12-14-2004, 11:08 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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Kwisatz Haderach
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Coatesville, PA
Age: 25
Posts: 24,078
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Bucker: Last year was worst year of my life..
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PHILADELPHIA - When he first joined the Philadelphia 76ers, Greg Buckner felt like a wanted man.
Two years later, he felt like a prisoner.
Upon his return to Philadelphia, he simply would like to enjoy a feeling of vindication.
Three months after finalizing what amounted to a divorce settlement with the 76ers, Buckner will face his former team tonight as a member of the Denver Nuggets.
"I forgot Buck played here," center Marcus Camby said after Denver wrapped up practice Monday.
For the most part, Buckner also would like to forget his time with the 76ers, particularly last season when he averaged 13.3 minutes in 53 games.
"It was the worst year of my life," he said while sitting in the collapsible bleachers of the Philadelphia Community College gymnasium.
"I'm a professional athlete. I'm a basketball player, I love to play. And when I think that I should be playing and I'm not playing and we're still losing . . . it makes you wonder what's really going on."
Buckner's season on the blink came after Larry Brown left the 76ers to take over as coach of the Detroit Pistons.
Brown was instrumental in luring Buckner to Philadelphia as a free agent in the summer of 2002 and general manager Billy King signed off on a six-year, $18 million contract.
It was a generous guaranteed deal for a shooting guard who averaged 5.9 points in his first three NBA seasons with the Dallas Mavericks, but Buckner fit Brown's need for a defensive specialist.
Buckner gave Brown, whom he described as a "father figure," defensive consistency while averaging 6.0 points in 2002-03, but his role diminished sharply under subsequent coaches Randy Ayers and Chris Ford.
Asked why things did not work out for him in Philadelphia, Buckner was direct.
"Larry Brown left," he said. "He knew what he was doing."
Though the criticism sounds like an indictment of Ayers and Ford, Buckner did not blame the coaches.
"I'm not sure how much Billy King really wanted me there," he said. "Once Larry left, things kind of soured after that."
With Philadelphia's roster saturated with shooting guards and small forwards, Buckner was waived Sept. 8 after reaching a buyout agreement that paid him $8 million of the $12.9 million remaining on the final four years of his contract.
In explaining the move to 76ers season-ticket holders, King said Buckner probably was not going to play much and King saw it as an opportunity to save money while giving Buckner a chance to catch on with another team.
Twenty games into the season, Buckner is getting the better end of the deal.
He is averaging 6.4 points in 22.5 minutes for the Nuggets (12-8). The 76ers are 8-12.
"I'm getting older and older and I want to win a championship," he said. "Honestly, I didn't know what (the 76ers) were doing or how they were going about getting a championship, and I didn't want to be a part of that.
"I wanted to be a part of a winning organization that really wanted to win and was going to do everything it takes to win and do things the right way. God blessed me to get out of that situation and into a great situation in Denver."
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Who cares about a championship drought?:
My teams will never win a championship anyway, so why don't you discuss everything else at my forum? Good idea, right? Yeah, I thought so. It's called.. Booing Santa Claus. See you there.
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Originally Posted by Henry Rollins
“The average is the borderline that keeps mere men in their place. Those who step over the line are heroes by the very act. Go.”
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Buckner: Last year was worst year of my life..
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