Post by The OC Panther on Jul 19, 2006 10:08:23 GMT -5
It doesn't happen as often as it used to, but every once in a while...
It doesn't happen as often as it used to, but every once in a while, when Lucas Barnes rides the city bus from Overtown to the Miami River, where he unloads cargo ships to make ends meet, he allows his mind to wander to 1996, when he and Kobe Bryant shared a basketball court and a dream.
He vividly remembers one chilly April afternoon in Michigan. Barnes and his buddy, Jermaine Walker, had just arrived at The Palace of Auburn Hills for the Magic Johnson Roundball Classic, a high school all-star game and steppingstone to the NBA.
Barnes, of South Miami High, and Walker, of Pompano Beach Ely, were on the East team, along with Bryant, Jermaine O'Neal, Tim Thomas and Malik Allen.
A crowd of 13,000 -- including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar -- watched as Bryant led the East with 21 points, but Barnes and Walker were not awed. Walker remembers Barnes turning to him at one point and saying, ``Man, they're not that good. If these guys can make it to the pros, so can we.''
Barnes was 6-6, Walker was 6-7, and they were the undisputed kings of Dade and Broward high school basketball. Barnes was averaging 33 points and was voted Florida's Mr. Basketball. Among his suitors were Connecticut, Tennessee and Florida. Walker averaged 25.5 and was visited by North Carolina and Kentucky.
They decided together to turn down more prestigious programs, stay close to home, and sign with the University of Miami. They vowed to get the Hurricanes to the Final Four, and then, surely, they'd have NBA scouts drooling. Or, so they thought.
Neither made it to his junior season. They both quit, Walker at the end of his freshman year, Barnes during his sophomore season, in a huff after a disciplinary suspension.
Barnes is 28 now and a father of two, playing in a Coconut Grove rec league and trying to figure out what to do with his life. Walker is 29, toiling in the Continental Basketball Association and Venezuelan league, splitting time between Sioux Falls, S.D., and Puerto La Cruz.
Both players figured they would be in the prime of their NBA career right about now. Neither has spent a minute on an NBA regular-season roster, though Walker came close, hanging on for a month at Heat and Magic training camps.
What happened?
Why did two of the most talented and highly touted high school players in South Florida history get derailed while Bryant and others from that Roundball Classic went on to make tens of millions?
LOVE AND BASKETBALL
Barnes takes much of the blame for his situation, saying he made a series of ''bad decisions,'' the most costly quitting UM midway through his sophomore year after coach Leonard Hamilton suspended him for disciplinary reasons. Barnes had gotten into a dispute with his girlfriend, and in a fit of rage left a threatening message on her answering machine. She got scared and contacted the police.
''I was mad and said stupid things I shouldn't have,'' Barnes said. ``[UM football player] Marlin Barnes had been killed on campus, so they were taking that stuff seriously. There was nothing I could do to fix it. I said what I said, but it's not like I'm some angry insane person. I had no record or anything. But people painted me out to be a criminal.''
Hamilton suspended Barnes indefinitely and offered to get him counseling. Barnes was insulted, packed up and left the program. His buddies convinced him he didn't need UM or the stern Hamilton, that any program in America would be dying to have him.
That same month, Bryant became the youngest player to appear in an NBA All-Star Game. He scored 18 points against Michael Jordan.
''I was pig-headed back then, and made a decision when I was mad, which you shouldn't do,'' Barnes said. ``I wish I'd have done different. I should have listened to Coach Ham and stayed at UM. He was like the father figure I never had, and he did a lot of good things for me, but I chose not to listen. I listened to people who were telling me what I wanted to hear. UM went to the Sweet 16 the next year, and I watched them on TV.''
TRAVELING MAN
Walker's UM career was even shorter. After struggling with his entrance exams and starting college late, Walker lasted barely one semester. He got frustrated with what he thought was a lack of playing time, told Hamilton college wasn't for him and dropped out. A few months later, he signed with Juve Caserta in Italy for six figures -- ``the kind of money I had never seen before.''
He played 11 games, soured on the experience, and headed back to the United States to play for the IBA's Rapid City Thrillers, the first of many minor-league stops to come. Over the next several years, Walker played for the LaCrosse Bobcats, Idaho Stampede, Memphis Houn' Dawgs, Elitzur Ashkelon in Israel, Fargo-Moorhead Beez, and in the Philippines.
Walker says ''politics'' sidetracked his NBA aspirations, and he firmly believes his gold teeth had something to do with it.
