John Amaechi: Amaechi sticks to his guns in fight with coach

Bailey · Jun 7, 2003

Interesting interview from The Independent newspaper. He doesn't like Jerry Sloan much!

-----

John Amaechi: Amaechi sticks to his guns in fight with coach

American basketball's only British player should be working out in Utah, but he is working with children in Manchester

The Brian Viner interview

07 June 2003

Here's a funny thing. There is a sportsman in Manchester who was offered £18m over six years to play for one of the world's most famous teams, but the man wasn't David Beckham or even Paul Scholes and the team wasn't Real Madrid or even Internazionale. The team was the LA Lakers and the man was John Amaechi, a giant of six foot nine who grew up in Heaton Moor, went to Stockport Grammar School, and is the only Englishman playing in America's National Basketball Association.

Or to be precise, not playing. Amaechi has fallen out, big-time, with the coach of his team, Utah Jazz. There has been a clash of personalities, and as one personality is an immovable object and the other an irresistible force, the situation is not likely to be resolved.

The coach, Jerry Sloan, even suspended Amaechi for a game after he called him the worst thing one man can call another. Therefore, Amaechi needs to find another team in the NBA. The Lakers, however, probably won't come calling again.

When they did want him, they called every day. Amaechi, a forward-centre, was then playing for Orlando Magic, and fielded phone calls from the Lakers' star players Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. It was as if Manchester United wanted to buy Patrick Vieira and got Beckham and Scholes to telephone him, begging him to join.

But Amaechi said no, and stayed with Orlando on a relatively meagre £480,000 a year. "The year Orlando took me on, nobody else was interested in me," he explains. "Orlando gave me a shot when nobody else would, and I've always believed that you repay good faith with loyalty. It's not that I don't like money, but you can't be a part-time man of principle. I can't say that I believe in these semi-ethereal higher principles and then fold when the first test comes along."

We are sitting in a suite in Manchester's über-trendy Rosetti Hotel. Fortunately, it is not Amaechi's suite, as the bed would not contain him even if he lay in it diagonally. His, he says, is much bigger.

You will have realised by now that as well as being a sportsman with unusually long legs and unusually strong principles, Amaechi is also a sportsman of unusual eloquence. This is partly what led to the breakdown of his relationship with Sloan, who said to him: "You know what your problem is? You hate white people, you hate Americans and you think you're smarter than everyone else."

Amaechi sighs as he prepares to rebut the accusation one more time. "My mother was white, my two adopted kids are white and American, and you know what, I've never before had to use that line, 'I'm not a bigot, some of my best friends are . . . insert demographic here'. I am smart - how many basketball players at any level are doing a doctorate? - but if that's offensive to you it's hardly my problem. Unfortunately, it becomes a little intimidating to men like Jerry if you can speak in complete sentences."

Since Amaechi can find the hoop with a basketball like he can find the words to convey such withering condescension, it is no wonder that he has made a name for himself. Needless to say, he tells with great verve the story of his rise to fame and fortune.

He was born in November 1970 and grew up with two sisters. His mother was divorced from his Nigerian father, who played no part in his upbringing. Where his extraordinary height comes from, he is not sure. His sisters are not especially tall. But he was always huge for his age. "I had a rugby teacher at Stockport Grammar, a little, short man, who said, 'One day everyone will catch up with you'. But they never did."

He laughs. His accent is much more Stockport than Salt Lake City, although there are mid-Atlantic inflections, which is not surprising; he has lived in the US since he was 18. He went because it was his dream to play in the NBA, and his mother, a doctor, volunteered all her savings to help him send him on his way to realise that dream. So he enrolled at Toledo High School in Ohio, and won a basketball scholarship from there to Vanderbilt University. A year later he transferred to Penn State, where the coach told him what he wanted to hear: "I'm not promising you'll be the best but we think you've got great potential."

If anything, he has exceeded that potential, which is due, he says, to good coaching. "In terms of athletic ability, I'm in the bottom five per cent of the NBA on my good days. But I get by on technique, and knowing what I do well on the floor - positioning, how to use my body. I have to get by with what people have called slithering-type moves, squeezing the ball past the fingertips of my opponent, my execution defeating their athleticism by millimetres. I'm also a better shooter than most big men are. And I'm willing to run all the time."

