Still, former University of North Carolina basketball star Rashad McCants and his NBA coach with Minnesota, Randy Wittman, have something in common. Both grew up in hoops-crazy states and both played on an NCAA champion for their home-state school.
Wittman, from Indianapolis, played for Bob Knight’s Indiana team that defeated North Carolina the national title in 1981.
McCants, from Asheville, was on the 2005 Tar Heel team that beat Illinois for the NCAA crown.
Despite the Timberwolves’ struggles, McCants has kind words about Wittman, a Hoosier who played in the NBA for three teams, and who missed three games due to back pain and surgery in December.
“He is a great coach, very positive. He knows what he is doing,” McCants said.
This from a man many thought was a volatile malcontent during his all-too-brief stay in Chapel Hill. His words show how much he’s grown. And he says them in the midst of a rough year for Minnesota, which traded star Kevin Garnett to Boston prior to the season.
Boston is up 14 games on its nearest Atlantic Division rival and already has clinched a playoff spot. The Timberwolves won just 12 of their first 60 games and were dead last in the Northwest Division, 27 games out of first place.
“We have to get some more wins,” said McCants, sitting in the Minnesota dressing room before a recent game in Washington. “You have to stay professional and you have to stay positive. It is night-in and night-out. You just have to stay professional. It is a grind, and you have to grind it out. You can’t let bad nights get to you.”
McCants has been one of the bright spots for the Timberwolves. He was averaging 14.9 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists per game through February. Heading into this weekend, he was second on the team in scoring, despite being sixth in minutes-played.
Maybe that helps explain his upbeat words. He averaged 7.9 points per game with 63 assists in 79 games as a rookie in 2005-06, and those numbers slipped to 5 ppg and 38 assists in 37 games in 2006-07 after undergoing micro-fracture surgery on his right knee June 19, 2006; that caused him to miss the first 44 games of his second NBA season.
“Last year was kind of a lost year for him coming off the surgery,” Wittman said of McCants.
But this season McCants had a career-high 33 points Nov. 14 against Sacramento, though a sore right knee caused him to miss the game Nov. 30 versus San Antonio.
McCants reached the 1,000-point mark for his NBA career Dec. 1 at Memphis, and he went over the 2,000-minute mark Nov. 10 at Sacramento. He followed that with an appearance at the NBA Dunk Competition, where he famously scaled a step-ladder to light a cupcake on the rim for teammate Gerald Green, and ran off a string of nine straight games with double-digit scoring in February.
He’ll never be a star in the NBA, but he can always fall back on his poetry.
01/25/2008 – 07:56
Number 1
by Rashad McCants
I feel it coming. I sense the veins in my body thicken as I dream of power.
I feel it overpowering me.
I hear it In my dreams, these words of momentum.
That lead me forward.
As I stop and think, my eyes just blink. No thought or sound.
Just words profound.
And my eye lashes touch and my dream stops I was born with a touch from the hand of him.
And he knew that my life would demand some sin.
But with the command from him,
I am here for a reason.
That very reason
To be
#1
(http://www.rashadmccants1.com/node/15)