The baseline was undefended, practically as open as an abandoned runway, a condition that Isma’il Muhammad had been known to exploit during his Georgia Tech days.
He is 30 now, no longer the youthful leaper who amassed such an impressive portfolio of dunks while a Yellow Jacket. And he was playing on a rec center floor, not some packed ACC hothouse.
No matter. Just give him a running start and get out of the way.
Ah, good memories: Muhammad gained speed along the basket’s left flank, began his ascent eight feet from the rim, cocked the basketball stylishly behind one ear and hammered home a highlight dunk.
It was an intimate highlight, shared among only the 100 or so people who gathered July 20 for the second weekend of play in the Wallace Prather Jr. Summer Pro-Am League.
This isn’t your YMCA-quality, over-the-hill, beneath-the-rim, vacation-time run. Serious players with polished talents were all over the floor.
They may scatter on the fickle winter winds of professional basketball. Former Tech players such as Gani Lawal (Italy), Zach Peacock (Germany) and B.J. Elder (Italy) had their passports well-stamped last season. No one can match the overall world travels of Donnell Harvey, who went from the University of Florida in 2000 to stints with five NBA teams and stopovers in Greece, Turkey, Italy, Puerto Rico, Bosnia, China. And most recently he was a member of the fightin’ Talk ’N Text Tropang Texters in the Philippines.
Each summer, though, basketball comes home to Atlanta.
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In some form or other, for the past 13 years, there has been an offseason gathering of players who trace their roots to the area. It always has been a loose confederation of college-age and older guys, with the top-flight pros coming and going as their schedules allowed.
The league, which will run through mid-August, is now in the care of the Prather family and named after the late co-founder of the Atlanta Celtics AAU team through which passed many of the region’s best. Dwight Howard, Josh Smith, Derrick Favors, Randolph Morris and Chris Singleton to name a few — in addition to just about everyone else in the summer league.
“It is a chance to do something to honor my husband, and to help out the community,” said Prather’s widow, Jennifer Prather. With 10 teams in the league, she is still looking to grow it, grow entry fees and in turn grow a scholarship fund they help finance.
They’ll play three days a week between now and Aug. 16 at the Rosel Fann Recreation Center in Atlanta — Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, with all 10 teams playing on the weekend. Admission is free for fans.
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On the defending champion Celtics — perhaps not altogether coincidentally — is Prather’s son, Wallace Prather III. A player agent, he is able to enlist the talents of his clients on a temporary basis. Smith, the former Hawk recently signed by Detroit, and Favors are expected to appear in a couple of weeks. Cleveland’s Jarrett Jack (formerly of Georgia Tech) and long-time NBAer Damien Wilkins (formerly of Georgia) are also on his roster, as well as all those other former Tech standouts. L-O-A-D-E-D is that bunch, but Prather insists he helps spread talent around in order to keep things competitive.
“They (the Celtics) are the guys to beat, the defending champions,” said Harvey, whose 3 A’s team lost July 20 to the Celtics in a close one 86-84. “(Prather’s) got pretty much everybody who came through the program, so it’s an uphill battle for me. But I like the competition.”
No, not many agents can still get on the playing field with their clients. “I don’t know if I am the only agent out there playing, but I’m going on record saying none of the others can guard me,” laughed Prather, 33, a suitably confident guard who played at Cornell.
This year, the league is lacking one of its most incendiary players. The Hawks’ Lou Williams traditionally put together his own team, each player hand-picked for his willingness to pass him the ball. But Williams is still recovering from his knee injury of last season.
They’ve had some dynamic personalities pass through in summers past. A couple of years back, Oklahoma City star Kevin Durant stepped off an airplane in Atlanta, called Smith and asked where he could get in a run. An hour later, Durant was suited up to play with Smith’s league team.
But nobody has put on scoring displays like Williams. His name unanimously is the first mentioned by anyone asked about the legend of the league.
“He’ll go consistently for 50,” Prather said. “He got us for 51 in the championship game a couple of seasons ago — he and Jarrett Jack were going at it pretty good. They beat us by one.
“He constructs his team in a way in which he gets all the shots. He shoots them from all over the place. He’ll go 20-for-48. When he’s off, they get their butts whipped. When he’s on they’re hard to beat.”
The talent extends to the guys in the striped shirts. An assembly of NBA and college refs passes through the league. “It’s as close to an NCAA or NBA game as some of us can get now. We look on it as continuing education,” said Anthony Jordan, who heads the Atlanta-based officials group that brings together the refs.
The games offer an interesting blend of familiarity and competition. On Saturday, for instance, the 6-9 Lawal and 6-8 Harvey were locked in a spirited matchup down low. “He’s my sparring partner, we spar all during the summer,” Lawal said.
By the third quarter of that game, Muhammad, whose nagging full-court defense particularly stands out in a league where guarding the ball can be optional, had been ejected. He had gone after Harvey only semi-seriously at half court. The ref misinterpreted and gave him the heave-ho.
“That’s my big brother there,” Muhammad said, as the two stood around after the game, laughing about the incident. “We go back to when I was 13 years old. He used to rough me up all the time.”
There is an NBA 24-second shot clock, not that it is entirely necessary (how about a 32-minute game with 170 combined points?). They play fast, and they don’t play just for giggles. There is not a NBA Finals intensity on the floor, but a slightly less-barbed kind born of something more personal — pride.
“Bring your game, not your name,” is the motto of the league. This is a place to play basketball like they all used to before the game paid the rent.
“We are all competitors. I’ve been doing this all my life,” Harvey said. “The first three quarters are all fun. The last couple minutes of the game, we all want to win.”
And once in a great while, the guy without the pro experience has his moment against those who did bring a recognizable name to the proceedings.
With his Celtics a couple of established stars down, Prather was on the floor July 20 for extended periods of time. And during those last few, pell-mell minutes, he made one 3-pointer and two free throws that were the ultimate difference in the game.
Of course, these guys want to play hard even if it is just a summer league that will make no one the wealthier, Prather said. And he’ll tell you exactly why.
“They don’t want to lose. They don’t want a guy like me to beat them. How do you explain that?” he said with a satisfied smile.
