[theloveofsports.com]Vernon Maxwell

A random article about our friend
enjoy!

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Vernon Maxwell

By Mad Love on 12/25 at 10:58 PM
By E. Spencer Kyte
Love of Sports Correspondent

Before Ron Artest cornered the market on crazy, “Mad Max” was the unquestioned Captain Crazy of the NBA.
I’m not here to pass judgment on Vernon Maxwell’s off court behaviours.
The dude’s had some serious problems. That’s his deal.
What I am here to do is remember a guy who was either red hot or ice cold, both on the court and in the crowd.
Best known for his five years in Houston, Maxwell’s one of only a handful of people in NBA history to knock down 30 points in a quarter. In fact, it was Carmelo Anthony’s 33 points earlier this season that actually made me think of Mad Max.
He won back-to-back rings with the mid-‘90s Rockets, although he’d already started on the road out of town by the time that second ring was earned in ’95.
It was during that season Maxwell ventured into the stands in Portland, punching a fan who he alleged was heckling him over his wife’s miscarriage. The 10 games he received was the second-longest suspension in NBA history at the time. It also served as the final straw in his career in Houston.
Clyde Drexler was brought in, the second title was secured and Maxwell began the next season embarking on his seven-year, eight-team odyssey that would eventually end with his retirement in 2001.
He was equal parts crazy and crazy good, teetering between the two and leaving you wondering which one you were going to see.
For a couple years in Houston, the world saw the dynamic Vernon Maxwell, one who could lock you down on defense and blow you up from behind the line.
That’s the Vernon Maxwell we’re sending a little Old School Love to today.

 

I remember all the missed shots too, however, we all know the hot streaks were incredible. you take the good with the bad.

But the defensive effort was always there. I'm glad that article mentioned that.

 

As far as who is crazier, Ron vs Vernon.
for being more 'gangsta' it would be Vernon.

But I give Ron the nod for being crazier. He randomly took time off the Pacers to promote Rap Records. Maxwell left the Rockets cause they didn't give him a contract extension and he lost his starting job to Drexler.

Could you imagine if Tmac took time off the Rockets to promote a singing career? even the 14 year old Tmac fans here would leave him!

And Maxwell attacked people, Ron Artest attacked an expensive HD camera at Madison Square Garden. Come on Ron, the camera didn't hurt anybody.

 

i bet he has. people change with time and age. some people here don't believe that and don't know anything other people's personal lives.

i root for Max to find peace and happiness.

 

I'm sure he's a perfect person cause he likes to cast them stones!

Larry Bird is a deadbeat dad. but he's [insert what you think]

Magic and Jordan cheated on their wives.

Those are evil people too.

Drugs? yeah. Maxwell got arrested for having 1 gram of weed in his car.
what a bad guy.

Maxwell has a gun in car. Has a license for it. Plaxico?

oh, as far as who would go can last longer on a Vernon Maxwell thread. Do a search on Maxwell threads, there's one where the moderators shut down, not because of content, but they feared it would last forever. I think it may have gone 50 pages.

don't turn this into a tabloid thread or preachy thread. this is about what he did for the Rockets. but if you want battle, go ahead. everyone has lost to me on maxwell thread. god would lose too if he tried.

 

how do I know you aren't a serial killer or wife beater?
I don't. How do you REALLY know Vernon Maxwell's life?

you don't.

let it begin. love > hate

Paper: HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Date: THU 04/28/1994
Section: Special
Page: 1
Edition: 2 STAR
NBA PLAYOFFS '94/SPECIAL PREVIEW SECTION/TO THE MAX/If the Rockets are to reach NBA Finals a talented but troubled man will take them/ Behind the Mad Max image, lurks Vernon Maxwell, father, unsung star

By FRAN BLINEBURY
Staff

It's about an hour before game time and the Rockets' locker room is filled with the sights and sounds of a team getting itself ready to work. There is music playing and the usual banter among teammates fills the air. At one end of the room, an assistant coach is drawing the X's and O's of an opponent's plays on a blackboard. At the other end, there is a steady stream of bodies going through the door to the trainer's room, getting their ankles and fingers wrapped in the tape that will hold those strained joints in place for another night. There is the hustle of a nervous head coach who paces with anxiety and the bustle of equipment boys and their behind-the-scenes duties.

