He could always score, and since the deal, he has averaged 13 points. "I told everyone I was going to be traded."Įverything has worked out. "That's how unhappy I was to be going back there," he says. Peeler was so excited that when he left Kansas City to go back to Vancouver at the end of the weekend, he didn't bring a single piece of baggage. And every day they worked out, Peeler hit the pad, telling himself, "They're not going to crack me," keeping himself strong.Īround the All-Star break, there were rumors of a trade to the Timberwolves. And so Anthony had a friend come up from his hometown in Kansas City, an old buddy who had a football tackling dummy. He never gave up in Vancouver because his father told him in those phone calls never to give up. I think he's enjoyed it here and we've enjoyed it here." "It's just like everything else just because you have a situation that doesn't work, it doesn't mean it can't work somewhere else. "It was a bad fit," says Minnesota General Manager Kevin McHale who made the trade for Peeler. For a while, the Grizzlies played Peeler, then Hill took over and played Sam Mack and Blue Edwards instead. The Lakers, who made Peeler the 15th overall pick in the 1992 draft and played him behind an All-Star, Byron Scott, dealt him away before the 1996-97 season in one of a series of one-sided deals designed to free enough salary-cap room to sign Shaquille O'Neal. He never wanted Vancouver, but he had no choice. It's hard to play on a team that has a lot of players who aren't playing together. "I love Vancouver, but I was just in a situation I was never going to get out of. "No doubt about it, it's been a dream come true getting out of that situation," Peeler says. He brings leadership and maturity, things you didn't always hear about Peeler. He can score from the outside, something they desperately needed, and he can score at any moment. Two players as big as Peeler was once supposed to be.Īsk the Timberwolves why this has been their best season, why they won 12 of their last 16 games, and why they think they have a decent chance of beating the Sonics this week in the first round of the playoffs, and they don't hesitate: "Anthony Peeler." He brings them versatility. The Timberwolves gave him a regular place, at shooting guard somewhere between Stephon Marbury and Kevin Garnett, two of the league's brightest young stars. The Minnesota Timberwolves rescued him in February and brought him here, back to the playoffs. Maybe after a decade of searching, he has found that moment again. He is talking and the eyes are looking at that distant place again. Everybody should get the chance to reinvent themselves, and here is Anthony Peeler self-assured again. The time in Vancouver, those brilliant nights with the Lakers when the game was late and he was on fire, even in college when his college career started to fall apart. It doesn't matter, it is all in the past. "I guess I just wasn't in (Coach) Brian Hill's plans for his team," he says. He sits now on the edge of a table at KeyArena and shrugs slightly. Nobody falls so far, so hard, so fast they wind up buried on the Vancouver Grizzlies. Fourth Quarter" ended up on the bench of the worst team in the league? How had it come to this? How had Anthony Peeler, once the player the experts said was the best guard in high school, the one the TV commentators regularly called "the next Jordan" all the way through college, the one people in the NBA loved to call "Mr. Never had he not played, and suddenly he wasn't playing at all and no one would tell him why." "Never in his life had he been in a situation like that. "We hurt as much as he did," Larry Peeler says. The smile was gone from Anthony's face.Įven in the worst times, Anthony Peeler could always find a way to smile. He watched the television, saw the games and noticed the fear on his son's face. He didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. His name was Anthony Peeler.Īlmost a decade later, Larry Peeler held the phone against his ear and heard the words spilling out from a country away. Then there was silence.įor on that night in Norman, in that packed arena, basketball fans were convinced this was like nothing they had seen. There was loud crack as the rim snapped down, then up. Suddenly, he was in the air - his feet pedaling a graceful arc, his eyes locked on some distant prize - and then in one giant circle, the arm swirled around, sending the ball crashing through. It happened on a warm February night in Norman, Okla., when the boy was just 18, and there was a basketball in his hand in the biggest game of the year.
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