deconstructing - Shawn Bradley - inlcudes related articles

Sporting News, The, March 22, 1999 by Ken Amos

* After signing a seven-year, $44 million contract, he has played for three NBA teams in six years.

* Whispers that his game is too `soft' once swelled into a chorus.

* His sixth head coach admits he often tries to keep his 7-6 center from embarrassing himself by asking him to concentrate solely on his defensive game.

* If he ever wants to bring all aspects of his game together, now is the time for SHAWN BRADLEY to listen to some sage advice from respectable NBA veterans. He might even like what he hears.

Too nice, too physically frail, too fundamentally flawed and too mentally soft for the NBA.

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Shawn Bradley has heard these barbs, endured constant calls to add bulk to his 250-pound, 7-6 frame and in general exasperated those surrounding him.

Does he really need a little more unsolicited advice?

Coaches and players, who can be brutally honest, help you quickly understand how Bradley's fragile psyche has been stung by the fickle nature of fans who are drop-step quick to jump on and off his bandwagon.

Bradley spends a promising night or two in the paint against ordinary centers and middle-of-the-pack teams only to follow it up with abject humiliation at the hands of prototypical NBA centers to whom he gives away as much as 65 pounds.

He has exasperated the 76ers and Nets--owners, coaches and teammates alike--because their expectations have been as exaggerated as his height.

Sandwiched between Chris Webber and Penny Hardaway in the 1993 draft after playing one season at Brigham Young followed by two years of Mormon-faith missionary work, Bradley often has been the rail-thin butt of jokes:

What do you call Manute Bol with a large contract? Answer: You know who.

"Whether it's fair or not, that's the way it is," a calm, reflective Bradley says after a recent game-day walkthrough in the Mavericks' posh practice facility. "I've been supported by the people who I've needed to be supported by," referring to his wife and four daughters.

Bradley has either forgiven or forgotten about the hurt of being traded so much and those who attempted to stuff him with more than 5,000 calories a day.

"(John) Lucas traded me, and we still talk," he says. "(John) Calipari traded me, and we still get along well. I still see him before and after our games. I just don't see the sense in going through life creating bad relationships."

In early 1997, Dallas coach and G.M. Don Nelson pressed Calipari to include Bradley in a nine-player trade, and Nelson thought he had secured a lone star for the Mavericks' sagging fortunes.

"We tried to do some creative things with him last year," says assistant coach and Mavericks first son Donn Nelson. "Instead of pounding and going against a guy, (we were doing) more releasing of contact, spinning and using his agility against bulkier guys. But we had inconsistent success with it."

But this season, the Nelsons had another strategy. They would remove the offensive burden from Bradley's shoulders--both candidly admit--to lessen the odds of him being embarrassed by those prototypical behemoths.

"In a nutshell, with him, what we've tried to do is to totally de-emphasize the offense," Donn Nelson says. "We know he has a shot-blocking skill. We know he's an intelligent defender. We know that if he puts his mind to it he can run the floor and get back defensively, so we've tried to emphasize those things and de-emphasize the post-ups.

"We're using him more as a feeder, a low-post passer. And he's not in situations where a guy knocks him off balance, he looks bad, his confidence goes low and the crowd gets on him. Any guy who is that tall and has that kind of body is sensitive ... so we don't need to add to his frustrations by putting him in awkward situations."

Although his minutes and offensive numbers are down, Bradley insists he does not view the coaches' motives as demeaning. Rather, he sees this as a mining point toward his maturation as an NBA player.

"I'm feeling very comfortable with the role that I've been put in this year," Bradley says. "There's not as big of an emphasis on scoring for me as there is on defense, blocking shots and going after rebounds. It's really lifted a weight off my shoulders. I've been able to go out and be more comfortable and have a lot of fun. My confidence is higher, my understanding of the game is higher, my maturity level is more."

He also creates complex matchup problems.

"(Bradley) creates a significant problem for us," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich says, "just because he's so damn tall. You know you're not going over this guy. He looks skinny, he looks weak and all that, but 7-6 and long is 7-6 and long. We spend a lot of lime with our bigs talking about isolating him or going all the way to the rim but not going over him."

As testament, Bradley is averaging nearly four blocks per game and has been doing the little things asked of him--changing shots, getting more taps on the offensive boards, grabbing and swatting rebounds, running the floor and being a valuable source of misdirection.

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deconstructing - Shawn Bradley - inlcudes related articles

Sporting News, The, March 22, 1999 by Ken Amos

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