Austin-American Statesman article on Toros Fizer & Emmett

[Mark in Austin]

Since the Toros are the Spurs' NBDL team, I didn't know if it is more appropriate here or in the NBA forum. Feel free to move this as needed. BTW, interesting to learn more about Fizer - not what I expected.

-MIA

See it here with pics.

Fizer, Emmett adjusting to minor-league life with Austin Toros
Former NBA players know first-hand the difference between minors, big league.
By Connor Higgins
AMERICAN-STATESMAN CORRESPONDENT
Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Austin Toros forward Marcus Fizer might have missed a chance to return to the NBA.

Scouts from the Utah Jazz were in attendance for Austin's two-game swing through Fort Worth on Dec. 16-17, and they reportedly were looking for a possible replacement for injured forward Carlos Boozer.

Fizer, a five-year veteran of the Chicago Bulls and Milwaukee Bucks, never made it to Fort Worth, let alone the team bus. He was at home nursing strep throat, 200 miles from his potential NBA Development League swan song.

Frustrating? Not for Fizer. He's at peace with his station in life. So is teammate Andre Emmett, another former NBA player making a smooth adjustment to life in the minor leagues after tasting the lavish lifestyle and big bucks of national s om.

For 27-year-old Fizer, the task would seem tougher; he spent five years in the NBA as opposed to Emmett's one, his rookie season a year ago with the Memphis Grizzlies. But each appreciates the difference between a three-hour bus ride on Interstate 35 and a three-hour cross-country jaunt on a private jet.

"It's definitely a humbling experience," Fizer said. "The result of it is me having to start over."

Starting over in the development league brings with it some daunting challenges.

Aside from less luxurious travel — sometimes by bus, sometimes by plane — the practice facilities usually consist of nothing more than a junior-high-quality court, and their locations are unpredictable.

One week the team practices at an East Austin recreation center off Seventh Street, the next it's in Round Rock. To close out a month they might move to a third location.

At home games the locker room is small, square and gray, a three-benched glorified men's room that's better suited for T-ball than pro basketball. And crowds of 17,000-plus have given way to sparsely populated arenas of 2,500.

Emmett calls these minor inconveniences. What he misses most is an intangible that is irreplaceable in the short term.

"I learned a lot from guys like Lorenzen Wright, Mike Miller, Shane Battier," Emmett said of his former NBA teammates. "Here, everybody is pretty much on the same level, as far as knowledge. I'm doing more teaching than learning. I wish I could pick up more than I'm giving out."

Tempering Emmett's transition to the minors are his Dallas roots, Big 12 Conference upbringing and the presence of his mother, Regina Oliver, who has yet to miss a Toros home game. Oliver has been a mainstay in arenas throughout the region since Emmett's days at Texas Tech and Memphis. An early August trade sent Emmett to the Miami Heat, which subsequently released the guard on the eve of the 2005-06 regular season.

Oliver said her son hasn't complained about the business decisions that landed him in Austin.

"The D-League is a learning process, and he's willing to go through it to get back to NBA," Oliver said. "He's not going down there to stay."

While family and proximity has softened Emmett's fall from the NBA, the same are trying Fizer's patience.

Fizer wakes up at 6 a.m. to make sure his 5-year-old daughter, Chandice, gets to school on time. Never mind that she lives with her mother in Chicago, where Fizer still keeps his home. He still calls every morning just to make sure.

When he played with Milwaukee he could sneak back to Chicago when his schedule permitted. Today, time away from the court means time on the cell phone.

Years ago, Fizer traded in wild, nocturnal NBA nights for this slightly more puritanical approach. He now prefers spending a lot of time in his room, reading his Bible and talking to his daughter and girlfriend. He's on a first-name basis not with bouncers but with employees at Whole Foods Market. His health-conscious, organic-only diet reflects a strict focus centered on God, family and basketball.

"I've got a pretty subtle, boring life," Fizer said. "I enjoy my blessing. I enjoy my life for what it is."

Fizer earned as much as $3.7 million two seasons ago and $736,000 last year with the Bucks. He and Emmett, who earned $385,000 last season, are now playing in a league with an average salary of $20,000 plus housing and insurance.

Fizer is the only Toro living alone in a league-provided apartment in Northwest Austin. After his own year of solitude in Memphis, Emmett rooms with guard Derrick Zimmerman, a situation he likens to his days in Lubbock. Zimmerman himself has been in and out of NBA training camps since Golden State selected him in the second round of the '03 NBA draft.

Though Emmett admits to thinking "pretty much all day" about his NBA return, Zimmerman said his roommate rarely sits around and talks about it. Besides, Zimmerman finds it counterproductive to the ultimate goal.

"I think if you sit there and daydream about it, you aren't going to be able to perform at your highest level," he said, pausing to confess to such musings whenever NBA camps would break without him.

Toros Coach Dennis Johnson said Emmett and Fizer have done a good job separating professional fantasies from reality, though multiple people from the team expect Fizer to be plucked from above at a moment's notice. When Emmett shores up "the art of defense," as Johnson put it, he too could be out the door.

Until then, the adjustment remains a crash course in character building.

"I think they all understand this is not the NBA lifestyle," Johnson said. "If that really bothers you though, then you are not, in my estimation, a ballplayer."


Toros' week


Home games: vs. Tulsa, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; vs. Tulsa, 7:30 p.m. Friday

Where: Austin Convention Center, 500 E. Cesar Chavez St.

Tickets: Single-game tickets range from $11 to $35.50. They are available online at www.austintoros.com or may be purchased at Waterloo Records, 600-A N. Lamar Blvd., or at Pinky's Wireless locations.

Road games: at Fort Worth, 7:30 p.m. Saturday; at Florida, 7 p.m. Tuesday

[ChumpDumper]

Emmett has been moved to the bench Wednesday in part to keep his minutes down, but I suspect Ezra Williams is seen as a bit less of a black hole on offense.

Zimmerman is still playing way too many minutes, still waiting for someone to step up and back up the point. It's a golden opportunity for Alex Scales, or really any of their small shooting guards who want to play in the NBA some day.

Fizer had his best game of the season Wednesday: 25 points on 10-16 shooting and 10 boards. He was hitting from inside and out despite being beaten up Tulsa's bigs, usually former Rocket Torraye Braggs, who is the other guy the Jazz scouts should be considering for a call up. If Fizer's play holds up, he won't last another month here.

The latest guy that has been called up is none other than John Lucas, who just dropped 30 on us Wednesday before learning he was headed to Houston. He's pretty quick and has a nice shot, but at most he's 5'10" and only runs the point part time -- may not be too much of a problem on the floor with TMac though.

[ChumpDumper]

Programming note: The Toros' game against the Arkansas Rimrockers will be shown on NBAtv this Sunday @ 11:00AM CST.

Tune in if you want to see Pape Sow doing a Wilt impression on us, and James "30 more Pounds and I'm back in the Show" Lang and Shawnson Johnson punishing us as well. Johnson's first three baskets were embarrassingly viscious dunks. Rim must've said something about his momma.

[Kori Ellis]

The latest guy that has been called up is none other than John Lucas, who just dropped 30 on us Wednesday before learning he was headed to Houston. He's pretty quick and has a nice shot, but at most he's 5'10" and only runs the point part time -- may not be too much of a problem on the floor with TMac though.

I saw that the Rockets waived Stephen Graham to make room for Lucas.

Graham went back to Noel's team (SF Skyforce).