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MaTT4281
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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/13/sports/basketball/13KNIC.html
Johnson Out to Make Most of Second Chance by Knicks
By LIZ ROBBINS
Published: February 13, 2004
DerMarr Johnson had traveled across the country and was now crisscrossing Westchester County, the best day of his life winding slowly into the longest night of his career.
He just wanted to sleep.
Past midnight Feb. 3, Johnson folded his 6-foot-9 pencil-thin frame into the back seat of a limousine, not knowing where he was going or how much longer he would have to keep traveling.
He was lost returning from Madison Square Garden, where he had dressed for his first N.B.A. game in 21 months. The day before he had been playing in California for the Long Beach Jam of the minor league American Basketball Association when the Knicks stunned him with the offer of a 10-day contract without a workout.
Johnson, 23, had tangible hope he could reclaim his career, which began when the Atlanta Hawks took him out of Cincinnati as the sixth overall pick in the 2000 draft and nearly ended two years later in the fiery blaze of crumpled Mercedes metal at the base of a tree.
But last week he was not at the wheel, and his driver was lost, unable to understand the directions to the Knicks' hotel.
After two hours, the car stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts. Johnson went inside and bought two for his dinner, glazed and jelly. Day 1 ended when Johnson, finally at his hotel, got to bed at 2 a.m., too exhausted to think about a practice that would start in eight hours.
The 10-day contract is a low-cost flier for teams looking for midseason reinforcements or an overlooked talent. Johnson never saw his career coming to this.
When he signed, he did not know that nine days later — yesterday — the Knicks planned to sign him for the rest of the season.
Seventeen months ago, Johnson fell asleep for an instant; he is still trying to awaken from that nightmare.
On Sept. 13, 2002, he was returning with two friends from an Atlanta nightclub at 5 a.m. in the deserted suburbs. He stopped at a light, and, because his passengers were sleeping, he turned down the radio. Today, Johnson says he would have done only one thing differently that night: "I wouldn't have turned the music down."
He dozed off and his foot must have pressed on the accelerator, he said. The next thing he knew, his friend Davon Williams was shouting for him to get out because the car was on fire. Williams, who was uninjured, dragged Johnson out.
Another friend, James Barnett, had a punctured lung, three broken ribs and a cracked vertebra. Two women driving by took the three to a hospital.
Lucky to Be Alive
Johnson had broken four vertebrae in his neck, and his doctor said he came close to being paralyzed. The doctor also told him he would probably never play basketball again.
The shocks continued, life and death tugging at each other.
A week later, while his mother was visiting him in the hospital, his father, Melvin, died from complications from surgery in Maryland. "I think that maybe God spared my life and took his, like one of us had to go," Johnson said.
Another week after that, his college coach at Cincinnati, Bob Huggins, had a heart attack, from which he would recover. A month after the accident, Johnson's girlfriend delivered the couple's son, DerMarr Jr.
So much had happened. "I don't think it changed me at all; I just think it was meant to happen, a speed bump that I got to go over," Johnson said.
Three weeks after being fitted for a halo to stabilize his neck, Johnson was driving, against doctor's orders. After seven weeks he got the halo off and soon started shooting, then dunking, against doctor's orders, even though he had little feeling in his right arm.
By January 2003 he was cleared by doctors to play, assured he was not risking a life-threatening injury. The Hawks, about to change ownership, were wary and kept him on the bench. Atlanta's general manager, Billy Knight, did not pick up Johnson's option at the end of the 2002-3 season, making him a free agent with a red-brick mansion in Atlanta.
Out of work, he played in the summer league for the Memphis Grizzlies. The Phoenix Suns picked him up for the fall, cutting him midway through training camp, and Johnson went to the A.B.A.
Johnson's salary had been $5.6 million over his first three years in Atlanta, where he averaged 6.5 points a game. In the first 10 days with the Knicks, Johnson made $38,260; he will earn $214,256 for the rest of the season.
Time to Start Over
When Johnson came to New York, he did not have to wind his watch to Eastern Standard Time. He had never changed it in California. "I thought I wasn't going to be there long," he said.
Instead, he was in Long Beach for three months, the best player on a team whose main attraction was the renegade Dennis Rodman.
The day Isiah Thomas took the job as Knicks president, he spoke of "beating the bushes for talent."
Although some executives in the league considered Johnson an underachiever with the Hawks before the accident, Thomas knew he had a project worth undertaking.
Johnson learned of the offer at 5 p.m. Pacific time and was on a red-eye to New York six hours later. He spoke to Thomas for the first time about an hour before last Tuesday's game against the Indiana Pacers.
"He told me don't look at it as a short-term thing," Johnson recalled. "That took a lot of pressure off me and made me feel wanted. It wasn't like, `I'm doing you a favor,' but, `we need you here.' "
Guard Allan Houston went on the injured list that morning to rehabilitate his knees, and is not scheduled to come off until after the All-Star Game break. If there is one thing Johnson can do, said Stephon Marbury, "he can really shoot." Marbury, who was traded to the Knicks from the Suns in January, had befriended Johnson during training camp with Phoenix.
Johnson arrived in New York with an instant support group. Moochie Norris had been his friend and mentor growing up in Washington.
Johnson shaves his head and wears an orange headband that covers the scars from his halo. He pulls his white socks up to make his spindly legs look even longer — he copied the headband and the sock style from Norris when they played streetball and in A.A.U. tournaments together.
"The first time I saw him play, it was incredible," Norris said. "He was pretty much like he is now. He was 6-foot-7 in eighth grade."
By the time he finished his senior year at Maine Central Institute, Johnson was the consensus national player of the year. He became the Conference USA freshman of the year at Cincinnati.
Johnson joined a struggling Atlanta team and Dikembe Mutombo became his mentor. When Johnson showed up at the Knicks' shoot-around, Mutombo figured he had been traded, unaware that he had been out of the league.
Johnson was aware of everything when he walked into the Garden that night. "My first N.B.A. points were in the Garden," he said. "I curled off a screen and hit a little floater in the lane over Glen Rice. And then I hit a 3-pointer."
He watched the Knicks' victory over Indiana from the bench.
Easing Back Into Shape
Knicks Coach Lenny Wilkens was surprised by Johnson's shy personality those first two days. "I didn't realize he was as quiet as he is," Wilkens said. "For the sixth pick in the draft, I expected more."
When he came to the Knicks, Johnson was not awed by the basketball, but by the kitchen at the team's new training facility. On Day 2, he ordered a ham-and-cheese omelet with potatoes, and it became his daily routine.
By the end of the second day, Johnson was eating and sleeping basketball. "I know all the plays," he said. "It's not that hard. I want to do more than just be here. I want to send a message and let everybody know I'm here and I can still play."
On Day 4, Wilkens said
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2/13/2004 10:32 AM
Hooray for him! I wish the guy luck.