Leon Smith is the best athlete in t the gym, but he’s not here to play. He leans back in a metal chair and watches his brother run the floor at the Savannah Center, on the campus of Indiana University Northwest, during a September free-agent tryout for the Continental Basketball Association’s Gary Steelheads. Of the 30 hopefuls participating, five or six have the fluidity, control, and head-turning athleticism required to someday compete in the CBA, considered a stepping stone to the NBA. Smith’s brother, Jerry Sanders, is one of those few. Sanders is a lithe, elastic six-eight forward who played briefly at Northern Illinois University after graduating from Gordon Tech. He hasn’t played competitively in over a year, but he is talented, if not Leon Smith spectacular. The brothers share a complicated personal history, and each displays an unexpected quiet confidence.
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If you’re a basketball fan, you already know the Leon Smith story. Or think you know it. He was born in the Chicago projects, abandoned by his parents, then sent to live in group homes with his brother. He slept on benches, spent nights walking the streets. If he hadn’t grown into an imposing six-ten talent with a freakish wingspan, incredible strength, and a rare, innate sense of space, Smith might have lived a tragic, anonymous, and possibly short life. Instead, in his teens he became a star at King High School. He dunked and the lights flickered, the building shook, the other team’s fans high-fived. His legend exploded and sycophants swarmed. Street agents disguised as fatherly mentors descended. His own father reappeared. Drafted straight out of high school with the last pick of the first round in the 1999 NBA draft, Smith joined the Dallas Mavericks. He rebelled, fought teammates, and sniped at head coach Don Nelson, and the team severed its connection to him. Nelson wrote him off as a mistake. Smith broke down, and violent, bizarre, self-destructive outbursts followed. He was arrested in Chicago for threatening an ex-girlfriend. He attempted suicide, taking handfuls of aspirin, and was discovered passed out cold in his apartment, paint smeared across his face. A flameout at 19, he became a cautionary tale, a stay-in-school PSA. His story was about a system betraying a kid and a kid betraying his talent, and it was supposed to be over.
“Nothing’s guaranteed,” he says. “I’ve got to prove myself all over again to a new team, but I’ve worked hard.” I suggest that the Bucks are a great fit–close to home, a playoff contender. He grins and says, “Give me enough playing time and I’ll get any team to the playoffs. I’ll get the Bulls to the playoffs. I just need minutes.” Saying this here is no big thing, but having the restraint not to say it to his next head coach will be everything. Right now he’s eager, smiling, and jacked with cloudless confidence, watching his brother.
Leon Smith is focused on his brother. “I just tell him, ‘Play hard, be aggressive,’” he says. It’s the right advice. Sanders continues to fade into and out of dominance, often allowing the game to happen around him but without him. Then he pins a shot high against the glass and sparks another break. He looks like a man who knows he can do more, yet doesn’t.
It’s late in the morning, and Smith, still seated in a corner of the gym, is drawing admirers. People wish him well, jab his shoulder. There’s a quiet, relaxed flow of gratitude between him and the Steelheads staff. The club supported him, provided an easy environment in which he could reassemble and sharpen a formidable game that had been largely ignored in the public shitstorm of his aborted season with the Mavericks. His name helped fill the seats in Gary, and he worked hard.
Slowly, he stands and unfolds. He’s huge. His shoulders are wide and his arms are preposterously long.
When asked where he needs to improve, he fires back a checklist of coaching basics. “I don’t cut hard enough, I need to work on my jump stop, be aggressive. I’ve neglected footwork, post work, strength, and stamina. I need to get my wind back up, but that will come with playing. I’ve been out for a year and a half.” In that year and a half, he’s fathered a daughter, and he speaks with recalibrated hope and affection.