''I thought for sure I'd be in the NBA,'' Walker said by telephone from Venezuela. 'But there's a lot of politics involved. I watch so many guys on TV and say, `How come they got a look and I didn't?' I get bitter. It should just be about whether you can play at that level, but I think they look at me, see gold in my mouth, and they wonder if I'm a thug, a street hustler. I'm not that kind of guy, but people judge a book by its cover. Corporate America doesn't want guys with golds.''
HAMILTON'S REGRET
Hamilton, who takes great pride in molding young men's lives, says it pains him that his work with Barnes and Walker went unfinished.
''Jermaine wanted to go on with his basketball life, and I had to let him go,'' Hamilton said. ``With Luke, I really thought we could have overcome the challenges he was going through. I was willing to help him, but he was impatient and he had some armchair quarterbacks in his ear. Their hearts might have been in the right place, but they were speaking from the heart, not experience. I knew exactly what had to be done for Luke, and I'm disappointed things got cut short. I never had the opportunity to lead and guide him.''
After leaving UM, Barnes was lost and lonely. His mother, Jeanette, was hospitalized with complications from diabetes, hooked to life-saving machines, and Barnes was determined to make her proud.
He went to Georgia to be with his closest friend and high school teammate, Willie Hunt, who was playing at Division II Albany State. Barnes lived with Hunt's family during high school because it was ''more peaceful'' in South Miami than in Overtown. He considers Hunt like a brother. He briefly enrolled at Albany State, but says it wasn't the right fit, so he headed to Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., where coaches offered him a spot on the team.
MORE TROUBLE
His first week on campus, Barnes wound up at a block party that turned violent. Though he had witnessed shootings in Overtown, he said he was scared to death when he found himself in the crossfire. An acquaintance was shot in the head, and Barnes packed up and headed back to Miami.
''I realized I was running from my problems and not getting anywhere,'' Barnes said.
He called an FIU assistant coach he knew and asked if they'd consider taking him. They did, and Barnes got back on track -- for a while. He was voted a preseason conference ''Newcomer of the Year'' and went on to average 18 points and six rebounds in his first 11 games.
But there were a few speed bumps along the way. There was the suspension for using a friend's meal card, and a mix-up with a professor about the date of a final exam. Then, on Jan. 19, 1999, Barnes was arrested in Coral Gables and charged with false imprisonment, battery and grand theft of a girlfriend's car. He says the incident was ''a misunderstanding and blown out of proportion,'' that the friend was just lashing out at him because they had argued.
Charges were dropped, but he called the incident ''a wake-up call.'' A few weeks later, Barnes sprained his knee. He got depressed, his grades began to slip, and that was the end of his FIU career. Shakey Rodriguez, who coached Barnes at FIU, calls him ''the most talented'' player he has ever coached and says he had more pure talent than Carlos Arroyo or Raja Bell, two FIU players who went on to the NBA.
''It's a sad story,'' Rodriguez said. ``Luke really, really should have made a lot of money from the game. The game could have given him everything out of life he wanted, but he didn't make the right decisions. He didn't have the focus, the work ethic, and sometimes, he seemed completely lost. He had low self-esteem. He knew deep down he could have been doing more, that he was underachieving and I know it bothered him.''
Like Hamilton, Rodriguez wishes he could have done more for Barnes.
''It's one of the hardest things as a coach, the biggest source of frustration, when you can't get a kid to see how beautiful life can be,'' Rodriguez said. ``There are a lot of Lucas Barneses out there, a lot of stories just like this one.''
BLOWN OPPORTUNITY
That same fall of 1999, Walker was invited to Heat training camp. He signed Sept. 29 and thought he had finally turned the corner. But then, he got shot in the leg outside a night club, and everything changed. Nervous that Pat Riley would find out, Walker pleaded with police to keep it hush-hush, and he drove himself to the hospital.
''It happened Friday night, and I was back at practice Monday, with my leg wrapped,'' Walker recalled. ``Coach called me in his office and asked me what happened. I told him a lie, made up a story about riding bikes with my son. I just thought if he knew the truth, he'd cut me. The next day, he called me in again and said he knew what really happened and wanted me to fess up. I did. A month later, I was cut.''
In the summer of 2000, just after Bryant won his first NBA title with the Los Angeles Lakers, Barnes caught a little break.
