There’s a certain comfort, at least to those of us with the vertical leap of a giant tortoise, in knowing that even the occasional herculean pro athlete had his mere mortal moments.
It turns out that the Hawks’ Paul Millsap had his share of painful, last-kid-picked-for-the-game moments. The Hawks’ forward, in a weak moment, shared that he was 6-foot-8 in the ninth grade but couldn’t dunk a basketball, which is amusing because that would require a jump of maybe a foot, and that would make Millsap me. Family members taunted him about it because, well, duh.
“A lot of people made fun of me. They laughed at me,” he said. “They used to tease me so bad. It was torture. Brothers, uncles, family members. I used to cry a lot. I cried because of that.”
Sorry. I laughed.
Then I told everybody.
Mike Budenholzer, his nurturing coach: “No way. What the heck was wrong with him?”
Kyle Korver, his noted non-dunking teammate (turning to Millsap): “What? You were 6-8 and couldn’t dunk?”
Millsap (turning to me): “Tell the world.”
More on Millsap, the formative years, shortly.
But first, to the other side of the rainbow. There are a number of reasons why the Hawks are where they are, with the best record in the Eastern Conference and causing every jaded Atlanta sports fan to wander the streets in a daze, saying, “The Hawks? Wait. What?” But Millsap is a perfect player to start with.
When the Hawks signed him as a free agent from Utah two years ago, they believed they were getting a smart and solid player. But he has grown into far more than that, a two-time All-Star who of late has been carrying the team. In Friday’s East-clinching victory over Miami, Millsap had 21 points, nine rebounds, four assists, two blocks and a steal.
Some punctuation: He skied for an alley-oop jam in the second quarter.
Budenholzer led off his postgame news conference gushing about his (still) 6-8 power forward, saying he “brought a ton of energy, a ton of winning type plays from the beginning of the game. Sometimes it takes coming out with the right mentality, the right mindset. Paul was going out and getting rebounds, getting blocked shots, doing things offensively that set a tone for us.”
The Hawks needed a tone-setter. They had slipped a gear of late. They lacked the defensive intensity and offensive rhythm that had driven them to staggering heights.
Millsap has become the team’s Red Bull. It’s fortuitous timing for him because he’s an unrestricted free agent after the season. He signed only a two-year deal with the Hawks because, honestly, he wasn’t sure what to expect from a rebuilding franchise with a tepid fan base.
“Coming to a new situation, I wasn’t sure what would transpire,” he said. “I wanted to play the two years out and see what happened. But it’s been great. It’s been wonderful, the way the team has been built up, the way we’ve fought through adversity and this community has come together. It’s something I definitely will highly consider at the end of the summer. But it’s not something I’m focusing on too much now.”
Like his three brothers (John, Elijah, Abraham), Paul Millsap was named for a Biblical prophet. Everybody should have listened when he told them he would make it in basketball, amid the can’t-dunk lampoons. He played football as a youth, quarterback actually. But when his family moved from Colorado back to his birth state of Louisiana, it prompted a switch in sports.
“My uncle gave me a bunch of Michael Jordan videos,” Millsap said. “It was like, ‘Just be him.’ I had a basketball goal outside my grandmother’s house in the dirt. I used to go out there, running in my strength (training) shoes, every day in the hot sun. I was just trying to be better. I always had that belief that I could make it.”
He didn’t play organized basketball until the 10th grade. He considered himself athletic but “awkward.”
“Everybody wanted me to play basketball because of my height, but I wasn’t that coordinated. When you’re 6-8, people expect you to do things. But I couldn’t jump.”
He trained. He learned. He jumped. He dunked.
The first time he did it, he said he didn’t celebrate.
Why not?
“I felt like I should’ve done it two years ago,” he said.
But everybody lost all that material.
“When I started dunking backwards and between my legs and all that, they stopped talking to me,” he said.
He was a standout at Louisiana Tech, but was known mostly for his rebounding and physical play. But his game has evolved in the NBA, first at Utah and now with the Hawks.
He has become more effective off the dribble. He has made 153 3-pointers with the Hawks — after only 31 in seven seasons in Utah.
“He was just the rugged rebounder in college,” Korver said. “He was in a great system in Utah that fit his personality, watching Carlos Boozer, playing pick and roll. He comes here and his role expands, he’s shooting 3’s. I have a lot of respect for people who don’t just accept what’s perceived as their boundaries.”
If Millsap settled, he would still be grounded. Instead, he has elevated himself and his team. Perfect timing.
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