As a college basketball player he made the All-American team, which is the highest accolade the college game can bestow. But he was overlooked in the NBA draft, the system whereby the big teams take their pick of the finest collegiate stars. The dream was within his sights but beyond his grasp. Then, just before the 1995-96 season, Cleveland Cavaliers signed him. In football terms he had joined Charlton Athletic rather than Arsenal, but what the heck, he was in the Premier League.

His first game for Cleveland was against Chicago, in a pre-season friendly. "I had my first ever shot blocked by Michael Jordan," he recalls. "It was weird. You walk on, look up, and above you there's this huge jumbo screen and your face on it, with a caption saying, 'Rookie out of Penn State'.''

Unable to settle at Cleveland, Amaechi went to Panathanaikos in Greece. You might not think of Panathanaikos as a steaming hotbed of basketball, but evidently you would be wrong. When the team failed to win the European championship that year, Amaechi and his colleagues received death threats. "In the last game of the season they were throwing bottles and coins."

He got out and played in Italy, before returning to the NBA, and Orlando Magic, in 1999. "It is the aspiration of every basketball player to play in the NBA," he says. "Otherwise I would never have left my mother. I was too much of a mother's boy."

Just because America is the home of the NBA, however, does not make it home. "Most people don't realise how different America is, and how much more different it's getting, especially in the current wave of neo-conservatism. It's a very foreign country. We're really not on the same page."

And he and Jerry Sloan are especially not on the same page. Or even in the same book. Sloan likes his players to talk of their all-consuming passion for the game, which Amaechi declines to do.

"I love basketball, I think it's an excellent job, but I question people who say they love their job as much as they love their family. And of course nobody does, they just say they do. The truth is that I'm far more professional than most basketball players. I don't go out and get hammered the night before a game, I don't philander on the road, but also I don't go in and say, 'I love this game so much I would play it for nothing'.

"Anyone who thinks you should work hard because you love something is living in the kindergarten. If you do a nine-to-five job and get it done, you get home, kick your shoes off, and say. 'Thank God that's over'. It doesn't mean you haven't enjoyed it, or haven't done it well." These comments are clearly directed at Sloan.

To employ the football analogy one more time, Sloan, as Amaechi describes him, sounds like a combination of Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger, but a combination of their worst rather than best traits. Presumably, when Amaechi signed for Utah, the coach knew what he was getting?

"Well, when I signed I said that I would show up on time for every practice, but that when practice was over I'd be out the door. They knew that, yet they've given me grief about it since the day I joined. I have always polarised people. They either love me or can't stand me, but at least that way you know where you stand. And despite what Jerry and Larry (Miller, the owner of Utah Jazz) say, I'm popular with my team. My team-mates understand that I've got homework to do (he is working on a doctorate in child psychology), and business stuff to do."

The "business stuff" is in part a reference to the Amaechi Basketball Centre in Manchester. To this he contributed a seven-figure sum out of his own pocket but dismisses his financial involvement.

"You have to understand that a lot of athletes do things with money that are convenient for them as opposed to convenient for others. There are a lot of tax write-offs out there. It's not difficult for someone who makes £10m a year to give £1m away. What's important is that while I'm in Manchester I'm there every day, and that the kids know I care." The two-year-old centre is his pride and joy. "It's 95 per cent full, we have eight full-time staff, and 2,000 kids a week coming through the door. We're training some to be referees, and even some to be administrators so they can help run the club.

"I arrived on a Thursday and the next day I showed up about 11 and the place was packed. There was a full-on local competition, and on every court there was another team waiting. We run eight boys' teams and six girls' teams, and we've won four out of six national championships."

Could the day ever arrive, I wonder, when basketball is as big here as it is in the States? "No, but it could be as big as it is in Europe. Unfortunately, it won't be under the current regime. The people running basketball in this country for the last 20 years have made no progress. They are a governing body, but if they were a government they would have been overthrown by now.

"They're abysmal, terrible, awful. It's not enough to be well-meaning - and I'm giving them way too much credit there, because I actually think they're very self-serving - but it's not enough to be well-meaning, you have to have expertise."