Sitting in one corner, in the midst of the gathering storm, Vernon Maxwell is alone in his thoughts as he takes a black marking pen and writes one word across the back of each of his shiny new basketball shoes: A-M-B-E-R. It is the name of the stillborn baby girl delivered by Maxwell's wife Shell in October, and this is a ritual he has already performed dozens of times this season.

"It's something I do to keep her in my thoughts," Maxwell says. "I come in here and I ask (equipment manager) David (Nordstrom) for a pen and he knows what it's for. I get emotional each time I do it. But it makes me feel better. Closer, maybe. I really hate to even talk about it now. It's a part of me that I don't like to let a lot of people see."

The part of him that is on regular public display is a spittin', gun-totin', struttin', swearin', shootin' Max who won't back down from any situation or confrontation, on or off the court. Whether it's taking a 3-point shot with the clock running down over Michael Jordan, sticking an elbow in the face of a hulking 7-footer or going jaw-to-jaw -- and sometimes even fist-to-jaw -- with a heckler in the stands or on the street, he usually lives up to the nickname that has followed him around since high school. Mad Max.

It was the perfect combination of alliteration and personality, a label that captured both the man and myth, though in the case of the latter, there was not much need for embellishment, because Maxwell had pretty much done it all.

"Drugs, running with bad people, doing a lot of bad things," he says. "I've been there. I've done enough of it for a lifetime."

These days Maxwell is finding it's a lot easier to acquire a reputation than it is to shed one.

"I don't want to be Mad Max anymore," he says. "Just call me Vernon or Vern or Max.

"Mad Max was good in the beginning. When I was first starting out playing ball, it was something that gave me an identity and helped let people know who I was and what I could do. In a way, it helped give me some confidence that I needed. Because there was this guy -- Mad Max -- who wasn't afraid to do anything, wasn't afraid to try anything. Give Mad Max the ball at the end of the game. He'll make the play.

"But over the course of time, it's something that messes you up. You get caught up in the image and it kind of takes over. You're always trying to do something to live up to the image and that just makes things worse. Pretty soon all people see is the image and they don't see the person behind it."

Sometimes they don't even see the player behind it. In this, his sixth season in the NBA, Maxwell has truly blossomed. He has gone from being a one-dimensional, indiscriminate, mad bomber who would just as likely shoot you out of a game as into one, to becoming an all-around threat and consistent clutch performer. Truth is, the Rockets' hopes for success in the playoffs may rest as much on the shoulders of Maxwell as on those of MVP candidate Hakeem Olajuwon.

Nov. 27 at Los Angeles: Maxwell makes a free throw with 8.6 seconds left that finishes off an 82-80 win over the Clippers.

Dec. 5 at Cleveland: Maxwell hits a 3-point basket with 31.9 seconds remaining to cap a rally that brought the Rockets from seven points down in the last three minutes for a 99-98 win over the Cavaliers.

Dec. 9 vs. Miami: Maxwell tosses in a twisting, turnaround 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime and the Rockets beat the Heat 115-109.

Dec. 21 at San Antonio: Maxwell nails a 3-pointer with 26.7 seconds remaining to tie the game, then strokes in a 20-foot jumper at the buzzer to knock off the Spurs 90-88.

Jan. 25 vs. Cleveland: Maxwell drills a trey with 29.7 seconds to go and the Rockets trailing by two points in a 96-93 victory over the Cavs.

March 13 at Dallas: Maxwell connects on a 3-point shot with 29.7 seconds remaining that bumps the Rockets' lead from four to seven points in a 100-93 win.

April 17 at Portland: Maxwell scores 27 points, deals eight assists, gets five rebounds, shoots 6-for-11 from 3-point range and converts a rare four-point play as the Rockets clinch the Midwest Division title with a 119-110 decision.

Maxwell is a tenacious one-on-one defender, a ferocious competitor and he also happened to lead the Rockets in assists this season with an average of 5.1 per game.

"The guy is tremendously underrated," says Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich. "He's right there with Hakeem as one of the main reasons we were able to have such a great season and it's like nobody outside of our team notices it."

