[StarLedder] Dream takes flight
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-15/108784260124160.xml
Dream takes flight
Phenom will make the gigantic leap from playing high school
basketball in Newark to entering the NBA Draft
Monday, June 21, 2004
BY M.A. MEHTA
Star-Ledger Staff
The car stereo is pumping out P. Diddy.
Big Earl is in the passenger's seat, decked out in a stylish
Kangol cap and silver sneakers, waiting for his son to get
behind the wheel.
"Where is that boy?" he asks, shaking his head. "Time to go
to work."
It is almost 4 p.m. and the late-afternoon sun is unforgiving.
Cupcake, the family Chihuahua, is yapping in the distance when
J.R. Smith finally emerges and eases into the idling Chevy
Suburban. The words "King of New Jersey" wrap an intricate
design of the state on his left biceps.
He backs out of the driveway, one hand on the wheel. The trip
from his Clarksburg home in Millstone Township, Monmouth County,
to Lakewood High School will take about 25 minutes. Once there,
he will shoot a few jumpers, run a few laps. Nothing too
strenuous. Big Earl, his father, won't take any chances. There
is too much at stake.
J.R. Smith, the all-everything basketball star from St. Benedict's
Preparatory School in Newark, will be one of as many as nine high
school players selected in the NBA Draft on Thursday night. Dwight
Morrow High School's Bill Willoughby and Al Harrington of St.
Patrick in Elizabeth are the only other New Jersey players to
have made the gargantuan leap.
Playing in the National Basketball Association is daunting for
anyone, let alone an 18-year-old with no college experience.
Still, J.R., a guard, is projected to be among the first 15 picks
of the 59-player, two-round draft, NBA personnel say.
No one expects J.R. to be the next Lebron James, the reigning
Rookie of the Year who also skipped college, but the draft reports
are littered with hyperbolic chatter.
He is a high-riser. A hard worker. A star-in-waiting. That's J.R.
Smith, basketball phenom.
This is J.R. Smith, recent recipient of a New Jersey driver's
license:
He barrels down Millstone Road, wind whipping around his face. The
maroon-and-gray Class of 2004 tassel swings from the rearview mirror.
The speed limit reads 35 mph; the speedometer on the blue Suburban
with new 22-inch rims and 200,000 miles on it doesn't.
J.R. darts around a car waiting to make a left turn.
"If you see the guy hit the brake," Earl says above the music,
"then you gotta hit the brake! Slow down!"
J.R. bounces from song to song on his mixed disc. He stops at track
five and hums along with Twista's "Overnight Celebrity."
"I can make you a celebrity overnight. Give you ice like Kobe wife."
When J.R. pulls up to Lakewood High's gym, Earl climbs out and shakes
hands with a friend. J.R. uncoils his 6-foot-6, 229-pound body and
grabs a basketball.
In many ways, Lakewood is home. He played in this old gym for two
years before transferring to St. Benedict's. "A lot of my friends
are here," J.R. says.
And with that, he ambles onto the court.
Time to go to work.
BASKETBALL IN THE BLOOD
Ida Mackson thought she went to heaven when the cool cat with a
giant Afro and cowboy boots strolled into her life 23 years ago.
Earl Smith always had style.
By then, his days as a college basketball player were over. He was
hustling from one recreational league game to the next, but he could
have been so much more.
Earl was an all-county forward for Allentown High School in the
early '70s and a deadly shooter who lived by five simple words:
"If you're open, shoot it."
It was that mantra -- and a college coach with a differing philosophy
-- that had him working full time in his dad's masonry business after
his sophomore season at Monmouth College.
Laying block and pouring concrete kept his body strong. Basketball
did the same for his soul.
He played two or three games a day. Ida followed close behind.
The Earl Smith fan club expanded in 1985, when Earl Joseph Smith III
came into the world at 10 pounds, 5 ounces. They tried to call him
Junior, but it never took.
J.R. just seemed to fit.
The father saw something special in his son's eyes. When J.R. was 8
months old, Earl struck gold while walking through a department
store: a sale on plastic basketball hoops for toddlers, only $9.99.
Earl scooped up six boxes and placed one in every room. He set up
two hoops on the opposite walls and divided the room with a piece
of string. Instant full court.
Of course, it didn't take long for J.R. to tear down the rims.
At 3, he was rushing onto the court during timeouts of Earl's rec
league games, flicking the ball toward the hoop.
