With the current state of the Knicks - possibly not making the playoffs - I do not understand why they would not try to pick up a player like Leon or Omar Cook. Do they really need Larry Robinson on IR? Why not risk signing these guys to low-cost 1 year deals and see what happens? It's not like the current Knicks could get worse.

PS.: And with Travis Knight going on the IR, this seems an apporpriate time to sign a tall player.

Knicks Pursue CBA Star

January 13, 2002

The Knicks are one of four NBA teams in serious pursuit of troubled former first-round draft pick Leon Smith, a 6-10, 250-pound center who plays for the Gary (Ind.) Steelheads and is scoring 18.0 points per game and leading the CBA in rebounding with 15.3 per game.

Atlanta has offered Smith a 10-day contract, but he is seeking a more lucrative deal, according to attorney Jewell Harris Jr., whose family owns the CBA franchise. Besides the Hawks, Harris said the most serious bidders appear to be the Knicks, Portland and Orlando. Knicks pro personnel director Jay Hillock attended a game Thursday in which Smith had 24 points and 24 rebounds.

Smith was the last pick in the first round of the 1999 draft by San Antonio, which immediately traded the Chicago high school star to Dallas. Following some behavioral problems, including a suicide attempt, Smith was suspended and later waived that season without ever playing in the NBA.

The Knicks, who could use a low-post player, could offer him a minimum-salary contract for the rest of the season or even their $1-million salary-cap exception.

"I definitely have to say Leon has matured," Harris said yesterday. "He's 21 years old now, and he's adjusted well here. I think someone is going to make a move for him soon. This is the best guy in the CBA."


I think we need to take a chance on him because he definetly sounds for real.

Smith didn't have three assitants to guide him in Dallas, instead they told him they thought he was very talented but should mature in the CBA or overseas. This was one of the first blows to young Leon Smith, since you won't follow the link I'll post the whole story here,

besides, we should give him AND kahlid el-amin a guaranteed contract for at least this year, we have nothing to lose and need the hungry guys of the bench who have all to loose.

Hunter had never met Leon Smith, never even seen him, until that day they held the eighth-grade championship at South Shore High. If you're not from Chicago, it's hard to imagine how big the city tournaments really are. But there even the eighth-grade tournament is treated like the NCAA finals. High school coaches travel from all over the state just to evaluate twelve-year-olds. One coach offered an eighth grader's father a full-time job in exchange for his son's services; another gave students fake addresses so they'd be eligible to play in his district. "My ability to lure eleven- and twelve-year-old kids has a major part to do with my success as an adult," Steve Pappas, from Gordon Tech, told the Chicago Tribune. "If I don't do it, I'm gonna get crushed."

Hunter stared at him. "What's up?" he said.

Smith didn't say much, and Hunter didn't know whether he was mean or aggressive or just cold. "Didn't you play in the championship game?" Hunter said, trying again.

This time Smith said in his deep voice, "I played," and within a few minutes they started shooting--and that was all they did that summer, play ball.


Slowly, uneasily, Smith told Hunter bits and pieces of his story: how his father abandoned him and his seven siblings when Smith could barely walk; how, after his father was gone, his mother used to vanish for long periods, doing what, no one knew; how he'd wander the streets, searching for food and sleeping on park benches; how, when the police brought him to the station one day, he thought it was so nice he didn't want to leave; and how the Department of Children and Family Services finally put the brothers in one home and the sisters in another, so that from the age of five all Leon Smith had was his younger brother, Jerry.

They ran up and hugged her, even though they hadn't seen her for four years, maybe more. Then they went back to playing, and when they looked up again she had vanished.

Several years later she tried to get them both back, saying her demons were gone. But Smith and his brother told the judge they had already found a stable home and a mother of sorts in Mrs. Bauer. The judge agreed. But, not long after that, Smith turned 13, which made him too old for Lydia Home. And so Mrs. Bauer, one of the only people he ever trusted, said she had no choice but to kick him out. Smith pretended he didn't care. "I want to go," he kept saying. But he kept running away from his new orphanage to Lydia Home, where he would sneak into Jerry's room, and the state shuttled him from one shelter to the next until he finally ended up at Sullivan House.

High school talent scouts started coming from all over to watch Smith. They sat on the hoods of their cars and studied his arms and legs, then his facial hair, to see if he was still growing, and they looked, unsuccessfully, for his parents, hoping to see the logical endpoint of his gene pool. He could have gone to any school in the city but eventually chose Mt. Carmel High School, because it was known for getting its students into the best universities, places like Illinois and DePaul. But after a few weeks Smith emptied his locker and never came back. He transferred to Martin Luther King High School, where Coach Sonny Cox ruled over the public high school basketball leagues the way the Daleys ruled over the city.

So when Smith withdrew from Carmel, everyone assumed Cox was behind it. Carmel's coach immediately filed a complaint with the Illinois High School Association, saying Cox had illegally poached his franchise player. Smith and Cox denied any wrongdoing, and in the end nothing happened. But Ormon O'Quinn, a former King assistant known as Coach Q, says he got a call from "a friend" who told him, "Meet me at McDonald's and I'll have the kid there." Q maintains he didn't technically "recruit" Smith, but he adds proudly, "Everyone knows I'm the one who brought Leon to King."

He had grown so much that past summer that he could drive a car from the backseat. Yet the bigger he got, the more withdrawn he became. Sometimes when Mrs. Bauer came by Sullivan House to take him to visit Jerry he would wait outside, afraid the other kids might judge him, a black kid riding with a white woman. He was so scared of his classmates, many of whom teased him because of his size, that he refused to eat in the cafeteria and mostly stayed in the coaches' offices, talking to Coach Q, who would tell Smith things like, "You don't have to worry. God only made six-ten and seven-footers on Sundays and then only on special occasions." Then one day he told Smith, "You're gonna be the first kid ever to go straight from King to the pros." Smith looked at him like he was crazy. But afterward Smith told Hunter he'd only play with an official NBA ball--a 100 percent leather one inscribed with the commissioner's name--because he had to get used to it.