It was a rags-to-riches story. A story of a dream that finally came true but not after exerting all the efforts and going through the hardship of seeing himself labor in the minor league before stepping on basketball’s biggest floor, the
NBA.
The following is a reprint of the article written by popular NBA writer
David Aldridge on
NBA.com entitled
“In A Turbulent World, Gaines’ Story Brings Joy”. It is about a kid from the
NBA Development League named
Sundiata Gaines, who after signing a 10-day contract with the
Utah Jazz (out of NBDL’s
Idaho Stampede) scored a basket that would be long remembered, a buzzer-beater that broke the backs of the visiting
LeBron James and the
Cleveland Cavaliers last January 14 on a cold Thursday night in Salt Lake City:
“Covering sports is a great way to make a living. But there are days, weeks even, when it isn't a barrel of laughs.
Consider baseball, whose on-field renaissance keeps getting plowed over by the latest steroid confession, the latest being Mark McGwire's weepy, orchestrated admissions, leaving writers trying to ascertain what was legitimate remorse and what was self-serving pablum.
The NFL has a pending labor storm on the horizon, with the possibility of a work stoppage in 2011 looming. (So, too, does the NBA.) There's always domestic violence and, occasionally, cartoon violence, the fallout of which we've dealt with in Washington the last couple of weeks.
Then, there came a calamity that crossed over into the sports world, one to which no human is adequately equipped to respond: an earthquake of devastating power and destruction which killed tens of thousands in Haiti, the home of the 76ers' center, Samuel Dalembert. Sammy D has always been a quirkly player, but his philanthropic side has never been challenged, and it was never in greater need and demand than this week, when he asked for the NBA's help for his stricken country. Sometimes, you feel like anything you give is like a rock being thrown into a great canyon. How could it possibly do any real good?
So it was a genuine joy to spend some minutes this week with a kid with a great story, a great smile and a great name, who had a great first week on the job and hit a great shot Thursday night to beat a great player and his great team.
The young man is Sundiata "Yata" Gaines, and if you've at all been paying attention, he's the 23-year-old NBA Development League callup for Utah who hit the game-winning 3-pointer last Thursday to beat LeBron James and the Cavaliers -- on the last day of his 10-day contract.
"I knew they kept you here for some reason," joked Ronnie Brewer afterward. But of course, there was a back story, which indicates, again, how some teams seem to always be "lucky" and find guys like Gaines, while others don't.
Gaines first got onto the radar of Utah's general manager, Kevin O'Connor, in 2008, when he led the University of Georgia to an improbable Southeastern Conference Tournament championship. That was the year a tornado struck the Georgia Dome during the Mississippi State-Alabama quarterifinal game and postponed Georgia's quarterfinal game with Kentucky to the following day. That meant Gaines and the Bulldogs had to win two games in one day just to make the tournament final, after winning just four conference games during the regular season.
Gaines simply recalled his days playing AAU ball, and Georgia beat both Kentucky and Mississippi State, becoming the first team in more than 40 years to win two tournament games in the same day. The Bulldogs then completed their incredible run by beating Arkansas in the final, and Gaines was named tournament MVP.
"It was definitely a confidence booster," Gaines said. "At the time, as long as we didn't play Tennessee, I felt like we had a great chance to win it. And we didn't play them. We played Arkansas, and I knew we had a great chance of beating them. Me and my teammates, I just wanted to build confidence in my teammates, and they all followed my lead ... I just had confidence in myself."
But despite finishing his Georgia career first in school history in steals, second in assists and ninth in points, Gaines didn't get drafted after his senior season. NBA scouts weren't sure about his jumper, so Gaines went to Europe to work on it, playing for NGC Cantu in Italy last season, where he averaged 13 points in just under 32 minutes per game.
"For me, at first I didn't really want to go," he said. "But it was a great opportunity for me. I played a lot of minutes at the point guard position, which I started playing in college. I never was a true point guard growing up, so I had to learn the position. I'm still learning now. The professional game, how to pick and roll, how to play different defensive schemes. I mean, that helped me out so much."
Cantu wanted to keep him, but Gaines hadn't given up on the NBA yet, and after he spent the summer in camps with the Knicks, Mavericks and Hawks, he went the NBA Development League route after being taken 15th overall in the first round of the draft by the Idaho Stampede.
Sundiata Gaines has taken a long path to Utah.
