Down and Dirty

By Jerry Bembry

Brad Miller bends his knees, crouches low in his stance and establishes position as he braces for the impending battle. Miller's ripped arms extend aggressively. The muscles in his thighs and the veins in his neck bulge as he leans in. On the sidelines, the crowd cheers wildly.

Miller pays them no mind. His attention is focused solely on budging the immovable foe in front of him. Suddenly, with one final, powerful shove, he breaks the deadlock. But it is not without a price. As the Ford Excursion dislodges from the deep muck at a hunting site in Grass Valley, Calif., a stream of mud shoots through its tire treads, covering Miller's massive seven-foot, 260-pound frame. His buddies barely catch their breath through the laughter on the drive back to Miller's home. Big Brad sits quietly behind the wheel, a muddy mess.

That's Miller: down and dirty.

In fact, from the moment he joined the team Shaq famously branded the "Queens," Miller made it clear he wanted to add a new wrinkle to their refined style of play. "No one dives on the floor in the West, no one wants to get dirty," he says. "The game is too pretty out here. I want to show them what it's like to get nasty."

A seven-year, $68 million contract says that's just what the Kings' brass wants too. Good thing, because Miller has perfected a get-under-your-skin peskiness. Viewers of Sacramento's Feb.11 game in Detroit saw mild-mannered big man Zeljko Rebraca ejected after taking a couple of swings at Miller in the third quarter. What they probably didn't see was the victim of that attack slyly placing a forearm in the back of Rebraca and an elbow firmly in his gut earlier in the game.

Brad Miller is getting defensive in Sacramento: "I want to show them what it's like to get nasty."

The moves were nothing over-the-top, and all of it was legal. For all anyone knew, that choirboy, "What did I do?" smirk on Miller's face as he watched Rebraca get tossed was sincere. Later on, Miller baited Corliss Williamson into a flagrant foul that led to another ejection. The Kings, by the way, won by two. "I can't run real fast or jump real high, so I pick at people," says Miller. "I wear guys out in ways you don't see."

He's being too modest. These days, the 28-year-old two-time All-Star is also taking care of business in ways you do see. A solid midrange shooter and an excellent high-post passer, Miller has put up nightly averages -- 14.4 points, 10.3 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 1.2 blocks -- that are all career highs. His two triple-doubles put him on an upscale list with Jason Kidd (9), Gilbert Arenas (3), Kevin Garnett (2) and Antoine Walker (2) as the only players with multiple TDs this season. "He's got tremendous vision and court intelligence, and he's a better passer than any of us could have imagined," coach Rick Adelman says.

When the Kings acquired Miller last off-season in a three-team trade involving the Spurs and Pacers, they thought they'd grabbed the missing piece to their title dreams. They didn't know they'd stumbled upon the most important one. "I don't even want to think about where we'd be this season without Brad," says Vlade Divac.

For one thing, they wouldn't have won so often without Chris Webber. The Kings were the NBA's best team at the break (37-13). Their record after 58 games -- all played with CWebb shelved with a bad knee -- was 43 - 15, three games better than at the same point last season.

Now the hot topic around the league is whether the Kings can win with Webber. After CWebb's March 2 return, the Kings went 11 - 9 and dissolved from a team praised for weathering adversity -- besides Webber, sixth man Bobby Jackson has missed 28 games -- to a team criticized, once again, for a lack of toughness.

Which brings us back to Miller. Sacramento's weakness is its defense, particularly its interior D. Until this year, the Kings never had a top-tier banger, a physical inside presence to complement Webber. Miller can nudge Shaq on the blocks and shadow mobile giants like Tim Duncan and Garnett.

And he can throw a legal elbow or two. "We have enough nice guys," Jackson says. "We need Brad to be nasty."

“ Everyone assumed I'd come here and get my ass kicked. ”
— Brad Miller, on his move to the Western Conference

IN A ballroom at the Century Plaza Hotel & Spa, one of those chic spots in West LA, the 2004 NBA All-Stars have assembled on a sunny February afternoon to meet the media. There's Allen Iverson on one side, sporting a diamond-encrusted bracelet you need sunglasses to view. Sam Cassell, reveling in his first All-Star appearance, holds court in the middle.

Somewhere beyond the swirl sits Miller. He's bleary-eyed, having just flown in from Indianapolis. And he's a little pissed. "My driver was an hour late picking me up, and then he got lost," he says, in a deliberate hillbilly twang. He adds sarcastically, "Not a way to treat an All-Star."

Miller takes a deep breath, then lifts a bottle of iced tea to his lips. He spits out a torrent of dark juices, the backwash of a pinch of Skoal. C'mon, Brad, lighten up, it's All-Star Weekend. "I'd rather be home hunting," he says, before explaining he's got his PlayStation to keep him busy.

Damn if his career isn't always getting in the way of his passion. Mark Bartelstein, Miller's agent, tells the story of his client's reaction after finding out he'd been traded to the Kings. Miller had a hunting and fishing trip scheduled in Kentucky, so he wanted to know if they could delay his Kings physical for a couple of days. "I can't have a contract contingent on your physical on the table, and you're out there with a gun in your hand," Bartelstein told Miller. He got his client to fly to Sacramento only after guaranteeing he could quickly get him back to the great outdoors. "I had to helicopter him to the fishing hole," Bartelstein says. "That's Brad. He'll never change."

