<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Inside the paint, in the swelter of the Furtado Center, Leon Smith and Jerome James, two big men with things to prove, are fighting a turf war. Smith lays a subtle shoulder into James and raises his arm, asking for the basketball on the low blocks. James is trying to muscle him off his spot and push him farther from the basket. But Smith gets the pass and feathers an awkward-looking jump hook over James' ravenous left arm. The shot bounces one, two, three times and falls through. And then Smith hustles into position as the Sonics' summer team practices its full-court trap. Far from the national spotlight and even further from all of the troubles that have followed him in and out of his basketball career, Leon Smith continues his serious attempt to resurrect his game. He is most comfortable here. On the floor, nobody is trying to take from him. Nobody is trying to use him. The game is faithful. It doesn't lie. It doesn't leave. If he's open in the lane, he's going to get the pass. And when he gets the pass in the perfect spot, chances are he's going to score. Basketball, for Leon Smith, is love requited. "Deep down inside, basketball is something beyond me," said Smith, who is playing for the Sonics this week in the Salt Lake City summer league. "There's something inside of me, that I can't explain or even control, that makes me love the game more than anything else." Smith's is a story of a childhood that got lost in the hurly-burly of the inner city. His parents abandoned him when he was 5, and he became a ward of the state. He lived in a children's home in Chicago then, when he outgrew that facility, moved to Sullivan House, a group home for teenage boys. "I remember sitting in the home and never knowing why I was there," Smith said. "There was no way I could ask, 'Why me?,' because I never knew where that question might lead. I just felt the pain.</div> <font size="1">Full Story courtesy of Steve Kelley and the Seattle Times.</font> It's a long article, but I would recommend that you all read this. The sort of story that makes you want to be on his side, and makes you want to see him succeed down the line. Whether that's in Seattle is a different matter.
If he were as talented as Kemp he wouldn't of had to go through the minor leagues like he has. He sounds like a good kid who just wasn't ready to be a pro when he was drafted. I don't think that he is a good fit for the Sonics (four centers under contract) but I'm pulling for him to sign a free agent deal w/ someone.