While in England, Amaechi's basketball expertise is being used by Sky TV, for whom he is commentating on the NBA finals. He is a good commentator, too, not least because in relation to basketball he is the embodiment of what the writer CLR James said about another sport: "What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?"

"I get paid to put a ball in a hole," he tells me. "Let's keep that in perspective. I left my home to do it, left my mother when she was dying of cancer, yet I fail to find any intrinsic nobility in it. But the other day, here in Manchester, a boy came up to me and asked if I would talk to his school, which I did. If you try influencing young people from a butcher's perspective, say, then even if you have something of value to say, you probably won't wind up addressing a school assembly. That's the best thing basketball has given me."

codell · Jun 7, 2003

Originally posted by Bailey
Unfortunately, it becomes a little intimidating to men like Jerry if you can speak in complete sentences."
Click to expand...

One of the all time best zingers I have ever seen. Way to go Johnny!

R0ckets03 · Jun 7, 2003

Jerry Sloan's old ass needs to retire. His coaching was okay for old school farts like Flopton and Malone, but the young players today aren't going to like his BS.

mfclark · Jun 7, 2003

Meech isn't a bad guy. He's got a pretty good sense of humor at times, too, judging from the times I met him a few years ago. However, his personality is definately not what you see in the NBA from anyone, and that's his first strike.

He's also hurt by the fact that teams figured him out after his first year in Orlando - once he started struggling, he tried thinking his way too much through things and never recovered. That's why the Magic didn't keep him the offseason after he turned down the Lakers' offer.

Now, playing in the west, he's too slow to play power forward (despite having the size) and too short to play center. He's right when he says he's in the bottom 5% of NBA players physically on his best day. He's just not a good rebounder - the same year he got the contract offer from the Lakers, he had averaged approx. 11ppg and 3rpg as Orlando's quasi-starting center.

He can score, but that's not what he needs to do to survive. He can't get by like Corliss Williamson (for example) as a scorer - he needs to rebound and block shots. And he's just not very good at it.

But, despite all of that, it's good to see that he hasn't changed in saying what he truly believes in. It's something echoed through his website, www.meech.org, though last I checked it hadn't been updated in quite a while.

fadeaway · Jun 7, 2003

Apparantly, John is into poetry. This is from his website:

THE CALF PATH
Sam Walter Foss

One day through the primeval wood, a calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew, a crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled, and I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail, and thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day, by a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell-wether sheep, pursued the trail o'er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too, as good bell-wethers always do.
And from that day, o'er hill and glade, through those old woods, a path was made.

And many men wound in and out, and dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath, because 'twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed --- do not laugh --- the first migrations of that calf.

And through this winding wood-way stalked, because he wobbled when he walked.
This forest path became a lane, that bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road, where many a poor horse with his load,
Toiled on beneath the burning sun, and traveled some three miles in one.

And thus a century and a half, they trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet, the road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware, a city's crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this, of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half, trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand men, follow this zigzag calf again,
And o'er his crooked journey went, the traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led, by one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way, and lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent, to a well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach, were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind, along the calf-path of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun, to do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track, and in and out, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue, to keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove, along which all their lives they move;
But how the old wood-gods laugh, who first saw that primeval calf.
Ah, many things this tale might teach --- but I am not ordained to preach.

Kim · Jun 7, 2003

I've been a fan of him since his Orlando days, but there was a time when Meech.org wasn't updated for like a year. That's when I stopped reading it. He really sucks compared to most NBA players and I wouldn't want him as a Rocket, but as a person, he's probably one of the best guys to look up to: educated, kind, principled, thoughtful. If what Jerry Sloan said to him was true, then that was a very assinine statement to make.

JohnnyBlaze · Jun 7, 2003

Originally posted by Bailey

I am smart - how many basketball players at any level are doing a doctorate? - but if that's offensive to you it's hardly my problem. Unfortunately, it becomes a little intimidating to men like Jerry if you can speak in complete sentences."
[/B]
Click to expand...

LOL Thanks for the post, nice article.