He averaged 20-plus points for a semipro team in Bradenton, and was asked to attend a tryout camp for a team that would travel to Europe to play against national teams headed to the Sydney Olympics. More than 200 players showed up, and Barnes made the squad. He was excited about his first trip to Europe, and crossed his fingers that NBA scouts would notice him as he played against Italy, France, and Croatia.
Instead, it was the CBA that called. Barnes was invited to a tryout with the Idaho Stampede. He didn't survive the final cut. In 2001, he went to China to play for the Shanghai Sharks for $5,000 a month -- ''lost weight there, once I got a bird on a plate that was still bleeding'' -- and then he went to Mexico, where he played for a team in Guadalajara. That's where his basketball career ended.
Disillusioned, he gave up on his dream, moved back to Overtown, and started taking odd jobs.
'People say, `Get in shape and I'll get you a tryout, it's not too late,' '' Barnes said. ``But I have two kids now, and they need food and clothes and a roof over their heads. I think I ought to just go ahead and get a job. But that drive for basketball is still there. I thought it would fade, but it hasn't.''
DREAM STILL ALIVE?
Walker, meanwhile, toiled on in pursuit of that elusive NBA contract, bouncing between the CBA and Venezuela. In September 2002, he went to training camp with the Orlando Magic. A month later, he was waived. Next stop: Fargo, N.D. Then, the Philippines for $5,000 a month.
''They pay for your housing and food, and even give you a car sometimes, so $5,000 goes a long way,'' Walker said.
He still entertains thoughts of playing in the NBA -- ''if my chance comes, I'll be ready'' -- but for now, he's happy in Venezuela. It's steady work, the fans there appreciate him, and he is living at a beachside hotel.
''It's a poor country, but the people are so nice, and the crowds at our games are like the old Boston Celtics crowds, really rowdy,'' he said. ``They throw beer and ice at you if you don't play well. The gym seats 5,500, but they cram in 7,000. It's fun. I'm one of the most popular American players here. Can't even go to McDonald's without someone asking for an autograph.''
Barnes still gets recognized, too. On the blacktops of Overtown and Coconut Grove.
'Just the other day I was playing at Claude Pepper Park and some guy looks at me after a game and says, `Who are you? You're pretty good.' The other guy says, 'That's Luke Barnes.' The guy says, 'For real? Luke Barnes? From South Miami High?' People still remember my name around here.''
It doesn't happen as often as it used to, but every once in a while, when Lucas Barnes rides the city bus from Overtown to the Miami River, where he unloads cargo ships to make ends meet, he allows his mind to wander to 1996, when he and Kobe Bryant shared a basketball court and a dream.
He vividly remembers one chilly April afternoon in Michigan. Barnes and his buddy, Jermaine Walker, had just arrived at The Palace of Auburn Hills for the Magic Johnson Roundball Classic, a high school all-star game and steppingstone to the NBA.
Barnes, of South Miami High, and Walker, of Pompano Beach Ely, were on the East team, along with Bryant, Jermaine O'Neal, Tim Thomas and Malik Allen.
A crowd of 13,000 -- including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar -- watched as Bryant led the East with 21 points, but Barnes and Walker were not awed. Walker remembers Barnes turning to him at one point and saying, ``Man, they're not that good. If these guys can make it to the pros, so can we.''
Barnes was 6-6, Walker was 6-7, and they were the undisputed kings of Dade and Broward high school basketball. Barnes was averaging 33 points and was voted Florida's Mr. Basketball. Among his suitors were Connecticut, Tennessee and Florida. Walker averaged 25.5 and was visited by North Carolina and Kentucky.
They decided together to turn down more prestigious programs, stay close to home, and sign with the University of Miami. They vowed to get the Hurricanes to the Final Four, and then, surely, they'd have NBA scouts drooling. Or, so they thought.
Neither made it to his junior season. They both quit, Walker at the end of his freshman year, Barnes during his sophomore season, in a huff after a disciplinary suspension.
Barnes is 28 now and a father of two, playing in a Coconut Grove rec league and trying to figure out what to do with his life. Walker is 29, toiling in the Continental Basketball Association and Venezuelan league, splitting time between Sioux Falls, S.D., and Puerto La Cruz.
Both players figured they would be in the prime of their NBA career right about now. Neither has spent a minute on an NBA regular-season roster, though Walker came close, hanging on for a month at Heat and Magic training camps.
What happened?
Why did two of the most talented and highly touted high school players in South Florida history get derailed while Bryant and others from that Roundball Classic went on to make tens of millions?
