Life Is Not an Accident (7 page)

My stat line was abysmal:
3-for-15 from the field, 3 assists, 6 turnovers, 13 points.

Not exactly the homecoming I was hoping for. I was quoted in the Duke
Chronicle
saying, “I've got to wake up and smell the coffee.” Coach K had my back in the postgame presser. “He's got a lot to learn to become an outstanding point guard, but he has the guts and talent and just has to learn the position. His first game was in Madison Square Garden. That's a big classroom.”

The next game was a rematch of the NCAA final the year before against UConn. This time around, however, neither team resembled anything close to the powerhouse they were only months earlier. I led the team with just 16 points and got absolutely obliterated by Khalid El-Amin. I never thought someone so pudgy could be so damn quick and deceptive at the same time. My conditioning was nowhere near where it needed to be.

Coach K told me, “You're going to start riding the bike for
45 minutes and watching tape with Wojo every day after practice.” Steve Wojciechowski was—and still is to this day—the most passionate guy I've ever been around when it comes to basketball. Wojo was the epitome of the player who left everything on the court. He didn't possess the athletic gifts that the rest of us had and he knew it, which made him outwork everyone. Rudy Ruettiger had nothing on him. He created a trend that you still see to this day where players slap the floor on defense when they need a stop. Even now it takes me back when I watch him coach Marquette, and have fits on the sideline. He cares
that
much about each possession.

The stationary bike was in the media room, right smack in front of the projector. Wojo sat right next to me as I was hauling ass on the bike. He would set the clock for 45 minutes. The bike was on an incline, which had me out of the seat in a standing position like I was Lance Armstrong trying to climb a mountain—minus the PEDs.

I'm riding, he's talking, and we're both watching tape. At his discretion, he'd stop the tape, put me through a quick Q&A, and then fast-forward to the next possession. He kept telling me, “You have to train yourself to think while you're tired.” And he was relentless. It was a one-sided conversation that went like this:

He jumped on the high side of the ball screen; how should you have attacked it?
Should you have bumped him? Why are you going 8
,
000 miles an hour? Why don't you slow down and go 20? . . . This is where you need to burst! Look at when Shane's man steps up—that's when you attack. . . . Why not give him a bounce pass? Why would you throw a lob? You know Carlos is tired; look at Carlos's face. Why aren't you talking to Carlos during the time-out? Why aren't you telling him to sprint the floor? . . . Look
,
why aren't you talking to Chris right here? Coach is trying to talk to you, and you walk away. . . . Why are
you not looking at the coaches on the bench? Why are you not down in the stance? Why are you half-assing it?

This was my version of pledging a fraternity. I think about those days on the bike, dissecting tape, more than playing in actual games my freshman year, because those days were way harder than the game ever was.

And that's exactly the point.

Of all the things Coach K taught me about basketball, learning how to play through mistakes was the most important of all. Of course, I didn't pick up on that right away. And it definitely didn't help my confidence that K had no problem pointing out all my mistakes, either. There wasn't accountability in high school—the focus was on all of us as a unit, not the individual. And when K called you out, he'd put you on an island regardless of your accolades.

“You're going to be evaluated by what you do
after
the mistake instead of what got you in the position to make that mistake.”

After those first two losses, we won 18 in a row.

Near the end of the regular season, we were playing St. John's at Cameron Indoor Stadium. At the time, they were loaded; I'd played against a bunch of them in those Riverside Church games growing up. They had Erick Barkley, Lavor Postell, and Bootsy Thornton, who had scorched Duke at MSG the year before I arrived. I was at that game my senior year in high school and saw Thornton drop 40 on them.

I was having one of my better performances, and Shane was in a good rhythm, too. Bootsy had just hit a jumper to put them up by one with ten seconds left, and I immediately took the inbounds pass, sprinted the ball past half-court, and called a time-out with about five seconds left. During the time-out, Coach K drew up a play.

The lineup was Shane, Chris, Nate James, Boozer, and me. Carrawell was the inbounds passer; Nate was stationed at the bottom left-hand corner, outside the three-point line; Booz down low on the left block; Shane centered just above the three-point line; and I was positioned at the right elbow. I was to come off a screen set by Shane to catch the inbounds pass from Chris. Shane's assignment was to then immediately headhunt my man and set another screen for me at the top of the key, leaving the entire right side of the court open. If he did this successfully, I would have a bevy of options. I could find Shane rolling to the basket just after he set the screen, or come off the screen and take the shot myself if I had space.