JuanValdez · Jun 9, 2003

Man, it was stupid of him to stay in Orlando when the Lakers came offering all that money. He repaid Orlando with loyalty and then Orlando screwed him over. The worst part was that most everyone saw it coming too.

WhosNumber1 · Jun 9, 2003

orlando didn't screw anyone over you clown.
We Let meech walk and sign because he started to really suck here.
And am i the Only one who thinks jerry sloans a F*cking Faag?

mfclark · Jun 9, 2003

I speak for the majority of Magic fans out there in saying that this guy isn't representative of the Magic community as a whole.

Yeah, the Magic sort of did screw Meech over; there's always been a promise of play now, get paid later here in Orlando, and it's worked with many players - Bo Outlaw and Horace Grant, to name a couple.

But, the poster is right in that Meech really didn't hold up his end of the bargain, either. It's not for trying - he put in the effort in camp and in workouts - but the NBA figured him out. Utah was pretty crazy to give him such a big deal after the season he came off of, though.

Good guy, not a good player. That's Meech for you.

x_trepidation_x · Jun 9, 2003

Without a doubt Amachi is one of the more brilliant minds to have played the game. Amachi gives a lot back to the community and I have even heard stories about him since way back at Penn State where he would actively take on troubled kids and try to help them find the right path. So, Amachi in most respects is a selfless guy who has helped a lot of people along the way.

However, I can understand Sloan's frustration. Amachi for all his intelligence seems to be biting the hand that feeds him. Amachi mentions the players who go out and drink before a game, saying he should be pardoned because he doesn’t drink. Well that might be true but, Amachi, why are you comparing yourself to the worst of the bunch?

Amachi by all means understands that Sloan's goal is to prepare his team to win a championship but it seems to me that Amachi, by contractual technicalities isn't willing to budge. Not because Amachi physically can't but because his rhetoric is better than Sloan's and his priorities do not revolve around becoming a better player but rather to finish his doctrine and focus on his home community.

Amachi's unwillingness to spend a couple of hours over time to improve his game is a little concerning and I often wondered why Amachi's skills seemed to diminish so fast. I think I now know the reason.

I often called these players, contract players, who play hard just to receive a larger contract and then their skills seem to fade away. It is difficult to have respect for these types of players cause they represent players who fill up the teams salary without really caring about improving the team or themselves as a player. As a fan, who pays money to see basketball, I am really disappointed. I realize now that to Mr. Amachi dribbling a ball down the court is beneath him and that is sad because I have always seen sports as a celebration of life and in some ways, I feel he is mocking the game of basketball because of it's simplicity and from his statement where he tries to justify why he doesn't put in more than the minimum practice time he is obligated for.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Amachi didn't want to play for the Lakers cause for sure they would demand Amachi put in over time for they were the defending NBA champs.

I’m sure Mr. Amachi realizes this but the way to improve as a basketball player and as a teammate isn’t to give the minimum that is asked. And to me that is what Mr. Amachi is doing. Staying within the rules but never doing more than what was asked in his contract. This to me is not something to look up 2.

OverRRated · Jun 10, 2003

Could this be true.....an entire thread about Amaechi?!?!?!?!?!
Who's next, Brian Williams a.k.a. Bison Dele?

Bailey · Jun 10, 2003

Actually, I think Bison Dele and John Amaechi are/were two of the more interesting characters to play in the league in recent times.

Plus there was some Sloan-bashing in his interview. I thought that might entertain people, if nothing else.

JohnnyBlaze · Jun 10, 2003

Originally posted by Bailey
Actually, I think Bison Dele and John Amaechi are/were two of the more interesting characters to play in the league in recent times.
Click to expand...

Exactly, not your typical NBA player.

super_mario · Jun 10, 2003

Nice article.

I think that Amachi has it right. He shows up for practice on time and leaves when practice is over. He thinks his family is more important than his work.

As for his decline in skills, he is 33 years old.

OverRRated · Jun 10, 2003

.....wait one second....he had skills?

Yeah, I can understand how this board loves Sload(Utah) bashing, I just never thought a thread would be dedicated to the life and times of Amaechi.

Dele on the other hand.......did anyone catch that special Dateline, or one of those newmag shows, had on him and the mysterious murder?