The man who would save the Kings doesn't wear throwbacks. He is one.

THE METAL gate to the back entrance of Arco Arena raises open, allowing passage to a shiny silver SL 500 with tinted windows. Opening the door, Miller unfurls from the luxury sports car -- okay, he's not quite a total country hick -- and hurries down the hall to the Kings locker room. There's no game this January night, just an event for season ticket-holders who have partially filled the lower bowl of what's typically the league's loudest venue. Miller grabs a purple team hat from a ball boy, and after tipping the kid $20, he hurries onto the stage. He takes the mike for a brief Q&A, but as he plants himself on a sofa, a leg collapses. A collective gasp goes out from the stands. "Guess I ate too much," Miller says, and the joint cracks up.

Having a good time in Sacramento is normal. The Kings are the rare team that actually seems to enjoy the game. They joke with each other and say all the right things in interviews, and it's clear they get along off the court. Early in the season, some worried the extremely private Miller wouldn't fit in. His self-effacing ad-lib shows that was unfounded.

Miller proved right away that he could hang with the guys on the court. "Everyone assumed I'd come here and get my ass kicked," he says about his move to the higher-octane West. But he's flourished from the start, even amid the constant movement and backdoor cuts. In his first 17 games with Sacramento, he tied or established career highs in points (35 against the Wolves on Dec. 5), rebounds (16 against the Celtics on Nov. 9) and assists (11 against the Warriors on Nov.16). "I played against him when he was at Purdue, so I know his game," says Jackson, who played at Minnesota. "But I'm looking at the box score and thinking, dag. It was mind-boggling."


Brad Miller
Forward-Center
Sacramento Kings
Profile


2003-2004 SEASON STATISTICS
GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%
71 14.3 10.3 4.3 .514 .777

Miller has an all-around game today because he was once a 5'11" freshman guard at East Noble High School in Kendallsville, Ind. A 12-inch growth spurt over the next three years put him in the post, and he worked hard at Purdue to further craft his interior play. Still, NBA teams didn't see enough polish, and he went undrafted. He played just 16 games in Italy before signing with the Hornets in 1999. Two seasons later, he signed with the Bulls before landing back in Indiana in a seven-man trade in the middle of the 2001-02 season.

Tonight, having shifted to a more sturdy sofa, Miller responds to issue No.1 for the fans in Sacto: how will he adapt his role to accommodate Webber? "With Vlade, I have to run the court every time because he stays back, hoping we take a quick shot so he doesn't have to cross halfcourt," Miller says, as the fans and Divac, who's seated next to him, laugh. "I'm looking forward to having another guy run with me."

But the Kings don't really need Miller to run. They need him to stop opposing big men from running up big numbers. They need him to take opponents out of the game; that is, to do what he's always done. When he was with the Bulls in 2002, Miller's hack job on Shaq made the highlight circuit, because O'Neal's retaliatory punch, had it connected, would have knocked Miller out cold. (That's actually a best-case scenario.) It wasn't the first time Miller had brought fear to the court. In an April 2001 game against Indiana in which Jermaine O'Neal was dominating the paint, then-Bulls coach Tim Floyd gave Miller a simple order: stop the easy layups. Soon after, O'Neal went to the rim and Miller fouled him, hard. "The next time down the court," Miller says, "Jermaine drills me and gets tossed." But after Miller was traded to the Pacers, he and O'Neal became good friends. "Brad's one of those guys you hate to play against," O'Neal says. "I enjoyed having him as my teammate, though."

The Kings were quick converts as well. And that was before they saw the way Miller handled his demotion to the bench following Webber's return. "Really, it's no big deal," Miller says. "As long as I'm helping out, as long as we win, that's all that matters." If only the fans were so understanding. They saw the team, with Miller starting, lap the league. Now, with Webber back in the lineup, the Kings look decidedly less invincible. During two recent home games against the Warriors and Rockets, Arco reverberated with loud boos whenever Webber took the floor. Dressing in front of his locker after one of those games, Webber tried to laugh off the fans' reaction, even as his eyes betrayed a deep hurt (see page 69). Seated in the adjoining stall, Miller felt his teammate's pain. He knew Adelman was using the final month of the season as a training camp to get the two big men used to each another.

"I knew what my role was when I came here," Miller says. "And I know Webb has to be right for us to win a championship."

IT'S JANUARY, and it's time to stock the fridge. Miller steps out of his Benz and walks into the local Safeway. Before he can even pick up a cart, he's rushed by a man who thrusts a basketball in his face to sign. "I'm thinking, where the heck did he get a ball so quick?" Miller says. "It's tough in Sacramento, being the only game in town."

More to the point, in a town starved for a championship, Miller is the latest reason for hope. These fans have felt the heartbreak of Robert Horry's back-from-the-dead three in Game 4 of the conference finals against the Lakers two years ago, and of Webber's crushing knee injury against Dallas in Game 2 of the West semis that effectively ended Sacramento's 2003 season.

The signs point to Sacramento setting up its fans for further anguish. The Kings have already blown their lead in the West. The Lakers are healthy and rolling, and the Spurs, as usual, only seem to be getting stronger as the playoffs begin.

To a man, the Kings are confident the magic they had in November, December and January will resurface through April, May and June. If it does, it will be Miller carrying the wand.

"I know what I'm here for," Miller says, before slipping a little tobacco out of the corner of his mouth. "And with what we have, I know I can help get it done."