the 9-29 podcast of The Knicks Blog features an interview with Raymond Felton's personal coach/guru/trainer/shooting mentor Ivory Manning.

While talking about how he was a guru for Allan Houston in for the 90s Knicks, he tells a quick story about how he started out coaching Chris Childs in his pre-NBA days.

The host asks the coach how somebody helps a shooter the caliber of Allan Houston and that sets up the story.

He basically tells a story of how the coach was mentoring Childs and went to see John Lucas while Lucas was coach of the Spurs to help get Childs a job. The players named place the story during 92-93. He doesn't go into it, but Childs would go on to be a final cut of the 93-94 training camp for the Spurs, then would come up from the CBA for the Nets the next year.

As put by Manning when discussing Allan Houston's shooting skills and helping his game:

One misnomer that people have is that you're going to improve your shooting and party's over with. But it doesn't work like that, great shooters . . . and this is why I started doing what I was doing . . .

You know a long time ago, I went into a gym two hours early - this is, I knew Chris when Chris was in high school, Chris Childs - and so I went to tell John Lucas about him, John Lucas was coaching for the Spurs and they were going to play the Lakers.

So I got to the arena really early because I wanted to make sure I could catch him, and I get to the arena, and there's only two people in the arena: Dale Ellis and Sean Elliott!

So, I'm looking like, "Where are the other 28 guys or whatever that are on this team that can't shoot and the two best shooters are in the gym?"

That told me a story right then and there. If you wanna be a shooter, you're gonna work on it forever and continually get better. Ray Allen . . . [interrupted by Knick fan host re: how Ellis could 'stroke it', end of Spurs related discussion]
That was the season where the Spurs lost to the Suns in the second round. I still believe that if Antoine Carr hadn't shredded his ankle the Spurs would have beaten the Suns. JR Reid starting was a step away from Bonner-ish playoff awful.

For what it's worth, Willie Anderson would shoot 6-11 from 3 for 10 playoff games.

The other shooters, Ellis, Elliott, Del Negro, and Lloyd Daniels would combine to shoot 24% from 3 for the playoffs.