Image, it seems, really is everything.

Who is behind the image? So many different people. Mad Max. Bad Max. Sad Max. Glad Max. Dad Max. Rad Max. He can be cocky then quiet. Rebellious then reflective. Funny then fuming. Candid one moment and so full of himself in the next that he'll spin outrageous stories that are quite easy to disprove and yet he tells them with such conviction.

It is that out-of-the-mainstream, even dangerous, image that is likely the reason Maxwell does not get the recognition he deserves. For every big basket on his personal highlight reel, there is also a clip of Maxwell spitting on the court or swearing at a referee or ready to mix it up with an opponent or getting tossed from a game or being arrested.

He was ejected in Portland on Nov. 7, in a showdown with Seattle at The Summit on Dec. 11 and at Sacramento on March 29. The Rockets won all three games. But Maxwell's absence could have been costly. In the game at Sacramento, the Rockets already were playing without a suspended Olajuwon, an ejected Carl Herrera and an injured Mario Elie when Maxwell went ballistic, tossed his gum at a referee, a cup of water onto the court and was thrown out.

"I'm in anybody's face -- players, coaches, fans, refs -- and maybe there are times when I get worked up and I go too far," Maxwell says.

On March 15, Maxwell was arrested for the third time in 20 months, charged with carrying a weapon in his car. He was fined $15,000 and sentenced to community service.

"As far as getting arrested, I feel strongly that I haven't done anything major or crazy," he says. "I haven't had a DWI or threatened anybody's life. I had a gun in my car and I believe a lot of people out there in Houston have guns in their car. But I have a reputation. It's that Mad Max thing. I'm stuck with a label from a nickname and from the aggressive way I act on the court.

"I guess my style has hurt me sometimes."

So will he change?

"Hell, no. That's me."

It is a familiar story of a hardscrabble upbringing by a single parent in an unforgiving part of town. Maxwell was born and raised in the Sugar Hill section of Gainesville, Fla., the second oldest of two boys and two girls. His mother worked at the Juvenile Detention Center and that provided a young kid who had a propensity for trouble with a certain kind of incentive.

"I always told my friends that I could never wind up in juvenile, because my mom would kill me in there," Maxwell says.

Of course, that didn't stop him from testing the limits of the law and of society. What probably saved him from going completely over the edge was his incredible athletic ability.

As a sophomore at Buchholz High, he was a squeaky-voiced quarterback on the JV football team who would tuck the ball under his arm and slam into a pile of defenders without a second thought if he couldn't find an open receiver. But he was recommended by a friend to basketball coach Rick Swain, who ran one of the area's top-flight programs and quickly recognized Maxwell's potential.

In his first year of organized ball, Maxwell was the leader of the JV team, averaging more than 20 points a game. But in his junior year, when he moved up to the varsity, Maxwell was forced to be a complementary part of a team that revolved around Kevin Bradshaw, a big-time shooter who would go on to play college ball at U.S. International and lead the nation in scoring.

"Vernon was the perfect teammate," Swain said. "He knew that we were going to run our offense for Kevin and he was content to do all of the things to win. He played defense. He ran the floor on the fastbreak. He passed the ball to Kevin. He set everybody up with his passing. This was somebody who you could see could do it all. He didn't have to be the big scorer."

However, in his senior year at Buchholz, with Bradshaw departed, Maxwell became the show. He shot 59 percent from the field while scoring 31.5 points a game in the era before the 3-point shot. He led Buchholz to a 20-8 record. He won seven games in the final seven seconds that year by making either a jump shot or a free throw. He was named Mr. Basketball in the state of Florida. He was also an all-state safety on the football team, making 13 interceptions.

And that's when he became Mad Max.

"He was always a quiet, soft-spoken kid and you could see Vernon change in that year," Swain said. "Maybe anybody would. There was so much notoriety and publicity. Some of it's going to get to you. We had games where Jim Valvano from North Carolina State would be sitting on one side of the gym and Joe B. Hall from Kentucky would be on the other side. We're talking about the big guns in college basketball. Everybody wanted Vernon."

