Trey
David Robinson Collector
Ebi's demise a cautionary lesson for all
By JOHN P. LOPEZ
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
NDUDI Ebi's dream is not over, but we should hope the
charade is.
There will come a time when one of Houston's greatest schoolboy basketball players will realize he was just a gullible, misinformed kid.
Maybe that time will come when the checks from the Minnesota Timberwolves stop coming next year. Maybe it will be when Ebi is hustling for $50,000 a year in Europe, but hopefully it will be sooner.
Ebi wasn't ready for the NBA three years ago and might not be ready now. Not yet, anyway. But when he was everyone's All-American and called the next best thing to LeBron James in 2002, so many agents, rating services and hangers-on told him he was ready.
He started believing it. As soon as Ebi realizes he was wrong and starts over — not with a guaranteed contract, but in a gym full of players hungrier than him, and renewed humility in his heart, perhaps things will begin to change.
Humble beginnings ...
Until then, he will not be the Ndudi Ebi we once knew. He won't be the humble Ebi, who at Westbury Christian High School promised his family he would attend the University of Arizona at least for a couple of years, so he could grow and mature.
He won't be the Ebi who used to carry a notebook into the locker room before high school games, writing down inspirational messages to himself, listening to pregame devotionals, nodding and convincing himself he would always have perspective.
He won't be the Ebi who as a 15-year-old was turning down money and limousine rides to all-star games by shoe company representatives because he was loyal to his school and summer teams.
He won't be the Ebi who was always quiet and levelheaded, the son of Nigerian parents who not only never pushed their son into basketball, but hardly understood the game or watched Ebi play — concerned more with his academic progress.
Those days are hardly olden days. Yet after being chewed up and spat out by the NBA, the pages on which Ebi's rise to stardom were chronicled now seem faded, yellowed and ragged around the edges.
... give way to greed
Ebi became a different kind of person when he started listening to the wrong people. His is a classic case of gullibility and greed.
Agents came calling, telling him lies. He started thinking that just because he was running up the floor of the McDonald's all-star game with LeBron that it meant he was as prepared for the NBA grind and lifestyle.
He wasn't. That much became clear soon after the Timberwolves made him a No. 1 draft choice, 26th overall. Last month, after two fruitless seasons riding the bench, never developing into what the Timberwolves hoped — pronouncing himself too good to consider the NBA developmental league or Europe — the Timberwolves waived the 6-9 forward.
Few doubt Ebi could easily recover from his Minnesota slap in the face and become a quality NBA player. But Ebi's demeanor and parting shots from Minneapolis were disturbing to anyone who ever cared for him. They spoke to the depths of confusion the once-grounded Ebi has fallen.
"You don't know anything," Ebi told Minneapolis-St. Paul reporters last week. "You don't know if I'm smiling right now. You don't know if I'm crying. You don't know if I've got a gun to my head. You keep asking me questions like I'm a chump. ... I'm not a chump."
He spoke in the third person and fired off non sequiturs: "Now I just think I'm going to go into poetry, manual labor and live life like a regular guy. ... If you believe that, you don't know Ndudi Ebi. You wrote all that stuff down, didn't you? So you don't know Ndudi Ebi."
This was not the same Ebi who seemed to have it all figured out as a 17-year-old. This was a 21-year-old kid thrust into the real world too soon, believing it was all right there for the taking, but never understanding what it took to grasp it.
This was someone who always was told he was a superstar, believed it when a guaranteed $2.2 million contract came his way, then suddenly was overwhelmed.
"It's a good example of why not to leave early," said John Lucas, a former Rockets guard and longtime counselor for troubled athletes. "He didn't know how to play. He wouldn't have been playing right away if he had gone to Arizona, either. He had the ability. He just wasn't ready.
"The problem with rankings and things you read everywhere are they make people think they're better than they are. Everybody (in summer basketball) promotes their own guys so they can get shoe money. The guys ranked highest aren't necessarily better. They're just the guys who got ranked higher."
Teams are showing interest in signing Ebi, notably the San Antonio Spurs and Denver Nuggets. His talent is unquestioned. He is sure to get another chance to chase his NBA dream, but until Ebi swallows his pride and remembers the focus and humility he had as a teenager, nothing will change.
He has made one smart call. Ebi will return home and start working out with Lucas this weekend. Lucas, as always, will talk bluntly with the kid he tutored before the 2003 draft. He will tear apart Ebi's game and rebuild it. He will tell Ebi what he has told drug addicts, flops and failures.
"Life is nothing but a bunch of start-overs," Lucas said. "It's what you do with them that matters."