“Jason, either this is your jump shot, you attack the rim, or you get Shane the ball and let Shane finish the play,” K said. “We're going to win this game.”

And he meant it. After drawing up the play, he started giving instructions on what to do on defense after the shot went in.

“Jason, force Barkley to his left and turn him a couple of times before he gets to half-court. Everybody else, we are in our 21 defense.”

We put our hands together in the huddle and K repeated, “We're going to win.” We yelled, “One, two, three,
Duke
!” I hadn't felt more confident the entire year than at that moment walking back on the court. I knew we were going to win. The noise in the building was intoxicating.

And then it happened.

I'm a stride behind Carrawell and Booz coming out of the huddle when I notice C-Well tap his shoulder and say, “Pop out, man, pop out and just give the ball right back to me.”

I didn't just hear what I thought I did, right? Then I saw Booz nod back to him as they exchanged a quick fist bump.

This couldn't be happening. No way in hell were they going against K's plan. That would be sacrilegious.

The ref then handed C-Well the ball as we all stood in our designed positions. As Shane came down to set a screen for me, sure enough, there's Booz breaking his assignment and flashing toward C-Well. Chris then threw Booz the ball and got it right back once he stepped inbounds. Coming off the screen, I dropped my shoulders in disgust as I looked over to Coach K, watching the play unfold in disbelief. C-Well then attempted to go one-on-one, taking an ill-advised 15-footer that didn't look good the moment it left his hands.

Game over.

No one said a word to each other as we made our way back to the locker room. I was so shocked about what had just happened that the loss itself didn't even register. We were just sitting there with our heads down when Coach K entered the room, looking baffled. I'd seen him angry at times, but this was different. This was more like a parent being disappointed with his child. He just kept pacing back and forth, not making eye contact with anyone, softly muttering to himself just loud enough for us to hear.

“I don't know why you guys wouldn't listen to me. Why you wouldn't trust me. I know what I'm doing.”

He then stopped on a dime and locked in on Booz.

“Why did you do that, Carlos? Why?” K started.

Carlos didn't know what to say.

That was when C-Well stepped up: “I told him to do it. I changed the play, I told Boozer to pop out, and I told him to give me the ball.”

Coach K looked genuinely wounded. His lone senior, who had been with him the longest and whom he trusted the most,
had defied an order. It was an act of betrayal. K usually stood with his body upright, but at that moment he looked as if somebody had ripped his soul out and snapped it into pieces.

“I have never had a player not trust me. I'm so hurt that you did that. I'm not only hurt, but your teammates are hurt, because you didn't trust in them.”

That was all he said.

We all looked at C-Well. He got the point. We all got the point. No individual was bigger than the team. Other coaches might have waited to speak with C-Well alone, or lost their cool and chastised him in front of the rest of his peers. Not K. It was important to him that we all understood this error of judgment, in order for us
all
to move forward as
one
.

We assumed it was over. Point taken. Time to move on.

But this is Coach K we're talking about.

The next day at practice he addressed us. “Chris, you should apologize to the team. And you guys should decide whether you want to forgive Chris or not. Because some things you do in this life aren't forgivable. They're not. And if that's one of the things that you guys think is forgivable, then you guys need to come together and talk about it.” He then left us to talk.

Chris stood up. “Look, this is my last year, and I've been waiting for moments like that my entire career, and I felt hurt because I didn't know if Coach trusted me to step up. I'm sorry.”

At that moment we got to know the real Chris Carrawell, insecurities and all. He had been stepping up for us all year, and now here he was, apologizing to everyone for letting them down. Imagine a senior saying he was sorry to a bunch of freshmen. It made us want to fight for him.

And such was the brilliance of Mike Krzyzewski. He knew
that the night before, we'd ended up being okay with C-Well and Booz on the surface. That we
could
move on from that loss. But that wasn't nearly enough if we were to become special. We needed to be more than just “okay” with one another. It was just primer. So the next morning, he went about adding another coat of paint to solidify things for our future.

We went from being
cool
to happily taking a bullet for one another.

We didn't lose another game the rest of the regular season. We did win the ACC tournament and the conference championship that year.