The University of Florida got him and that might have been the biggest mistake of Maxwell's life, choosing to stay at home in Gainesville, where the intense pressure of being the local hero and the proximity of his less-than-savory running mates from the old neighborhood conspired to pull him down.

Gainesville is much more than just your average college town. It's a city where the passion for the university is as deep and volatile as family bonds. It may be fashionable these days to wear the colors of Florida State and the University of Miami, due to their success on the football field. But it's the Florida Gators who have far more bite on the loyalties of the state.

Maxwell certainly lived up to his reputation on the court, becoming the cornerstone in coach Norm Sloan's rebuilding project on a moribund program. He was the first Mr. Basketball that Florida had ever been able to recruit and during Sloan's four years there, Maxwell averaged 13.3, 19.6, 21.7 and 20.2 points, respectively. The Gators had a combined record of 83-49 and went to the NIT once and to the NCAA Tournament for the first two times in school history.

But for all of his success on the court, there has always been turbulence away from the game.

"I've had to do some different things in my life away from basketball," Maxwell says. "I almost lost my marriage last year and that really got my attention, because it made me stop and think about where I am and realize how much my family means to me. A lot of people probably don't think of me as a family man. But I think I am. I want to be. When I'm with Shell and my son (Vernon Jr.) and daughter (Ariel), I feel a lot more relaxed.

"Amber was such a big part of our family, long before she was ever going to be born. From the time we first found out she was coming, Shell and the kids already had the name picked out. Amber, Amber, Amber. It was never just "the baby.' It was Amber and we talked about her and we talked to her and it was like she was already here with us.

"Amber changed the whole focus of my life. I think she helped me mature as a person and as a father and I think she even helped me grow as a player.

"When I had the problem with my heart (atrial fibrillation on Jan. 6), it scared me. My heart was racing and I didn't know what was happening to me. You think about what you could have changed. But there's nothing I wish I could change more than Amber. I still don't understand it."

At Florida, things spun quickly out of control.

"I was using drugs, drinking heavily, out all night, doing just about anything you can think of," Maxwell says.

He was involved in a number of on- and off-campus incidents that drew the attention of disciplinary committees and the police. One that the drew the most notoriety was Maxwell was charged with severely beating one of the student referees during an argument in an intramural football game. He hired a lawyer, took a lie detector test and the charge was eventually dismissed.

The coaching staff was not unaware of Maxwell's behavior. Officially, he tested positive twice for illegal drug use and was suspended for three games at the start of his senior season.

By the end of the season, the Gators had once again qualified for the NCAA Tournament and before the team left for its first-round game appearance in Salt Lake City, every player supposedly was tested for drugs again and they all passed. Florida won its first game and, as part of the NCAA program, the top seven players on each team were given another drug test. It took three days for the results of the test to come back and by that time, the Gators had lost their second-round game and been eliminated.

A month later, during an NBA tryout camp for college players in Orlando, word circulated that Maxwell had tested positive in Salt Lake City. That made Mad Max the big story of the camp and cost him a high draft position and more than $1 million in a rookie contract.

Sloan claims in his biography that Maxwell used his charming personality to talk the supervisor of the university's drug testing program out of administering the test to him before the team left for Salt Lake City. The result was that the school had to forfeit its first-round win in the Tournament and return its share of the Tournament cash.

Sloan believed it was Maxwell who brought the NCAA investigators snooping around the Florida program, which was eventually placed on two years probation, and cost him his job. He even said he had suspicions that Maxwell was involved in fixing a game during his senior year. Mad Max did not score a single point in the second half of a two-point loss to Tennessee.

Maxwell believed it was Sloan who leaked the story of his positive drug test and ruined his reputation with the NBA scouts. He freely admits his drug use but claims the university used him as a scapegoat.

"There were all kinds of things going on at Florida and the coaches knew about all of them," he says. "They just tried to lay everything off on me."

Eventually the Drug Enforcement Agency turned up on campus with information linking Maxwell to a drug trafficking ring. He was given immunity from prosecution when he testified for the DEA before a grand jury.

"People said Vernon squealed," said Swain. "They don't know the whole story. When the DEA comes in and tells you that they already have all of the correct answers and they just want to ask you the questions to see if you pass the test, they've got you cornered. That's what happened to Vernon. If he didn't answer right, they've got him for perjury and he goes to jail."