"I was shocked he was there," said Idaho's first-year coach, Bob MacKinnon, by telephone Sunday. "I'm from back east, and I had known about him back to when he was at Archbishop Malloy (High School, in New York). I knew he was a very good player and had people from Malloy talk very highly of him."
The NBA D-League operates at cross purposes. Guys have to improve their games to get a look from NBA teams, but that very act of improving often comes at the expense of team cohesion and chemistry. It's a delicate act that can throw a lot of teams off balance. Gaines needed to work on his defense off the ball, staying focused -- something he's had problems with during his career -- as well as continuing to develop his point guard skills. At 6-foot-1, he wasn't going to get very far as a shooting guard.
"He wants to get better, and that's what our league is all about," MacKinnon said. "He was like a sponge. He would come in and ask questions, what he needed to work on, what his deficiencies were, and then he'd come in and work on them. He was one of those guys that, when you're saying something, you wonder who's really listening, and he was the first guy to go out there and work on them ... on the ball, he's very good, stays in front, and although he's small, he's strong. He improved every day at it and just kept getting better and better. That's what people in the league told me they needed to see him do, and he was doing it."
Even though Gaines didn't start for the Stampede, which is the affiliate for the Nuggets and Blazers (guard Patty Mills, Portland's second-round pick, is on the roster, along with recently released Cavs guard Coby Karl), he still led Idaho at 23.9 points per game (fourth overall in the D-League), 6.9 assists and 2.3 steals (both third in the league). And Gaines didn't complain about coming off the bench.
"We play more a possession game than a minutes game," MacKinnon said. "He told me, 'Coach, it doesn't matter if I start or not,' which is a great thing to hear from a guy. If you do get called up to the NBA, it's not like you're getting called up to start. They do want to see if you can come off the bench. Last year, when I was at Colorado, and we won the championship, I had Sonny Weems sent to me by the Nuggets. He came off the bench and he was fine with it, and now he's doing the same thing for the Raptors."
O'Connor went up in early January to see a game between the Jazz's D-League affiliate, the Utah Flash, and Idaho. Everyone assumed that O'Connor was there to see Dontell Jefferson, his own guard prospect who's been tearing up the league, before bringing him back to Salt Lake City, where the Jazz were dealing with injuries to backup point guard Ronnie Price. (Utah's point guard depth took a hit when the Jazz essentially gave away first-round pick Eric Maynor to Oklahoma City last month in a deal for injured forward Matt Harpring, who is unofficially retired. The move saved Utah more than $8 million in potential luxury tax payments this year.)
But O'Connor had a different callup in mind.
On Jan. 5, Utah's Dave Fredman, the team's longtime scout and former GM of the Flash, went up to Idaho to get a player. Gaines didn't know it was going to be him. There was barely time to say goodbye ("We're happy for you," MacKinnon says, "but we don't want to see you back again").
"Once he said my name, I mean, it was the best thing that ever happened to me," Gaines said. "This is what I've dreamed about since I was four years old, playing in the NBA, developing and being a superstar in the NBA. When I got the opportunity I was just happy to be here."
Gaines didn't have long to get used to being in the big league; when Deron Williams injured his wrist and Price's shoulder tendinitis flared up, Gaines was thrown in quickly, playing 21 minutes for Utah against Memphis. Things calmed down a little the next three games when Williams came back, and Gaines finally had his first real practice with the team last Wednesday, which gave him an opportunity to show if he really had picked up the playbook as quickly as he'd claimed.
The next evening, Gaines was thrust into the spotlight again, when Williams aggravated the sprain early in the fourth quarter against Cleveland. There was Gaines, feeding Carlos Boozer for an and-one; there was Gaines, completing his own three-point play to help Utah build a 12 point fourth-quarter lead. But there also was Gaines, being harrassed into a couple of turnovers by Mo Williams' tough fullcourt D as the period went on. Sloan brought back Price for the stretch run, with Utah up 12, but no one was prepared for what happened next.
LeBron went insane, scoring 16 points in less than four minutes: 3-pointer, three-point play, three-point play, free throw, 3-pointer off an offensive rebound following a miss of his second free throw, ridiculous 28-foot 3-pointer with 40 seconds left, giving Cleveland a seemingly insurmountable lead. But Sloan started fouling, the Cavs missed just enough to keep Utah alive, Kyle Korver made an amazing shot from behind the basket, and the Jazz got the ball down two with five seconds left.