Bailey · Jun 10, 2003

Don't forget he's a compatriot of mine. There isn't much opportunity to discuss British players!

x_trepidation_x · Jun 11, 2003

Here is a follow up article on ESPN regarding the friction between Amaechi and the Utah organization.

http://espn.go.com/nba/news/2003/0610/1566233.html

SALT LAKE CITY -- Comments made by Utah Jazz reserve forward/center John Amaechi to a London newspaper aren't expected to help his already tenuous future in Salt Lake City.

2002-2003 SEASON STATISTICS
GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%
50 2.0 1.5 0.4 .314 .481

The Independent quoted Amaechi, a Briton who signed with the Jazz in 2001, as saying that Jazz coach Jerry Sloan told him recently, "You know what your problem is? You hate white people, you hate Americans and you think you're smarter than everyone else.''

The comments attributed to Sloan in the article were actually made by Jazz assistant coach Mark McKown, Amaechi told The Associated Press Tuesday. Team spokesman Kim Turner agreed that the comments came from McKown.

McKown did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Jazz spokesman Kim Turner said Sloan would not comment on the matter Tuesday.

Turner said the team did not defend the comments made by McKown. He described the incident as a "pretty heated conversation between the two of them,'' following a game earlier this year.

Calling from his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., Amaechi said the comments were not made by Sloan and the newspaper's reporter misinterpreted him.

"But they were made right in front of Jerry and (team owner) Larry Miller,'' said Amaechi, who has two years left on a four-year deal worth $10 million. "I would want that to be perfectly clear. It's unfortunate that people thought it was (Sloan). But it was said by a member of his staff. My mother is white, for crying out loud, and she's dead. It is highly offensive and I didn't get an apology the next day.''

Amaechi fell out of favor with Sloan shortly after he arrived in Utah and the team hasn't hid its interest in trading him or buying out his contract.

A telephone message left at Miller's office Tuesday was not immediately returned, but he said of Amaechi last month, "It doesn't make sense to go through two more years of what we had, so we've got to seek other alternatives.''

The 6-foot-10 Amaechi played 474 minutes and averaged two points in 50 games this season.

Amaechi said he suspects his rift with Sloan began with Amaechi's comments in a magazine article suggesting that basketball did not consume his life.

"Jerry's told me that people who don't love the game don't deserve to play,'' Amaechi said. "I've sacrificed an awful lot to be where I am today, to suggest that I don't take it seriously is absurd.''

The coaching staff, including Sloan, were happy with Amaechi's physical shape at the beginning of the season. But Sloan later told Amaechi that he was "having a hard time getting over the ESPN article,'' Amaechi said.

Amaechi, 32, says he likes Utah but is bothered by what he said were false reports that his teammates dislike him.

What he wants is playing time.

"If I sit on the bench for two hours and play the last minute and 35 seconds, I'm not going to be able to prove anything to anybody,'' he said. "I'm desperate to play. That's what I came to this country to do. I did that at one point, and I thought I had a good opportunity to do so in Utah.''

Amaechi's agent, Bill Sweek, said the two have discussed Amaechi's future in recent weeks. Sweek said he was troubled by the two sides' "war of words.''

"I think one thing that's regrettable, as far as a trade, it's not doing either side good to paint each other in a negative light,'' Sweek said.

Amaechi was not drafted after he graduated from Penn State in 1995.

He signed as a free agent with Cleveland Cavaliers, was waived and then played in Europe. He was signed as a free agent by Orlando in 1999 before coming to Utah.

Forums

John Amaechi: Amaechi sticks to his guns in fight with coach

Bailey Veteran Member

codell Contributing Member

R0ckets03 Contributing Member

mfclark Member

fadeaway Contributing Member

Kim Contributing Member

JohnnyBlaze Member

JuanValdez Contributing Member

WhosNumber1 Member

mfclark Member

x_trepidation_x Member

OverRRated Member

Bailey Veteran Member

JohnnyBlaze Member

super_mario Member

OverRRated Member

Bailey Veteran Member

x_trepidation_x Member

Share This Page

About ClutchFans

Rockets Content

Support ClutchFans!