Toward the end of the regular season, UNC's Joe Forte had been named the ACC Rookie of the Year. That day in practice, I remember Coach K telling me how I would be recognized as the best college freshman in the
country
once I lit up the ACC and NCAA tournaments, like he was sure I would.

“I
know
it,” K said, “And I just want you to know that.”

We would go on to win the ACC tournament and were one of the favorites for the national championship until Mike Miller and the Florida Gators knocked us out in the Sweet Sixteen 87–78. I played like shit that night and still blame myself for the loss.

Later that spring, after “The Flintstones” of Michigan State won the title, I was named national Freshman of the Year by
The Sporting News.

All in all, it was a tough year. I was exhausted.
But
I was also inspired. I decided to stay in Durham for the summer, take some courses, work out every day, and build on everything I'd learned. Coach K knew big things were in store for me.

For a while, I wasn't sure. I'd spent the whole year playing catch-up, unaware of how far I had come.

My eyes were opening.

B
asketball isn't basketball without some good old-fashioned trash talking.

I found my alter ego that summer in a gym at the Lahaina Civic Center, in Maui. I was in Hawaii for the USA Men's Under–21 team practices. Team USA was also in town, preparing for the Summer Olympics in Sydney, only months away, where they would win the gold medal. We practiced daily against the likes of Ray Allen, Vince Carter, Kevin Garnett, Tim Hardaway, Alonzo Mourning, and Jason Kidd. As confident as I was at the time, competing against these greats was a major learning experience, particularly when it came to expressing myself on the court. I got trounced in a trash-talking duel with the great Gary Payton.
The Glove.

All my life, I had been a “quiet” basketball player who never responded to trash talk. That is, until I faced the only point guard ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. In our
first scrimmage against them, I was left wide-open for a shot in the left-hand corner of the court. As I elevated, out of the corner of my eye I saw G.P. running at me full-speed for what I thought was an attempt to block my shot. I instinctively adjusted, bracing myself for what was to come. But he never left his feet. Instead he balled his right hand into a fist and bumped my private area.

I was speechless.

I later learned that this was not an uncommon trick in the NBA, but at the time I was absolutely infuriated. I ended up shooting an air ball that led to an outlet pass from Kidd to Garnett for a two-handed tomahawk. As I brought the ball up the court on the next possession, G.P. was staring directly at me while he backpedaled toward the half-court line, his head swaying from side to side with a level of arrogance I had never seen in an opponent before. He proceeded to call me every name in the book, talking loud enough so that everyone in the gym could hear exactly what he was saying.

“I got this little runt. He ain't shit. He ain't gonna do nothing. He gonna cough it up. He don't know who he dealin' with. Little bitch-ass dude from Duke. This ain't Duke, you Dooookie. Coach K make y'all soft down there, huh?”

All of a sudden he blitzed me at half-court, forcing me to my left while hanging all over my right shoulder. Then he forcefully jumped to my left side to go for the steal, causing me to spin to keep possession. By the time I completed the move, the ball was
gone
. I looked down at my right hand expecting the ball to be there, but instead it was at the other end, being finger-rolled into the basket by the Glove.

“I told ya. I told ya. Soft-ass Doooookiiiiieeee.”

On the next possession, I made sure to dish the ball off the
second I got over half-court. Later on that same play, I found myself open in the corner for a three.

And there he was . . . again.

He closed in on me and extended his arm. This time I quickly shot the ball and swung my arms down toward him as strongly as possible. My forearms cracked right into his hands. By the grace of God the shot went in, and as I backpedaled down the court with him still hanging on me, I uttered the worst piece of trash talk imaginable.

You ain't the Glove. You're the mitten.

His look said it all. I should've apologized to him on the spot and begged him not to repeat what I just said. As the game went on, he lured me into playing his way and not mine. I began to speak like him. Curse after curse after curse, regardless of how a play unfolded. There was no rhyme or reason; it became a game within the game.

The old me, five minutes earlier, would've quietly bitched to himself.

Now I was vocal. I never looked back.

I credit G.P. for helping me find out who I really was as a player.

After a week and change in Hawaii, we left for Brazil for the 2000 COPABA World Championship. I was 18 at the time, hormones raging, feeling great about myself, and here I was in a foreign country looking at the most beautiful women I had ever seen. It felt like I was living in a music video.