By JOHN P. LOPEZ
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
NDUDI Ebi's dream is not over, but we should hope the
charade is.
There will come a time when one of Houston's greatest schoolboy basketball players will realize he was just a gullible, misinformed kid.
Maybe that time will come when the checks from the Minnesota Timberwolves stop coming next year. Maybe it will be when Ebi is hustling for $50,000 a year in Europe, but hopefully it will be sooner.
Ebi wasn't ready for the NBA three years ago and might not be ready now. Not yet, anyway. But when he was everyone's All-American and called the next best thing to LeBron James in 2002, so many agents, rating services and hangers-on told him he was ready.
He started believing it. As soon as Ebi realizes he was wrong and starts over — not with a guaranteed contract, but in a gym full of players hungrier than him, and renewed humility in his heart, perhaps things will begin to change.
Humble beginnings ...
Until then, he will not be the Ndudi Ebi we once knew. He won't be the humble Ebi, who at Westbury Christian High School promised his family he would attend the University of Arizona at least for a couple of years, so he could grow and mature.
He won't be the Ebi who used to carry a notebook into the locker room before high school games, writing down inspirational messages to himself, listening to pregame devotionals, nodding and convincing himself he would always have perspective.
He won't be the Ebi who as a 15-year-old was turning down money and limousine rides to all-star games by shoe company representatives because he was loyal to his school and summer teams.
He won't be the Ebi who was always quiet and levelheaded, the son of Nigerian parents who not only never pushed their son into basketball, but hardly understood the game or watched Ebi play — concerned more with his academic progress.
Those days are hardly olden days. Yet after being chewed up and spat out by the NBA, the pages on which Ebi's rise to stardom were chronicled now seem faded, yellowed and ragged around the edges.
... give way to greed
Ebi became a different kind of person when he started listening to the wrong people. His is a classic case of gullibility and greed.
Agents came calling, telling him lies. He started thinking that just because he was running up the floor of the McDonald's all-star game with LeBron that it meant he was as prepared for the NBA grind and lifestyle.
He wasn't. That much became clear soon after the Timberwolves made him a No. 1 draft choice, 26th overall. Last month, after two fruitless seasons riding the bench, never developing into what the Timberwolves hoped — pronouncing himself too good to consider the NBA developmental league or Europe — the Timberwolves waived the 6-9 forward.
Few doubt Ebi could easily recover from his Minnesota slap in the face and become a quality NBA player. But Ebi's demeanor and parting shots from Minneapolis were disturbing to anyone who ever cared for him. They spoke to the depths of confusion the once-grounded Ebi has fallen.
"You don't know anything," Ebi told Minneapolis-St. Paul reporters last week. "You don't know if I'm smiling right now. You don't know if I'm crying. You don't know if I've got a gun to my head. You keep asking me questions like I'm a chump. ... I'm not a chump."
He spoke in the third person and fired off non sequiturs: "Now I just think I'm going to go into poetry, manual labor and live life like a regular guy. ... If you believe that, you don't know Ndudi Ebi. You wrote all that stuff down, didn't you? So you don't know Ndudi Ebi."
This was not the same Ebi who seemed to have it all figured out as a 17-year-old. This was a 21-year-old kid thrust into the real world too soon, believing it was all right there for the taking, but never understanding what it took to grasp it.
This was someone who always was told he was a superstar, believed it when a guaranteed $2.2 million contract came his way, then suddenly was overwhelmed.
"It's a good example of why not to leave early," said John Lucas, a former Rockets guard and longtime counselor for troubled athletes. "He didn't know how to play. He wouldn't have been playing right away if he had gone to Arizona, either. He had the ability. He just wasn't ready.
"The problem with rankings and things you read everywhere are they make people think they're better than they are. Everybody (in summer basketball) promotes their own guys so they can get shoe money. The guys ranked highest aren't necessarily better. They're just the guys who got ranked higher."
Teams are showing interest in signing Ebi, notably the San Antonio Spurs and Denver Nuggets. His talent is unquestioned. He is sure to get another chance to chase his NBA dream, but until Ebi swallows his pride and remembers the focus and humility he had as a teenager, nothing will change.
He has made one smart call. Ebi will return home and start working out with Lucas this weekend. Lucas, as always, will talk bluntly with the kid he tutored before the 2003 draft. He will tear apart Ebi's game and rebuild it. He will tell Ebi what he has told drug addicts, flops and failures.
"Life is nothing but a bunch of start-overs," Lucas said. "It's what you do with them that matters."