"Earl, come get your son!" the referees would yell.
A few years later, J.R. began playing organized ball. He was 5.
Everyone else on his team was 8.
Playing against older kids would become a recurring theme.
NBA INSTEAD OF UNC
Each morning begins with an oversized bowl of Cap'n Crunch. Not
exactly the Breakfast of Champions.
"That's all I eat -- cereal," says J.R., who expects to hire a
personal chef to prepare healthier meals once he is drafted.
"Well, that and my mom's baked ziti."
It is hard to fathom how such a diet could spawn such a sinewy
frame. Smith says he has never lifted weights. He does push-ups
every day and bounces on the trampoline in the back yard -- three
sets of 100 -- to build his calves. But he never has pumped iron.
Maybe working summers at his dad's masonry business helped.
"He DID NOT work -- he slept in my dad's truck," says his older
sister, Stephanie. "By the time he woke up, it was time to go home."
Chalk it up to good genes, perhaps. Whatever the reason, NBA scouts
have salivated over Smith's performances on the postseason all-star
circuit. He put his shooting touch and 44-inch vertical leap on
display at the EA Sports Classic and McDonald's All-American Game,
earning co-MVP honors at both.
It was April when the whispers grew louder that J.R. would enter
the draft, even though he already had signed a letter-of-intent to
his beloved University of North Carolina.
Although J.R. always dreamed of playing for Michael Jordan's alma
mater -- an oversized UNC flag still rests on the front lawn of the
family home -- the lure of the NBA was too great.
When he signed in May with agent Arn Tellem -- whose clientele
includes basketball star Tracy McGrady and Yankee Jason Giambi --
there was no turning back.
But he'll always be a Tar Heels fan and even plans to wear a
specially tailored Carolina blue suit to Madison Square Garden on
draft night.
The draft, of course, is sprinkled with a dizzying array of smoke
screens, half-truths and baldfaced lies.
J.R. has worked out for teams that failed to make the playoffs --
the so-called lottery teams that entered a sweepstakes to determine
the order of the top 13 picks. He also displayed his talents for
teams with multiple first-round picks.
"I'm told that the Celtics will take him if he's available at No.
15," says Tom Konchalski, editor of High School Basketball
Illustrated and a respected basketball guru. "That's his safety
net."
Some personnel directors still question J.R.'s toughness; others
doubt his ability to develop a midrange jump shot and defend in
the NBA.
Then again, it could be one giant ruse. The propaganda wars are
running rampant as draft day approaches.
Dollar signs also beckon. First-round picks sign guaranteed
three-year contracts for an amount based on draft position. The
No.10 pick receives a $4.9 million contract, while the No.15 gets
$3.8 million. Second-round picks sign nonguaranteed deals, while
undrafted rookies become free agents. Some high school stars already
have inked multimillion-dollar shoe endorsement deals.
"Everybody needs money," says J.R., who has not signed with a shoe
company. "But it's not really mandatory for me. We're living
comfortably right now."
ALREADY FAMOUS
Girls line up to take pictures with him on their cell phones. Boys
ask him to autograph their sneakers. Most kids are star-struck,
their mouths agape, when Smith shuffles through the Freehold Raceway
Mall.
Morning. Afternoon. Evening. Doesn't matter.
The whispers trail him into Foot Locker.
"Hey, that's J.R. Smith. He's going to the NBA."
"J.R., can you sign my Air Jordans?"
He smiles awkwardly. The fame will take a little getting used to.
"At first, I was shocked," he says of the attention. "I didn't expect
it."
J.R. is a self-described loner -- part hip-hop, part homebody, a far
cry from the entourage world that dots the NBA landscape. His inner
circle hasn't grown exponentially. A few people from his past have
crawled out of the woodwork, calling him all of a sudden, but J.R.
plans to stay close to his parents, five siblings and cousin. Most
days, he hangs out with his younger brothers, Chris and Dimitrius.
"Everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon," he says. "That's what's
happening now. I haven't talked to these guys since third grade, and
they're calling, 'Remember me?'"
Before Smith was screening his calls, he was winding through a maze
of high schools in search of happiness.
His freshman season at Steinert High School in Hamilton was a
disaster. He was 14 -- having grown 6 inches the previous summer --
and ready to make a splash. But he languished on the bench, a
casualty of the coach's rule not to play freshmen.
