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**USSKittyHawk** · 05-29-2007, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Well, we soon realized that streetball didn’t exactly mean playing basketball on an outdoor court: Streetball is a state of mind, an attitude. Streetball means breaking down your opponent in the most obvious and embarrassing way possible. Streetball means never being afraid.

And when it came time to figure out who should go on this year’s Streetball cover, we didn’t have to look very far. Ben, Khalid and I were sitting together at a Knicks game a few months ago when Nate Robinson checked in and immediately tried an ill-advised pass or shot, and suddenly it just clicked: Nate, welcome to your SLAM cover.

I’d spoken to Nate a few times in the locker room, but didn’t really have any
relationship with him. Actually, I wasn’t much of a fan of his as a player — he shoots too much, he doesn’t pass enough, he shouldn’t have won the dunk contest. I wasn’t the only one critical of Nate, and yet Nate continued to play as though he was always the most important player on the court.

As we worked to set up the cover shoot, I got to know Nate pretty well, and once you spend time with him you’ll see he’s pretty hard not to like. The way he plays is the way he talks, the way he carries himself, always bubbling and shining. he’s made some strange plays, like when he tried to bounce an alley-oop to himself on a fastbreak with a defender right on his tail. I heard a story that during Nate’s rookie season, after a disappointing loss in Atlanta, Larry Brown kicked Nate off the team bus for shooting spitballs. I don’t know if that’s a true tale, but Nate’s still a kid and he’s still learning how the game (and life) works. Remember at the end of his rookie campaign when we spotted Nate playing pick-up ball at West 4th Street during the Knicks season? I grew up in Atlanta during the Spud Webb era, and even though Spud could famously dunk, he never played with the flair that Nate can’t seem to control. Which made Nate the perfect guy to fron SLAM presents Streetball.

After our photographer Atiba Jefferson shot a bunch of Nate dribbling and posing, we asked him to do some high flying for us, with the caveat that he didn’t really have to dunk as long as he could just jump a few times and get near the rim. Nate kind of hemmed and hawed and said he wasn’t really warmed up, and we were willing to let him go without doing any dunks, but within about five minutes he was launching himself at the rim over and over, making about as many dunk as he missed.
Anyway, there’s plenty from Nate in SLAM presents Streetball.

But to give you a teaser for the weekend, here’s five of my favorite quotes from the Nate story:

5) “Basketball is my life, man. That’s what I bleed—if I cut myself basketballs would probably come out.”

4) “I just focus on trying to win the game and trying to make history, to do something spectacular so people will be talking about it forever.”

3) “That’s why Isiah’s so hard on me, and I tell him, Don’t change, keep being hard on me, because you’re going to bring the best out of me.”

2) “My Dad was a running back at the University or Washington. He was the first person to win the Rose Bowl and Orange Bowl MVP, and nobody’s broke that record yet. My Dad’s the only Dad in the world to have that record.”

1) “When I’m playing basketball, it’s like I got a little devil on one shoulder and a little angel on one shoulder, and the Devil’s like, ‘Go ahead and bounce it and throw it off the glass!’ And the angel’s like, ‘Now Nate, you know if you do this…’ That’s how it is sometimes. Like Kobe said, It’s like Babe Ruth: You swing big. You might miss, but if you hit it it’s going to be a home run. So you can’t hold back, man. Anything can happen.”

http://slamonline.com/online/2007/05...ts-streetball/

To read the entire article...click on the link above.

**USSKittyHawk** · 05-29-2007, 04:14 PM

Check out the cover and Nate's new hair do.

Maybe that added hair on his head will improve his decision making on the court.

shakespeare · 05-31-2007, 08:24 AM

Enjoyed the article.

Nate Robinson can never be accused of not speaking his mind. The piece shows signs that Nate is going to be Nate.

Fray · 05-31-2007, 11:19 AM

I have a question for you Knicks fans, how much potential does Nate really have? Will he ever be a legit starter in the NBA or will he just be a bench player with potential but horrible decision making his whole career?

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