As a result of his testimony, a number of Maxwell's friends and acquaintances went to jail.

"I ain't taking no perjury charge for nobody," he says. "We're talking about going to prison, man. No way. I'll deal with the other part."

The other part was that Maxwell became an outcast in his own community. He was labeled a traitor and for several years he didn't return. Even today, when Maxwell plays with the Rockets in Orlando, which is just about 100 miles from Gainesville, he is showered with boos.

There have been recent attempts at rapprochement. Just last year, Maxwell bought uniforms and shoes and paid part of the costs for a youth basketball team from Gainesville to travel to Tacoma, Wash., to play in a tournament. He wants to feel welcome again in his hometown.

What hurt most was a decision by then-athletic director Bill Arnsparger to have Maxwell's name stricken from the Florida record books. If you call the Florida sports information office even today and ask for the Gators' all-time leading scorer in basketball, they'll tell you it was Ronnie Williams with 2,090 points from 1980 to 1984. But Maxwell had 2,450 points and shows up on the Southeastern Conference list in the No. 3 spot, trailing only Pete Maravich. He actually holds 15 Florida records.

"Yeah, they took me out of the record books, but they left all of those wins in there," Maxwell says. "If they want to get rid of me, they've got to give it all back. Can't have it both ways."

"It's a shame," said Mike Bianchi, a sportswriter for the Gainesville Sun, who covered Maxwell during his high school and college years. "He's probably the greatest athlete who ever came out of Gainesville and he's been shunned.

"I know Max did a lot wrong, but I give him credit for beating his drug habit while living in the atmosphere of the NBA. That isn't easy. Look at a case like Eddie Johnson, who used to play for the Hawks. He's from up the road in Ocala. Last I heard, he was living in a crack house. Max got out."

Maxwell took the long road to success in the NBA, having to live down his reputation as somebody whose off-the-court habits would always stand in the way of success on a winning team.

A sure first-round pick before word of the failed drug test leaked out in Orlando, he was taken in the second round of the 1988 draft (47th pick overall) by Denver and shipped immediately to San Antonio in a trade.

During his first training camp with the Spurs, Maxwell found himself often matched up against another wild man in John Starks, now a starter for the New York Knicks. They dunked on each other. They shot over each other. They talked trash. They scrapped. They fought.

"It was crazy," Maxwell said. "Nothing that ever got serious, because me and Starks are both alike and we both know that it's nothing personal. It's just about playing ball, about doing anything to win."

It was that same fearless, dancing-on-the-edge attitude that permitted him to engage in one-on-one matchups against Jordan without giving His Airness an ounce of the usual royal respect. Maxwell would bump Jordan and hold Jordan. He would stick a jumper in Jordan's face and then taunt him about it on the trip back down the floor. Those heated confrontations would often boil over into hot exchanges, but to Maxwell, there was never any real anger in them.

"In a game, Jordan is just another player and I'll do anything I can to break him down," Maxwell said. "Any time anything would start to happen, it was always like it was my fault. But Michael, he ain't no angel. He's a mean player, especially when it comes to throwing elbows.

"That just pumps me up and makes me play harder. I don't mind it. He's just being mean like me. I'm a mean player, but not a nasty player. A nasty player will try to cut your legs out from under you and hurt you. I won't do that. I'll do just about anything else though. People don't understand it."

Sometimes those people are even Maxwell's own teammates. When Dave Jamerson was with the Rockets, Maxwell frequently roughed him up and goaded him. One day in practice it exploded into a fight and blows were exchanged. The next day, after the two players were forced to shake hands, Jamerson continued to act wary. But to Maxwell, the incident was over. Jamerson had stood up for himself and thereby passed the unannounced test of his manhood in Maxwell's eyes.

Last season, another round of goading took place, this time in the weight room with teammate Carl Herrera. Another fight ensued. Herrera slugged Maxwell and again earned his respect.

