12/07/2007 - 16:36
Tough One to Swallow
by Tyson Chandler

I'm feeling good, starting to get back healthy a little bit. There's very little pain left in my knee and it's getting a lot stronger. This is the best I've felt since I hurt it in the San Antonio game.

In the Atlanta game, I chipped a crown that I had put in and it got stuck in my throat. So, it hurt my breathing and swallowing; it wouldn't go down.

I was going for a rebound and Josh Smith's arm came down and hit me right over the mouth. I knew I got hit in my mouth hard and I felt the pain, but I was just like, "Whatever." But I didn't know my tooth got chipped until I swallowed and I felt something get stuck in my throat. And so I ended up playing in the second quarter with it, but when I went in at halftime, the dentist wouldn't let me keep playing, because it could go down the wrong pipe and cause me some really tough breathing.

I got it fixed that night before I went on the plane. It was a tough night.

Dallas was a huge win for us, because we had struggled playing against some of the top teams in the league and I guess the franchise had a 21-game losing streak against Dallas. So it was huge just to break that losing streak and get confidence against them, because you never know who you're going to face in the playoffs. And it was a good early win to give the team some confidence to play against some of the marquee teams in the NBA.

We came out against Detroit running 'em, and that's our style. But they're one of those smart, veteran teams that they really slow the pace down on you. And they just slowed the game down, started fouling a little more, started talking to the refs, and that slowed the whole pace of the game down.

And I was trying to tell the guys like, "We don't want this tempo. We do not want to play Detroit in the 80s. We need to get the game up in the 90s, 100s. Because this is their style of basketball and we can't beat them this way." But we got lured into their game plan.

These next two games, Memphis and Seattle, are definitely two wins that we have to have. These are those games that you have to win if you want to be a good team. You gotta beat the teams you're supposed to beat and challenge the ones that you're not. So, these are definitely must-have wins for us, but they're against two tough, young run-and-gun teams that can always be dangerous.

'TIS THE SEASON
We're home for like 12 days. I enjoy it because I can get some of the holiday stuff done, get a Christmas tree, decorate it, get the holiday spirit around the house ... as long as my daughter doesn't break everything around here. So, I got some daddy duties I gotta do.

I do the tree and put up the lights. That's always a battle in itself, standing outside, looking like I don't know what with Christmas lights wrapped around my whole body trying to get 'em up on the roof. It was funny, last year my wife was taking pictures of me outside and I didn't realize it. I saw the pictures later on and I was dying because I looked like an idiot out there trying to put the lights up. It's tough.

My wife always asks me what I want for Christmas and I can never think of anything, because I always shop for myself throughout the year and get what I want. So, it's the hardest thing trying to figure out a Christmas gift. I have no clue.

I have plans on taking some kids out shopping come Christmas. Normally, what I do is take either a boys' home or a group and take them to Wal-Mart or something and let 'em grab some gifts. I give them a couple hundred dollars each to do some Christmas shopping.

EARLY RECOGNITION
My basketball career really started to take off my eighth grade year, that summer going into high school. I did a 60 Minutes piece, and that's kinda when the world started recognizing who I was. I started getting a lot of publicity behind that.

Kevin Garnett and Kobe were the young stars of the league and Tracy McGrady had just come into the league and signed that huge adidas deal. And they were talking about shoe companies and the young stars, and how it starts early. They're with AAU teams and then when they sign that big contract, they sign with the company they've been playing with their whole life.

So they did a story like that on 60 Minutes and it featured me and Nike, and how I'd been playing with Nike since the 7th and 8th grade. They were like, "He's gonna be the next one to come out of high school and sign back with the shoe company" and all this stuff.

It actually was kinda crazy, because most people who watch 60 Minutes are older. I didn't understand what it was, to be honest with you. People said, "Do you realize you're on 60 Minutes?" And I was just like, "Yeah." It wasn't a big deal to me, but now I'm like, "Wow, I was on 60 Minutes at like 13." Back then, it was just a TV show. I had never seen it before. It was something my grandparents watched.

But it really gave me a lot of attention, as far as adults knowing who I was, coming to games and watching me. And then local newspapers picked up and it, and from then, it was just all the hype of "Is he gonna go?" It started way too early. It started from the beginning of my ninth grade year and it never stopped.

TOO EARLY
Now, I watch my brothers and I watch some of the other kids that come up, and I think it's way too corrupted. You get kids starting to think about the NBA and lifestyles when they should be thinking about school and just the game and how fun it is. You start thinking about where you're rated in the country.

I was talking to Mike Miller on the USA Basketball bus this summer and he was telling me about how he has an AAU team. He was saying how a kid, I think he was in the eighth grade or he might have been even younger, held out of a tournament because he didn't want his stock to go down. That's just ridiculous.

So I think that, with all the ratings and all that stuff, it's just way too much on high schoolers and down. Because it stops becoming a fun game and puts too much pressure on young kids.

It makes me sick to my stomach, because I went through it. Luckily, I was very grounded and had a great family and base that it didn't affect me too much. But I get sick to my stomach when I see all these AAU coaches just prowling on these kids and the rankings. It's just turning kids into little prima donnas and they forget how to work. You just see these kids walking around thinking they're on top of the world and they're in the ninth or tenth grade. You're like, "You haven't even scratched the surface yet."

It takes away the game, the love and the passion. Before anyone was recognized, it was just about playing and playing in the local tournaments and playing against people you had never heard of. It was a game and it was fun. Now, it's becoming a business when you're in junior high.

That's why I love CP and we get along so great, because he's no different then the person at the end of the bench or the next person in line. Once you take that quality of being grounded away, people lose respect for you, you're teammates lose respect for you, and you're difficult to be around. It's basketball. At some point, we were all at the bottom of the totem pole and we weren't this glorified player. I try to remember that.

And when I'm talking to Julian Wright, our young rookie, I try to remember my rookie year and everything that I went through. I try to think of when I was in Chicago, everything was coming down on me and everybody was pointing fingers and talking. I couldn't even think straight. And I think about that when I talk to him. When I see it happen to him and everybody's getting on him, I make sure I step back and talk to him, because I know that feeling.

I went back and watched that 60 Minutes tape a couple of years ago and it was just hilarious to me how young I looked and how goofy and skinny I was.

The skinny part hasn't changed. And the goofy part hasn't changed either. Ha ha.

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