Utah was supposed to run a double screen for Korver, but Cleveland saw it coming and jumped it, leaving Korver with two options: 1) force up a shot over a double-team, or 2) move the ball. So he swung it to Price, whose options weren't much better, and Price swung it to Gaines, about 26 feet out on the right wing. Cleveland's Anthony Parker got a hand in Gaines' face, but Gaines knows how to score: only Kenny Anderson and Kenny Smith scored more at Malloy than he did.
Swish. And bedlam. His teammates, led by Boozer, he of the $68 million free-agent deal and the uncertain future, rushed the court to tackle him. Gaines wound up standing on the scorer's table, gesturing to the delirious crowd.
"I was so excited, I found myself trying to jump," Sloan said.
It was Gaines's first NBA 3-pointer.
"I was watching it," MacKinnon said. "When he made that shot, I got about six text messages from his teammates. I knew if the ball got to him, he was going to shoot it, because he's a confident guy. It made the hair on my arms stand up."
Even the Cavaliers' response was appropriate. There was no "Aww, isn't that cute?" in the Cavs' locker room. Cleveland's fighting for a championship this season and for James' future this summer, and anything that deters from that mission, even for one night, is no laughing matter. The Cavs were ticked off. James, who almost never shows any true anger in public, was brusque and snapped headphones on after a brief session with the press, wheeling his bag behind him with a don't-mess-with-me-now look on his face.
I loved it.
These guys play to win, not for the money -- well, not just for the money.
All it did, though, was earn Gaines another 10 days. There really is no guarantee he'll be around the rest of the season, though it's very unlikely he wouldn't be. But even if that happens, no one can take away Jan. 14, 2010, and what Sundiata Gaines, named after an ancient king of Mali, did to LeBron James and the Cavaliers.
"The crazy thing about it is, I was sitting on the bench, and I just dreamed about it happening," he said. "I said I knew Ronnie was going to have the ball, and he was going to pass it to me, and I was going to catch it, and I was going to win the game."
The whole night -- the fight of the Jazz, the briliance of James, the way Sloan and the Jazz honored the game by playing it until the very last second, Gaines' miracle -- made me remember what it was that drew me to the NBA all those years ago, and what's kept me around all these years, and what makes all the travel and time away from loved ones worth it, and why I love the game so.”
*****
Herewith are the completed transactions covering the period January 7 to 26, 2010:
Tuesday, January 26
Los Angeles Clippers waived JamesOn Curry.
New Orleans traded guard Bobby Brown to the Los Angeles Clippers for a conditional second-round pick in 2014.
Monday, January 25
New Orleans traded guard Devin Brown to Chicago for center Aaron Gray.
Utah signed guard Sundiata Gaines for the remainder of the season.
Golden State signed forward Anthony Tolliver to a second 10-day contract.
Saturday, January 23
Cleveland signed guard Cedrick Jackson to a 10-day contract.
Forward Marcus Haislip signed with Panathinaikos (Greece).
Friday, January 22
San Antonio waived forward Marcus Haislip.
Atlanta signed guard Mario West to a second 10-day contract.
Los Angeles Clippers signed guard JamesOn Curry to a 10-day contract and waived guard Kareem Rush.
Wednesday, January 20
Golden State signed guard Cartier Martin to a second 10-day contract.
Monday, January 18
Guard Stephon Marbury signed with Shanxi Zhongyu (China).
Milwaukee signed guard Jerry Stackhouse.
Houston exercised the contract option on head coach Rick Adelman through 2010-11.
New Jersey named Tom Barrise special assistant to the president and Jimmy Sann assistant coach.
Sunday, January 17
Golden State signed forward Anthony Tolliver to a 10-day contract.
Friday, January 15
Utah signed guard Sundiata Gaines to a second 10-day contract.
New Jersey waived forward Shawne Williams.
Tuesday, January 12
Atlanta signed guard Mario West to a 10-day contract.
Monday, January 11
Dallas traded forwards Kris Humphries and Shawne Williams to New Jersey for forward Eduardo Najera.
New Jersey waived forward Sean Williams.
New Orleans traded center Hilton Armstrong and cash to Sacramento for a 2016 conditional second-round pick.
Sunday, January 10
Golden State signed guard Cartier Martin to a 10-day contract.
Saturday, January 9
Memphis signed guard Lester Hudson.
Friday, January 8
Portland signed forward Shavlik Randolph to a 10-day contract.
Memphis signed guard Lester Hudson.
Thursday, January 7
Miami signed guard Rafer Alston.