LOVE AND BASKETBALL
Barnes takes much of the blame for his situation, saying he made a series of ''bad decisions,'' the most costly quitting UM midway through his sophomore year after coach Leonard Hamilton suspended him for disciplinary reasons. Barnes had gotten into a dispute with his girlfriend, and in a fit of rage left a threatening message on her answering machine. She got scared and contacted the police.
''I was mad and said stupid things I shouldn't have,'' Barnes said. ``[UM football player] Marlin Barnes had been killed on campus, so they were taking that stuff seriously. There was nothing I could do to fix it. I said what I said, but it's not like I'm some angry insane person. I had no record or anything. But people painted me out to be a criminal.''
Hamilton suspended Barnes indefinitely and offered to get him counseling. Barnes was insulted, packed up and left the program. His buddies convinced him he didn't need UM or the stern Hamilton, that any program in America would be dying to have him.
That same month, Bryant became the youngest player to appear in an NBA All-Star Game. He scored 18 points against Michael Jordan.
''I was pig-headed back then, and made a decision when I was mad, which you shouldn't do,'' Barnes said. ``I wish I'd have done different. I should have listened to Coach Ham and stayed at UM. He was like the father figure I never had, and he did a lot of good things for me, but I chose not to listen. I listened to people who were telling me what I wanted to hear. UM went to the Sweet 16 the next year, and I watched them on TV.''
TRAVELING MAN
Walker's UM career was even shorter. After struggling with his entrance exams and starting college late, Walker lasted barely one semester. He got frustrated with what he thought was a lack of playing time, told Hamilton college wasn't for him and dropped out. A few months later, he signed with Juve Caserta in Italy for six figures -- ``the kind of money I had never seen before.''
He played 11 games, soured on the experience, and headed back to the United States to play for the IBA's Rapid City Thrillers, the first of many minor-league stops to come. Over the next several years, Walker played for the LaCrosse Bobcats, Idaho Stampede, Memphis Houn' Dawgs, Elitzur Ashkelon in Israel, Fargo-Moorhead Beez, and in the Philippines.
Walker says ''politics'' sidetracked his NBA aspirations, and he firmly believes his gold teeth had something to do with it.
''I thought for sure I'd be in the NBA,'' Walker said by telephone from Venezuela. 'But there's a lot of politics involved. I watch so many guys on TV and say, `How come they got a look and I didn't?' I get bitter. It should just be about whether you can play at that level, but I think they look at me, see gold in my mouth, and they wonder if I'm a thug, a street hustler. I'm not that kind of guy, but people judge a book by its cover. Corporate America doesn't want guys with golds.''
HAMILTON'S REGRET
Hamilton, who takes great pride in molding young men's lives, says it pains him that his work with Barnes and Walker went unfinished.
''Jermaine wanted to go on with his basketball life, and I had to let him go,'' Hamilton said. ``With Luke, I really thought we could have overcome the challenges he was going through. I was willing to help him, but he was impatient and he had some armchair quarterbacks in his ear. Their hearts might have been in the right place, but they were speaking from the heart, not experience. I knew exactly what had to be done for Luke, and I'm disappointed things got cut short. I never had the opportunity to lead and guide him.''
After leaving UM, Barnes was lost and lonely. His mother, Jeanette, was hospitalized with complications from diabetes, hooked to life-saving machines, and Barnes was determined to make her proud.
He went to Georgia to be with his closest friend and high school teammate, Willie Hunt, who was playing at Division II Albany State. Barnes lived with Hunt's family during high school because it was ''more peaceful'' in South Miami than in Overtown. He considers Hunt like a brother. He briefly enrolled at Albany State, but says it wasn't the right fit, so he headed to Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., where coaches offered him a spot on the team.
MORE TROUBLE
His first week on campus, Barnes wound up at a block party that turned violent. Though he had witnessed shootings in Overtown, he said he was scared to death when he found himself in the crossfire. An acquaintance was shot in the head, and Barnes packed up and headed back to Miami.
''I realized I was running from my problems and not getting anywhere,'' Barnes said.
He called an FIU assistant coach he knew and asked if they'd consider taking him. They did, and Barnes got back on track -- for a while. He was voted a preseason conference ''Newcomer of the Year'' and went on to average 18 points and six rebounds in his first 11 games.
