It's play time for Alexander
Ex-Fresno State star tries to put pain in the past as he works to rejoin NBA.
By Anthony Witrado / The Fresno Bee
(Updated Friday, February 17, 2006, 6:44 AM)
Courtney Alexander Jr. steps on the basketball court without fear or reservation. He plays against his fellow 8-year-olds with joy and without care. He isn't old enough to concern himself with the homes, cars or recognition that come with playing the game for a paycheck.
He just wants to play.
Courtney Alexander Sr. describes this scene and sees himself in his son.
"He's not thinking about money or fame," the older Alexander says. "He just wants to play."
Alexander led the nation in scoring as a senior shooting guard at Fresno State in 2000. He helped the Bulldogs to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1984 and was a lottery pick in the NBA Draft that June, selected 13th by the Orlando Magic then traded to Dallas the same night.
Since then, Alexander, 28, has worn four different NBA uniforms and has sat out 2 1/2 seasons because of injuries. First, it was a torn Achilles tendon in 2003 while with New Orleans. Then, he was traded to Sacramento, where he popped some tendons in his left foot the following season. The Kings waived him before the regular season, leaving him with zero minutes logged in two seasons. As he rehabilitated and tried to attract new NBA teams, tendinitis in his right knee halted the quest in November.
Alexander started his latest rehab last week in the place he calls "a second home to me" — Fresno. He is working with personal trainers from his Fresno State days and said he plans to be away from his Atlanta home no more than eight weeks, adding he will stay "as long as it takes to be healthy."
He is putting up about 500 shots a day, and is working with weights and in the pool. He also is taking treatments on his knee with a Fenzian device, which emits an electrical impulse that helps the brain heal the body and is becoming popular among NBA players.
He expects, or at least hopes, to be healthy by the time he leaves Fresno and on an NBA roster soon after. If he can get on the court for one game this season, he says he'll be happy.
"Every part of my body is 150% but my knee," he says. "My goal is to leave Fresno in shape and 100%. I've got a couple of teams waiting on me to get healthy.
"It feels like high school all over again and I'm trying to get a college scholarship."
Sitting on the sideline of the basketball courts at Dan Gamel's Health and Racquet Club last week, Alexander's eyes fix on the far court where a bunch of Average Joes pant through a game of half-court pickup.
His right leg is extended on the bench with a plastic grocery bag filled with ice sitting on his knee. He points toward the game.
"See, right now, I'd give anything to go play in that game," he says. "A couple of years ago? Hell no, I would never play there."
Alexander, who won't name the NBA teams interested in his return, hasn't played competitively since November, although it seems like a decade to Alexander, who had centered his life around the game. The thing he did better than most people in the world was taken away, and he couldn't get it back.
"I went through a severe depression," Alexander says. "I literally would be in bed for weeks, even when I wasn't on crutches. I felt lost. I felt stripped of everything."
That rock-bottom point was an extension of how Alexander felt the night he was drafted. As he walked to the stage with Courtney Jr. in his arms, both wearing matching cream suits, shirts and ties, to shake NBA commissioner David Stern's hand, he was unhappy.
"I was mad when I got drafted," he says, "because I didn't go as high as I thought I should have or as high as people said I would. I went to the NBA with the wrong attitude."
Alexander had been the same way at Fresno State. He says he was always his harshest critic, sometimes staying in the gym until 1 or 2 a.m. on a Saturday night working out a flaw while the rest of the team was at a club. Even when he performed well, he would find the negative and dwell on it.
Jerry Tarkanian, his former coach, agrees: "I thought that was his big problem in college. That was his biggest weakness at Fresno State. He would get so depressed, he would punish himself.
"He's as talented as anyone I've ever coached. If he can keep his spirits up, he can make it."
Talent never has been the question.
In three seasons, Alexander has averaged nine points and 21 minutes per game. He has missed chunks of all three seasons because of minor injuries.
During his rookie season, Alexander was traded to Washington, where he got more minutes — averaging 33.7 in 27 games. He averaged 17 points for the remainder of that season and scored a career-high 33 on Toronto.
"As long as he's healthy, he's one of the top guards in the league," says Golden State Warriors guard Baron Davis, Alexander's teammate in New Orleans for two seasons.
"He was just starting to get comfortable with his role on the team [in New Orleans]. His ability to attack the rim and finish [impressed] me. And his athletic ability. He just has a knack for scoring the ball."
Alexander says that once healthy, he'll be a better player than before.
"I jump higher and I'm quicker now," he says. "I'm a much better player now than when I got hurt. That's what's frustrating."
The frustration and depression are not completely gone. Alexander says he is "not well," and has trouble sleeping and can't watch NBA games on television.
"It hurts too much," he says, although he did watch the fourth quarter of Kobe Bryant's 81-point game after a friend alerted him to the historic event.
Instead, he opts to watch Courtney Jr. play in Atlanta. He waits for his body to be right and for a call from an NBA team.
"How much more patient can I be?" Alexander says shaking his head. "It's difficult to be patient. The hardest part is staying patient."
In college, Alexander had Chinese symbols tattooed on his left tricep. The characters mean "rebirth."
It was a little premature then. It fits much better now. The injuries have changed him into a different man, he says.
"I'm humbled now," he says. "I just want to play."
Just like Courtney Jr.