We played the tournament in a small city near São Paulo called Ribeirão Preto, which is dubbed the “Brazilian California.” It was there that I turned a corner as a player. I had the good fortune to play with so many future stars, like Zach Randolph and Jason Richardson out of Michigan State, Arkansas's Joe Johnson, and
Tayshaun Prince out of Kentucky, to name a few. I led the team in points, assists, and three-pointers made, shooting 56 percent from the field and 62 percent from downtown. I mean, I played out of my mind that week.

Jim Boeheim was our head coach, and Jay Wright, then the head coach at Hofstra, was our assistant. Boeheim was already a legend at Syracuse, and Wright is doing great things today as the head coach at Villanova. I really liked both of them right off the bat. They had a similar coaching style that was quite different from Coach K's approach. It took a while for me to feel comfortable with K, and maybe, looking back, it was because he was so damn intimidating. I instantly felt at ease with Jim and Jay, like they were my friends, not authority figures like Coach K.

As my game took off to new heights, my self-confidence grew along with it. There were no bed checks, overbearing coaches, or upperclassmen monitoring us on that trip. So I did what any normal 18-year-old young man would've done given the chance. The first night, I went out late with some of the guys, drinking, smoking weed, and hooking up with gorgeous Brazilian girls. The next day, I'd play incredibly well, and I'd go back out for round two. Instead of my play suffering from all the late-night extracurricular activities, it elevated. So it was justifiable to keep enjoying myself.

Round three . . . four . . . five . . .

My off-season was shaping up beautifully. Everything seemed to fall into place. When I got back to Durham, though, it was all business. I spent every day working to make a mandatory 500 shots, at least two to three hundred of them from NBA three-point range. It began to feel so natural. And while my attitude toward others never changed–I remained respectful and kind to everyone—I knew that on the court, it was never going to be the
same again. In just the last month, I had experienced so many firsts. I'd gone toe-to-toe with G.P., J-Kidd, Vinsanity, K.G., Ray Allen (a.k.a. Jesus Shuttlesworth) . . . I'd played the best basketball of my life with our country's name across my chest. J-Rich and I talked about what life would be like at the next level—something I had never broached up until that point. I mean, I never had the nerve to use “when” instead of “if” when it came to that subject. My confidence was off the charts.

I wasn't the only one who improved from year to year. Our core for that upcoming season was impressive, and the media agreed, ranking us No. 2 in the preseason, behind Gilbert Arenas, Richard Jefferson, and the rest of the Arizona Wildcats. After winning ACC Player of the Year and being named a first-team All-American, C-Well was drafted by the Spurs in the second round that summer. Mike Dunleavy, unfortunately, had spent most of his first year battling mono, but now he was healthy, a couple of inches taller and 20 pounds bulkier. Booz had gotten cut by the under–21 USA team—the same one Dunleavy and I had just played for—and literally had a “gut check” about his physical conditioning, so he'd worked his ass off the entire summer. Shane, who was already the best defender in college ball, finally had his offense catch up to his defense. Our glue guy, Nate James, was back for his senior year, ready to play the part of unspoken leader.

And then . . . there was . . . Chris Duhon.

Where do I begin with my boy Chris?

My freshman year, before I ever played my first game for Duke, I met this skinny, baby-faced-looking kid from Slidell, Louisiana, who was in town on a recruiting trip. Chris was a senior in high school at the time, and had narrowed his search to either us or Kentucky. He was rated the top point guard in the
country, which made me wary from the jump. I remember Coach K pulling me aside earlier that day, discussing his vision for Chris and me to be the next dynamic duo just like Tommy Amaker and Johnny Dawkins. But I wasn't hearing it. This was the freshman version of myself who hadn't even played a college game yet, so naturally I was skeptical. I figured if the “Jason Williams PG experiment” didn't pan out, K would have his insurance policy in the form of future freshman Chris Duhon.

Coach decided to have Chris join our pickup games that day. I wanted him to pit us against each other so I could put the kid in his place, but K mandated that we play on the same team. The first couple of possessions, I made a point of bringing the ball up the court to show him who's in charge. A couple of plays later, we were in transition, and after blowing by my guy, I kicked the ball out to him in the corner for a three, which he knocked down effortlessly. As we were heading back on defense, he acknowledged me by saying, “Great pass, man. Let's get it going.”

We ended up killing everybody out there together. Eventually, it didn't matter who brought the ball up the court, which one of us was the passer or the shooter. We just flowed, like we'd been doing this together for years. Coach K wasn't watching, but he knew already. He always did.