But there were a few speed bumps along the way. There was the suspension for using a friend's meal card, and a mix-up with a professor about the date of a final exam. Then, on Jan. 19, 1999, Barnes was arrested in Coral Gables and charged with false imprisonment, battery and grand theft of a girlfriend's car. He says the incident was ''a misunderstanding and blown out of proportion,'' that the friend was just lashing out at him because they had argued.
Charges were dropped, but he called the incident ''a wake-up call.'' A few weeks later, Barnes sprained his knee. He got depressed, his grades began to slip, and that was the end of his FIU career. Shakey Rodriguez, who coached Barnes at FIU, calls him ''the most talented'' player he has ever coached and says he had more pure talent than Carlos Arroyo or Raja Bell, two FIU players who went on to the NBA.
''It's a sad story,'' Rodriguez said. ``Luke really, really should have made a lot of money from the game. The game could have given him everything out of life he wanted, but he didn't make the right decisions. He didn't have the focus, the work ethic, and sometimes, he seemed completely lost. He had low self-esteem. He knew deep down he could have been doing more, that he was underachieving and I know it bothered him.''
Like Hamilton, Rodriguez wishes he could have done more for Barnes.
''It's one of the hardest things as a coach, the biggest source of frustration, when you can't get a kid to see how beautiful life can be,'' Rodriguez said. ``There are a lot of Lucas Barneses out there, a lot of stories just like this one.''
BLOWN OPPORTUNITY
That same fall of 1999, Walker was invited to Heat training camp. He signed Sept. 29 and thought he had finally turned the corner. But then, he got shot in the leg outside a night club, and everything changed. Nervous that Pat Riley would find out, Walker pleaded with police to keep it hush-hush, and he drove himself to the hospital.
''It happened Friday night, and I was back at practice Monday, with my leg wrapped,'' Walker recalled. ``Coach called me in his office and asked me what happened. I told him a lie, made up a story about riding bikes with my son. I just thought if he knew the truth, he'd cut me. The next day, he called me in again and said he knew what really happened and wanted me to fess up. I did. A month later, I was cut.''
In the summer of 2000, just after Bryant won his first NBA title with the Los Angeles Lakers, Barnes caught a little break.
He averaged 20-plus points for a semipro team in Bradenton, and was asked to attend a tryout camp for a team that would travel to Europe to play against national teams headed to the Sydney Olympics. More than 200 players showed up, and Barnes made the squad. He was excited about his first trip to Europe, and crossed his fingers that NBA scouts would notice him as he played against Italy, France, and Croatia.
Instead, it was the CBA that called. Barnes was invited to a tryout with the Idaho Stampede. He didn't survive the final cut. In 2001, he went to China to play for the Shanghai Sharks for $5,000 a month -- ''lost weight there, once I got a bird on a plate that was still bleeding'' -- and then he went to Mexico, where he played for a team in Guadalajara. That's where his basketball career ended.
Disillusioned, he gave up on his dream, moved back to Overtown, and started taking odd jobs.
'People say, `Get in shape and I'll get you a tryout, it's not too late,' '' Barnes said. ``But I have two kids now, and they need food and clothes and a roof over their heads. I think I ought to just go ahead and get a job. But that drive for basketball is still there. I thought it would fade, but it hasn't.''
DREAM STILL ALIVE?
Walker, meanwhile, toiled on in pursuit of that elusive NBA contract, bouncing between the CBA and Venezuela. In September 2002, he went to training camp with the Orlando Magic. A month later, he was waived. Next stop: Fargo, N.D. Then, the Philippines for $5,000 a month.
''They pay for your housing and food, and even give you a car sometimes, so $5,000 goes a long way,'' Walker said.
He still entertains thoughts of playing in the NBA -- ''if my chance comes, I'll be ready'' -- but for now, he's happy in Venezuela. It's steady work, the fans there appreciate him, and he is living at a beachside hotel.
''It's a poor country, but the people are so nice, and the crowds at our games are like the old Boston Celtics crowds, really rowdy,'' he said. ``They throw beer and ice at you if you don't play well. The gym seats 5,500, but they cram in 7,000. It's fun. I'm one of the most popular American players here. Can't even go to McDonald's without someone asking for an autograph.''
Barnes still gets recognized, too. On the blacktops of Overtown and Coconut Grove.
'Just the other day I was playing at Claude Pepper Park and some guy looks at me after a game and says, `Who are you? You're pretty good.' The other guy says, 'That's Luke Barnes.' The guy says, 'For real? Luke Barnes? From South Miami High?' People still remember my name around here.''
