Here’s Eddy Curry’s problem: He’s too normal.
Which is why when all around him were losing their heads–and their tempers–last summer amid Curry’s refusal to take a DNA test to address his heart issues, the lies and darned lies, Curry just went bowling every day.
“By my mom’s house in Steger,” Curry said here the other day. “It was the one place I could go where people really didn’t know who I was.”
Yes, we’ll get past the part about just another 6-foot-11-inch, 300-pound bowler and continue. It’s Eddy’s story and he was sticking to it before his Knicks returned home for Curry’s expected return to the lineup from injury Wednesday against the Bulls in New York.
“I’m a real good bowler,” Curry said happily. “I have my own bowling ball and everything. Had a 215 game.”
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Whatever his game, Eddy’s really no turkey, even if he’s never going to become the next Shaquille O’Neal. There’s a little crazy, a little anger in all the superstars of sport. Michael Jordan taunted teammates, Isiah Thomas fought with them, Larry Bird taunted and tormented opponents, Magic Johnson took chances, Wilt Chamberlain took liberties, Bill Russell seethed anger, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar made the condescending sneer his business card.
Curry’s not angry with anyone, including media members who once advocated his trade weekly. Or with fans who enjoyed the occasion boo.
“I realized early on [the media] have got to create scenarios and stuff. It’s not my job to be mad,” Curry said. “It’s my job to be respectful and talk to you guys. As far as the fans go, they deserve to see a good game. If I wasn’t giving them a good game, they had a right to boo. If I was giving them a great game, they’d cheer for me.
“[General manager John] Paxson is an emotional person,” Curry said of the seemingly bitter [trade] in early October. “It’s a situation he felt he had to make a move that maybe he might not have wanted to. There never were any bad words between me and Paxson. I think they knew I wanted to come back. . . .
“It’s not going to do me any good to sit back and wonder what could have been. . . . I always wanted to just sit back and play basketball and stay out of the way of everybody and get along. . . . I never really expressed how I felt. I always just felt things would work out.”
Curry’s `crazy’ world
And so the world of Eddy continues to spin in New York, perhaps really the perfect place for the agreeable Curry.
“It’s crazy,” Curry said, using his favorite expression. “I grew up hating New York teams. I didn’t even know why. It’s like playing for the enemy now. It’s a lot of fun there. But they boo us like four times a game. It’s crazy. We could be winning and then the other team could go on a run and they’re booing. It’s crazy.”
When the Bulls come to New York on Wednesday, Curry is hopeful about returning to the lineup to face his old friends after being out three games with a left calf strain. He went through a full practice Tuesday and is expected to play, though he’s listed as questionable.
Last year when Jamal Crawford was out injured for the first meeting with the Bulls, Curry gave his buddy a hard time.
No, he doesn’t have Chandler-itis, Curry says. Though he is worried about his former co-Baby Bull Tyson Chandler.
“I talked to him when we were out west and they were,” Curry said. “He was upset [about losing]. I said it was just the eighth game.”
That’s Curry, don’t worry, don’t hurry, take the path of least resistance and smell the roses along the way. Strikes are good in his life.
That doesn’t add up to sports immortality, although Knicks coach Larry Brown says Curry is the most athletic big man he ever has coached–and that includes David Robinson. But it also doesn’t lead to disruption or problems. The Bulls always yearned for more from Curry, and perhaps there is more there to give. For now, the Knicks will take what they can.
He’s a true low-post offensive threat, and with rookie power forward Channing Frye, who is a good perimeter shooter, the Knicks believe they have the one-two punch the Bulls thought would be a knockout when they drafted Curry and Chandler in 2001.
“I had no idea Channing could shoot like that,” Curry said. “He’s unlike any of the players I’ve played with. We can definitely be that inside-outside threat that [then-Bulls general manager Jerry Krause] was thinking about. We’re going to take a lot of pressure off each other.”
And so the vision of Knicks President Isiah Thomas begins. It was Krause’s as well, two big men, one in the post, the other to patrol the perimeter and spread the court with shooting, the kind of force no one in basketball has. Perhaps now Curry is ready to begin playing his part.
He averaged 12.6 points and 6.5 rebounds in 23.1 minutes before being stymied with the same defensive and passing deficiencies the Bulls witnessed for four years. Still, the Bulls were ready to extend his and Chandler’s contracts until the heart arrhythmia developed.
Everyone has plowed that DNA test ground so much it’s a wasteland of innuendo. The Bulls could not do anything but trade Curry when he refused to take the test. Curry said as a last option he was willing to sit out the season as a Bull, but added, “That would have been crazy, a bad situation for both of us. I don’t think anyone could have won from that.”
Wait till next year
Curry concedes after a summer of not working out enough because of the contract issues that he’s not in the shape he needs to be in, that he has a new coach, new system and new teammates. On the plus side, he’s with best friend Crawford and Antonio Davis, whose family he’s close with and whose wife even planned Curry’s wedding last summer.
“Next year, I’ll be unbelievable,” Curry said. “With a full camp, a full summer playing and working out with the team, being used to the coaches and even in the brief time I’ve been here being able to learn from (post players) like [Mark] Aguirre and Herb [Williams]. I watch [Michael] Sweetney and can see the things they taught him. It’s crazy.”
Though “crazy” is Curry’s pet word, Curry is not crazy. He says he truly was never concerned about his career or health once a Los Angeles specialist cleared him to play. He says his family and friends were upset and angry about the media reports, the Bulls and the trade. But he said he explained the business to them, how players such as O’Neal, Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter were traded. Curry admits it will be difficult for him and his 4-year-old son from a previous relationship who lives in Chicago.
“They took it hard at first,” Curry said of his family, “but it’s a career move on my part and a part of the business. They came out to visit me and saw I wasn’t in any harm, that it’s not the city they feared.”
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It’s also not the city where Curry ever expected to be.
“I never did think it would happen,” said Curry, who eventually signed a six-year deal that averages about $10 million annually. “At the end of the day, [the Bulls] made a move they felt was best for them and it’s pretty good for me. I can’t complain other than I left the team I was growing up with.”
A tattoo of the Chicago skyline, though, still stands out brightly on Curry’s left forearm. He is reminded of it and peers down.
“That’s still my hometown,” the Thornwood High School grad said. “That’s still where my heart is. It’s just the Bulls I left. Not Chicago.”
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