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March 9, 2009
As hard as it for most of us to believe today, James Posey probably should never have been a professional basketball player. By his own admission he really didn’t have an interest in the game as kid growing up in a housing project on East 30th St., ironically one mile from Gund Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. It was a combination of Mother Nature and an astute amateur coach that pushed the hard-working Hornet indoors and away from football.
“Crazy thing about it, I wasn’t even into basketball,” says the 32-year-old Hornets reserve. “My first love was football. I only played basketball because I was tall, had a lot of energy, and my friends were doing it.”
Posey played receiver, quarterback and safety and, not surprisingly, won a pair of city football championships. But as fate would have it, Buddy King, who coached all of the sports he participated in at his Cleveland Recreation Center, was in reality the basketball coach!
“He kind of trapped me in the gym to let me know I could be a really good basketball player. I really didn’t have an interest in it, but coach King got me in the gym and started to develop me. He developed my post moves and gave me a sky hook. That, together with my own competitive nature let me take off (as a basketball player) in the gym.
Still, the 6-8 guard/forward may have never switched from cleats to tennis shoes had he grown up in a warm climate.
“You know, in Cleveland it gets real cold and one day I just said maybe it’s time to go indoors (laughing). In the spring season during my sophomore year of high school I decided it was time to commit to basketball.”
Posey’s parents never married, and that too played a role in his development as a student and high school basketball player. His dad, James Sr., lived in the suburbs (Shaker Heights) and mom, Rosetta Moore, in the 30th street projects. His mom knew it was in his best interests to move in with his dad.
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After Posey’s dad remarried and moved to Twinsburg, Ohio the future NBA star graduated from Chamberlin High School and was recruited by Skip Prosser to attend Xavier University.
“Xavier wanted me despite being a Prop 48 case (the NCAA passed a Proposition in 1983 mandating that student/athletes sit out their freshman season in order to reach certain academic requirements to become eligible to play). Coach Prosser told me that if I came to Xavier I would graduate. That was a promise he made to my mom and dad. Being a Prop 48 was difficult because I couldn’t practice with the team. I had to hit the books. Coach Prosser would always call me after practice to check that I had gone to study hall and to class and had everything I needed academically. I saw how much he cared about James Posey the person, not just the player.
“I had to maintain a 2.5 GPA (grade point average) to get a scholarship my sophomore year. Before that my parents had to hold three jobs to pay my tuition, so I couldn’t let my parents down.”
Posey qualified academically to play for Xavier during his final three seasons (95 games), averaging 15.3 PPG and 8.4 RPG while shooting 52.7 % from the field. He led Xavier in rebounding all three seasons, finishing third on their all-time steals list (204), eighth in rebounding (801), and 12th in scoring (1,445). In 1998-1999 he was named the Atlantic 10 Defensive Player of the Year after garnering the league’s Sixth Man of the Year in his first two seasons.
As spectacular as his college playing career was, Posey maintains that graduating from college was far more important to him.
“I was more concerned about graduating from Xavier University than even getting drafted in the NBA. I put all of my eggs into graduating. Of course basketball helped me, but it wasn’t my dream to play pro basketball. As I was getting better as a student I was getting better as a player. I wasn’t going to get caught up in my potential as a player and where I would get drafted. I wasn’t banking on getting into the Association. “
“I was the first in my family to graduate from college. Coach Prosser gave me that opportunity…he believed in me. One of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do was tell coach Prosser that I got my degree and did what I came to Xavier to do – graduate. Being Prop 48 I could have stayed one more season, but I had my degree and was ready to leave.”
Posey was hopeful of being chosen by his hometown Cavaliers who had a pair of lottery picks in 1999, but a different cold weather city was in his future.
“That would have been ideal! Cleveland used the 9th overall pick to choose point guard Andre Miller. We didn’t know what they would do with the 11th pick. But they didn’t call my name. They went with Trajan (Langdon, out of Duke Univ.). I was like, wow. My mom was really nervous after that. I was chosen 18th by Denver and for my family that was the SECOND dream come true (after graduating).” After playing three seasons in Denver he was traded to Houston during the 2002-2003 season. During the offseason he signed as a free agent with the Memphis Grizzlies. Ironically, it was with the western conference doormats that Posey began to understand how to win at the pro level.
“Hubie Brown made the game so simple and easy that everybody played to their potential. He gave each player so much confidence; he brought so much energy to practices and to games that we all wanted to run through a brick wall for him. He believed in us so much, we didn’t want to let him down.’
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In Miami Posey experienced the coaching genius of Pat Riley.
“Riley demanded so much from us. He wanted us to succeed. He was similar to Hubie in that he wanted you to do your job first and let everything else fall into place. He is so defensive-minded and to me that was the easiest thing because of my competitive nature. “
Two years later he signed with Boston as a free agent and like in Miami became part of a championship team.
“In Boston we were expected to win from the time we acquired Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. We worked hard and the veterans led by example in practice. KG had come close in Minnesota and Paul Pierce had gone through so many terrible teams. It was their sacrifices and leadership that was the difference. In Miami we were down 0-2 to Dallas and about three minutes away from falling to 0-3, but Shaq motivated us, telling us all we needed was one game. The opportunity was there and we seized the moment.”
Posey has had so many gratifying moments, both academically and athletically. But they haven’t come without pain. On July 28, 2007 his college coach died of a heart attack at the age of 56 shortly after a midday workout.
“I didn’t want to believe it at first. I had seen him a couple of months earlier in Miami and dinner with him and went to a game. He was an upbeat guy, a great guy, a great person and it just didn’t register because it didn’t make sense. He taught me how to be tough. I didn’t think it was possible that he had passed. He was such a tough guy none of us wanted to accept that he was gone.”
“What stays with me about coach Prosser is that sometimes I remember the things he said on the sidelines. Coach (Byron) Scott might say something from the bench and I can hear coach Prosser saying it. He had such a competitive nature. Part of him is with me every day. I’ll sometimes talk to D-West or CP (both of whom also played for Skip Prosser) about some of the things he would say or do and we all know how important he was because we all experienced it. What a great person he was.”
“Coach Prosser gave me confidence by motivating me and everybody on our team. He always let us know that success would not come easy, that it would take a lot of hard work; but, he would be with us every step of the way.
James Posey has overcome more obstacles than many to get into the NBA. He got out of football because of the Cleveland winters and a caring coach; he got out of the housing projects because of a selfless mom; he got his college degree because of a committed coach; he got the reputation as a winner in the NBA because he wasn’t afraid of hard work on and off the floor.
Posey’s ultimate goal is to win a third NBA title. While Hornets fans hope he gets that in New Orleans it would still rank second on his list with his other championships…behind that college degree.
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