.4 assists per game in 2002-03, his worst production with the Rockets. He made just 40.6 percent of his shots and 68.4 percent of his free throws.

"My personal goal is to bounce back from the year I had," Norris said. "When I got here, every year was better and better until last year. This summer was for me to get back in better condition, drop some weight, be the Moochie Norris I was when I first got here, playing with a lot of energy and quickness.

"It was the first time I went through that kind of adversity. I've had adversity because I was frustrated that I couldn't be in the league or I was in the CBA. But I never had a situation like I had last year. I let one thing lead to the next thing. Everything was little, and I made it into something big. My mental aspect of the game just wasn't there. Some games I was enthused. Some games I was just there to be there. I was real disappointed in myself.

"If I just kept my normal attitude and weathered the storm, I think we probably would have made the playoffs. I think there were situations I could have helped my team, but I wasn't in there mentally."

To get there mentally, Norris had to improve physically. When he returned from his contract holdout before the 2001-2002 season, Norris had ballooned to roughly 230 pounds, more than 45 pounds greater than his listed weight. He lost much of that during that season, but in his offseason at Westside, the 30-year-old Norris had become so much slimmer and stronger that he had to dig old clothes out of the back of his closet.

To Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy, the improvement was a good start, a prerequisite for the real tests of the preseason. Norris has not carved out a role with Van Gundy's Rockets yet. But now he has that chance.

"I'm not sure exactly where he's at," Van Gundy said. "He obviously had a lot to do because of where he let himself get to. He still has a lot more to do. Hopefully he can have a bounce-back year to help us. At the same time, I think it's important for the team to protect itself so that if it doesn't happen for some reason, we have other options."

Asked if Mike Wilks, the former Rice point guard who has a non-guaranteed contract, was an option, Van Gundy would not be so specific. But clearly, Norris will have to compete to remain the first guard off the bench.

"I don't want to specify one guy," Van Gundy said. "You always have to have options. There are some things I really like about Moochie. I think he has an enthusiasm and a spirit that is important. He's made good strides, but he's got so much more he's got to do."

More than anything, he must prove he can fill a void. With so much of the Rockets' offense running through Steve Francis, the backup plays an important role. And with Francis also working as a shooting guard, the play of the backup point guard can become even more vital.

"Is the person who backs up Steve very, very important? Yes, absolutely," Van Gundy said. "Steve's ability transcends a position. You want to have a lot of different ways to play, whether it's with Steve at the point or Steve off the ball.

"The final question for Moochie is: Will he make shots? Because when you have ... players that draw that second defender to them, Yao (Ming) and Steve and Cuttino (Mobley) to an extent, too, you have to surround them with enough shooting, or you're not going to be a good offensive team. So will or can he make that shot?"

First, however, he had to change, whether on the practice court or at a barbershop.

 

I think that's what Moochie needs again: someone to push him instead of just hand him the backup position.