Officials at nearby Allentown High -- Earl's alma mater --
complicated matters, insisting that J.R., a Millstone resident,
was not allowed to attend Steinert. Earl says he was forced to
pull his son out of Steinert after being threatened with a
substantial fine.
"Allentown wanted him so bad," Earl says. "But they did nothing for
me, so none of my boys were going there."
Instead, Earl sent his son to McCorristin Catholic High School in
Hamilton for the rest of the school year.
J.R. transferred to Lakewood the following fall for his sophomore
season, moving in with relatives. Lakewood coach John Richardson
immediately gave him the green light to fire away. The teenager
had beautiful form.
If you're open, shoot it.
Big Earl was beaming.
J.R. led Lakewood to a conference championship as a sophomore and
the South Jersey championship as a junior. He was also a standout
wide receiver and free safety on the football team.
Then everything changed.
J.R. transferred to St. Benedict's -- his fourth high school -- to
get his grades in order. Earl feared premier college programs would
pass on his son if he failed his entrance exams. St. Benedict's
could "re-classify" J.R. as a junior. He'd also have the opportunity
to play two more years of high school basketball on a bigger stage.
J.R. was embraced when he moved into the dorms at St. Benedict's.
(He would have been academically eligible to play right away in
college.)
"J.R. succeeded because he trusted some teachers who pushed him,"
says the Rev. Edwin Leahy, the school's headmaster. "He had never
felt that kind of academic pressure before. It wasn't easy."
J.R. also cultivated a special friendship with coach Dan Hurley.
Hurley was there when his star player began sobbing for the first
and only time after losing his last high school game. The coach,
too, nearly lost it when J.R. walked down the aisle to receive his
diploma two weeks ago.
"To know you're able to have an impact with a kid with that type of
potential as a person and an athlete is the best thing," says Hurley,
his voice breaking up. "He lived and died with every word you said
as a coach. I want so many great things for him."
FAMILY SUPPORT
Tubs of sneakers line the family room floor. Nike. Adidas. And 1.
All shapes and sizes. At least 200 pairs.
"We should put them on eBay," cracks J.R.'s teammate Alex Galindo.
"We can make a lot of money -- open house for J.R. Smith's sneakers."
Stephanie, a bruising high school power forward back in the day,
doesn't understand her younger brother's obsession with high-priced
footwear.
"It's not like I can get shoes at Payless," J.R. says, his lips
widening to a grin.
"Yes, you can -- they got size 15," Stephanie shoots back.
J.R. delivers the punch line faster than he launches an open shot.
"Yeah, but those shoes are mad ugly -- like Stephanie's face."
The siblings go back and forth for a few minutes on a lazy spring
afternoon. Earl is playing tour guide, proudly talking about his
son in the living room. He hands over a couple of dusty, old
plaques decorating the walls. He points to a photo of J.R. in the
hallway. There's not enough wall space for all the memories.
Eighteen years have raced by. It seems like yesterday when Earl and
Ida carried J.R.'s birth certificate to his games to prove to the
skeptics that their boy was the same age as (or younger than) the
other kids.
Along the way, people questioned the father's motives, questioned
whether he pushed J.R. too hard.
"I never pushed my kids into anything," Earl says. "All I wanted
was for them to have fun. And to finish what they started.
"There's so much harm out there. Sometimes I don't think J.R.
understands that. There are a lot of people that don't want to see
him succeed. They didn't think he was going to get this far."
Earl always worries about his son and plans to move with J.R.
wherever he gets drafted. He'll also travel to road games for the
first couple of years to lend a watchful eye.
"I'm lucky to have the support from my family that I do," J.R.
says. "Kids who come from broken homes don't have what I have.
It's going to be hard, but I just have to be patient."
None of that matters now.
J.R., in a white tank top and baggy denim shorts, is lounging on
the deck, firing text messages to NBA player Antawn Jamison.
Smith may be walking into the glitz and glamour of the NBA, but
right now he wants to just enjoy these moments with his family.
Maybe he'll take a dip in the pool. Maybe he'll go to Great
Adventure, even though he's scared of the new Superman ride.
"That ride is crazy," he says, laughing. "That ain't too safe for
me. I like to fly, but on my own terms."
Or maybe he'll just go upstairs and play video games with his
brothers.
The two German shepherds -- Defense and Hoops -- mill around the
back yard. Earl is reading the paper. Ida is watering the plants.
The sun is going down. The house is quiet.
And J.R. Smith is exploring a world of options.
The promise of something amazing awaits.
--
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