“It was crazy. Just crazy. The thing about it was there was no warning. It was a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with basketball. It started with my high school coach being with me. He was there with me last summer and nothing was said. There was no problem and all of the sudden I was being made the scapegoat. It was, Sam doesn’t do this. Sam doesn’t do that. The media would wait for me after personal workouts with my coach. I worked hard even after practice. You know me Mike. I hoped they would come with something better than that.”
“Sam,” I asked, “didn’t you expedite your Visa to play for the team? Did they extend an offer to you to be part of the team or was this something you wanted to do?”
“The initial move was on my own will. You know I do the Basketball Without Borders in the summer. What really upset me is that Leo Rautins talked about Basketball Without Borders like it sucked. I sacrificed that time to be on this team and I didn’t want to become a distraction. If I would have gone, I would have missed like 5 days of training camp. I respected that he wanted me to report to the team because he’s the coach. I asked him again and he told me no because I was the leader of the team. He said we only have one chance to win this summer and I had a chance to be a part of it. I made some phone calls and came to the conclusion that he had a point. I told him that I was going to make it on time. Suddenly, it became that I wanted to do all these other things except play for the team. I told him he was full of crap. Of course I wanted to do some basketball goodwill with kids in India. That was no vacation. It was about the kids for me, but I reported on time.”
“He had me doing a lot of stuff (public relations). I was cool with it. I was part of the team, so no problem.”
“The reason why I brought my high school coach with me was so he could work out with me. I could never be late under his (Leo’s) clock, so I made sure I wasn’t. Then the issue became the team meal. There was nothing said that everybody had to be at the team meal. Sometime before the game, I chose this time to sleep instead of eating. He didn’t even show up at some team meals. Everything I did was called into question. He never told me I had to be there until later on. My high school coach was always at the team meal. He knows not to bother me because I have a routine. I was never late for anything. Coaches were. My high school coach made sure I was up and ready for anything and everything that I had to be present for. They kept saying “Sammy is late for this. Sammy is late for that.” “I was like dude, I’m never late. You don’t show up for team meal some of the time because you are with your wife. If things were mandatory, I should have been given the respect to at least known that. I wish it would have been said to me. As far as the team meal, I don’t eat pork. Most of the stuff over in Germany, was pork. I didn’t want to be different from anyone else, just in that regard. I wasn’t a prima donna. There’s NBA players who would have asked for this and that, but I made sure I paid for everything extra. I didn’t want to be uncomfortable. People were coming up to see me. I wanted to be in shape so I did what I had to do.”
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Originally Posted by Khalid80
. National Team play is a privelidge, but it should be a choice you make personally and the decision of what to do with your summer. I mean, these players sacrifice a lot to play during the summer instead of doing what like Nash is doing or doing overseas charity. I do agree that I think Rautins isnt a good coach. I think the Andy Rautins father-son thing isnt popular either since Andy isnt really a good player. I hope the Canadian get a new coach and I hope all the best for them in the future without Rautins. I mean, he was pretty good at Syracuse, but sucked in the 92 Olympic qualifying until the last 2 games.
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