"To a lot of people who can afford to buy the tickets and sit in the stands at an NBA game, that might not make sense," Swain said. "But you've got to understand Vernon's background and where he came from. In his world, you tested everybody. The weaker ones never fought back and so they were either walked on or just ignored. The ones who did fight back were the ones you wanted on your side. They wouldn't fear anything. They'd be the ones you could always count on. A lot of people don't like Vernon because he beats their ass."

He came into the league fighting for respect and the battle has never ended. Coach Larry Brown loved the young Maxwell's ability in San Antonio, but could not reconcile himself with Mad Max's lifetstyle and the Rockets were able to acquire his rights from the Spurs for $25,000 in cash on Feb. 21, 1990.

"It was only my second year in the league and I knew I was already down to my last chance," Maxwell says.

In four years in Houston, he has made the most of that chance, becoming an integral part of a legitimate championship contender. In the 1990 and '91 playoffs, the philosophy of the Los Angeles Lakers was to collapse their defense inside on Olajuwon and Otis Thorpe and let the Rockets' guards -- led by Maxwell -- shoot them out of the playoffs. Which they did.

Now the ill-timed shots are coming less often, the key passes to set his teammates up for easy baskets are coming more often and nobody ever questioned his passion to win.

"Max is a warrior," said Olajuwon.

That was never more evident than last year's playoffs. Having suffered a broken left wrist in a game April 17 at Seattle, Maxwell missed the first four games of the opening-round playoff series against the LA Clippers. When the Clippers won Game 4 and sent the series back to Houston for the deciding game, Maxwell decided he had seen enough. He pleaded with Tomjanovich to ignore the cast on his wrist and put him back in the lineup and he connected on a big 3-pointer in the final minute that allowed the Rockets to escape with an 84-80 win.

And Maxwell, playing in pain, was there every step of the way in the Rockets' stirring seven-game series with Seattle.

"You have to really applaud that guy," Tomjanovich said. "In that Clipper series, he could have been a hero by not even playing. If we had lost that series and he didn't play, that's the way people would have looked at it.

"It shows you something about a guy when he elects not to do that. The guy's got tremendous heart and character."

When the sting of the loss to Seattle finally passed and Tomjanovich began to look at the video highlights of last season, he noticed something.

"In just about every big play, every big basket that one of our guys made, you could see Vernon somewhere in the picture," Rudy T said. "He either made the pass that led to the basket or he made the pass that led to the pass. I have always thought of Vernon as a guy having the instincts of a playmaker and that confirmed it. I thought we've got to get the guy involved more."

So Tomjanovich sat Maxwell down over the summer and talked to him about giving up some of his own offense in order to be more of a creator.

"Rudy showed me things that I didn't even realize about myself," Maxwell says. "He showed me all of the things I could do. He put more faith and confidence in me than anybody since coach Swain and it's showing that he was right. I'm scoring less, but the team has had a great season.

"It's a good feeling to know that the guys and Rudy have a lot of confidence in me and are counting on me in the playoffs. Rudy told me how much it meant to come back last year in the playoffs with the broken hand. I wasn't trying to be a hero. I just like to play and I like to win and I think that's what gets misinterpreted about me so much.

"Yeah, there are times when I lose my temper, but it's usually because I'm into the game. Look at when David Robinson flipped out on the refs a couple of weeks ago in our game at The Summit. Everybody says, "Well, David is the All-American guy. He's the Admiral. He just lost control for a second.'

"Hey, if I did that on NBC, they'd be saying I'm nuts and I'm a maniac. I think I should get recognized for the kind of season I've had. But people still have that image of me. You know, Mad Max."

The phone rang during the first week of training camp when the Rockets were in Galveston.

"Amber was always a healthy baby right from the start," Maxwell says. "The whole pregnancy was fine and she was supposed to be born in just a few more weeks. Then Shell called me at our hotel and she was worried. She said she couldn't feel the baby moving. She said, "That's not Amber, because Amber has always been moving.'

"I told her to get to the doctor, but it was already too late. They said Amber sat on the cord and cut off her own oxygen supply. There wasn't anything you could do. Just like that, it's over."

He still can't bring himself to visit the grave. He keeps thinking about what was supposed to be. He thinks while he's writing her name on the back of his basketball shoes.

"Amber changed a part of me," says Vernon Maxwell. "Now I guess it's up to me to work on the rest."