Austin Dayes dad Darren Daye use to play for former Spurs coach Larry Brown. Spurs Dayes-if dad could get a do-over By Buck Harvey 2-27-14 Darren Daye says he has no regrets. He enjoyed his basketball career, & hes comfortable with his life. Hes now a financial advisor living in the Los Angeles area. But as Daye talked this week about his son, he sounded happy for him - & like a man who wished he had been this lucky. What if, instead, he had played for someone such as Gregg Popovich ? As of Wednesday, Austin Daye has now played one minute, 36 seconds for Popovich. He came in when the outcome against the Pistons had been decided, & he generally ran around & made sure his uniform fit. He could prove to be worth more eventually. Austin has promise, & this is a quality that runs in the family. This goes back to 1979, & Austin is a familiar with his fathers story. That year, the McDonalds All-American Game featured one of the best groups ever, from Ralph Sampson to Isiah Thomas to Dominique Wilkins. & Daye was the games MVP. Fluid at 6-foot-8, already with a mature sense of the game, Daye could have played any- where. & Larry Brown, starting out at UCLA, made him his No. 1 recruit. Within a year, everything was working out as planned. In 1980, with the final seconds ticking away & UCLA heading to the NCAA championship game, Brown turned & hugged the first person he saw. Daye hugged back. But nothing was the same again after that hug. UCLA lost to Louisville in the title game, & Brown would leave for the NBA a year later. Daye says now the coaching wasnt the same after that. & while UCLA still had some success, what followed had some affect on how he was seen. He fell to the third round of the draft. Even then, Daye struck in the league. Yet when he looks back, he sees dysfunctional situations. Eventually, he said, he became fed up with the NBA. Daye says what followed were the best years of his career. He won championships in Europe, earning more money than he could have in the NBA at the time, & along the way, he was accompanied by a newborn son. It was a trend : One of his opponents in Italy, Joe Jellybean Bryant, had his own son with him. These basketball offspring not only have athletic genes on their side, but also in-home coaching. Daye schooled Austin without ever seeing the NBA as a goal .I know how difficult that is, he said. So he showed him how to shoot, trying to get him to see the team aspect of the game at the same time. He coached his son the way Brown coached him. & when asked about this Wednesday, Austin smiled & rolled his eyes. I dont know if I ever played a complete, good game. At least according to him. Darren says Austin is nothing like the way he was. Complete opposites,he said. My game was based on quickness & penetration, his on length & shooting. But they are similar, still. Both were blessed with NBA height, & both had skill. Both, too, werent as athletic or as rugged as scouts would have liked. Thats a reason Austin is on his fourth NBA team. So what does Austin need to do to get better ? Darren thinks he knows. Its Popovich. Darren used to take his son to watch the Spurs, & he saw the system & discipline. It was Brown all over again. Darren lasted 13 years in pro basketball, from the NBA to Europe. When he goes back to Italy, as he did a few weeks ago, hes still warmly received. Whats there to complain about ? But the more Darren talked about Popovich, & what he wanted for his son, wasnt this also what he wanted for himself ?
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 10:25:48 +0000
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