That night, at a party on Central Campus, the whole crew was out. Booz, Dun-Dun, Casey, Nick, our homegirl from the women's team Krista Gingrich . . . Chris was our guest for the evening. He was soft-spoken with us. I chalked it up to him being a fish out of water. But now, almost two decades and an NBA career later, he's the same old soft-spoken Chris.

He and I talked about running everyone off the court earlier
that day, laughing at our instant chemistry. But after a couple of drinks, my insecurity got the better of me . . . again. This time I decided I'd show him up by drinking him under the table. I'm not sure if I grabbed a bottle of Aristocrat or Jose Cuervo—I'm positive it tasted awful—as I challenged Chris to a chugging contest. Without even waiting for a response, I put the bottle to my mouth and took a good three or four gulps without coming up for air. With a definite buzz, I passed it over to Chris, anxious to see the fear in his eyes. He calmly put his hand out, took the bottle, and began to drink. And drink. I'm not sure how much time passed before he stopped downing the bottle, but it was damn long. He then handed the bottle back to me and said, “Your turn.”

Frozen, with my mouth agape, I replied, “Nah. I'm good.”

And that was how it all started.

B
EFORE THE SEASON,
Coach gathered the team together and encouraged us to share what our dreams were for this year. Mine was to throw the ball up as high as possible, and when it came down, we would be national champions.

In our first game that season, we played Princeton at home. At one point we ran one of our basic sets, where Shane set a ball screen for me up high. The defense switched on the screen, so I was supposed to pass the ball to Shane to exploit the mismatch with a smaller player trying to stop him. But the bigger defender didn't pick me up right away, and even though I was at least a foot behind the three-point line, I took the shot without hesitation.
Splash.
I glanced over at Coach K with a look of confidence,
almost defiant. A year earlier, I would've gone for the “safe” option—passing to Shane coming out of the screen.

But this wasn't last year.

One of our most memorable exploits from that year came just nine days later when we were in New York City for the preseason NIT. It was Thanksgiving eve and we had just beaten Texas in the semis the day before. We were staying at the Marriot Marquis in Times Square.

From the moment I landed, I had been exchanging texts with a girl named Noelle. She and I had met in high school when we were both playing AAU ball. I was 16 at the time. She was my first kiss—I was a late bloomer, clearly. She was now a junior on the women's basketball team at Wagner College, in Staten Island. Noelle was tall, fair-skinned, with this wild, curly hair that would fall beneath her shoulders anytime she had it straightened. She was the product of a white, Irish Catholic mother and an African American father, both from Jersey City. She was stunning.

After our Thanksgiving feast with the team, I sent a text to Noelle asking how to get to Staten Island. She didn't take me seriously but humored me anyway with the details. She was having a party that night with the rest of her team. Noelle kept challenging me, saying there was no way I'd actually travel that far to see her.

She didn't understand how much I'd changed by then.

At the dinner, I asked Chris and Andre Buckner if they wanted to roll out. It was only a week or so into the season and Chris was already my wingman, so he was always down for whatever. Andre was from Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He needed some big city fun. And so it was on.

After bed checks, at around 10:30, our clandestine mission
began. Two taxi rides and a Staten Island Ferry later, we had arrived.

From the moment we walked in the door, the party started. Chris was hanging with Noelle's roommate, Whitney, and Andre was making headway with this other girl on the team named Erin. We downed every different kind of liquor they had while playing drinking games against their men's team. I remember looking over at Chris and Dre-Buck, thinking this was the best night of their lives up to that point.

Meanwhile, I was starting to fall hard for Noelle. She and I took things to another level courtesy of that night.

To say we were drunk would be an understatement. We would've ended up missing the 4:15
A.M.
ferry back to Manhattan had it not been for Noelle. We were three hot messes sitting on a rocking commuter boat, hoping the cold November air would sober us up. Chris and I both started to get seasick. Andre, apparently, was in a lot better shape, cracking jokes and doing funny impersonations. I still don't know how we were able to make it back to our rooms that morning.

The midday shootaround was a disaster for Chris and me. It would've been impossible for the coaches not to smell the alcohol coming off our bodies. I was throwing errant passes, while Chris kept dribbling the ball off his foot. We were asking for Gatorade every two minutes. Meanwhile, Andre looked like he'd slept 12 hours the night before.