New Seton Hall men’s basketball head coach Shaheen Holloway, fresh off of his Elite Eight run with St. Peter’s, was a guest on last week’s “All the Smoke” podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson.
The subject arose of Holloway’s inability to make an NBA career out of his successful college tenure with the Pirates, and a statement performance in the 1996 McDonald’s All-American Game (where he earned MVP over Kobe Bryant), and the subject turned to his bid to make the Knicks roster after his Seton Hall Career in 2000.
Holloway decided to try and make it at Knicks camp, and recalled a story where he was shining in training camp to the point where multiple established veterans vouched for him to make the team, only his recollection has some glaring holes in the accuracy of the storyline.
Most notably, describing Charles Oakley and Anthony Mason being on the team at the time.
“I went to the Knicks…New York, I’m home, I can make it,” Holloway told Barnes and Jackson. “Back then, nobody’s telling you that they’ve got three guards on guaranteed contracts. There’s Charlie Ward, there’s Chris Childs, and there’s Rick Brunson. And Rick Brunson’s my guy. So now I’m like ‘OK, I play Rick Brunson in the summer league, I can get his job.’ But you don’t know Rick’s been there for two or three years. [Tom Thibodeau] at the time was the assistant coach, Thibs loves him. Mase loved him, Oak, he’s been there for three years. He’s one of their guys. I chose to go to Knicks camp, I’m in there, I’m working. I’m working these dudes.
“I’ll never forget this. Anthony Mason was like ‘this dude belongs on the team. I don’t know about the politics part of it, this dude belongs on the team.’ Charles Oakley was like ‘he’s gonna be my little man in veteran camp. I’m gonna take care of him.’ So I’m rocking.”
So, there are already some issues with this retelling. Ward, Childs, and Brunson were indeed all with the team at the time Holloway was trying to make the team out of camp, but Oakley and Mason, the two veterans he recalled saying he should make the team, hadn’t played for the ‘Bockers in years. Oakley’s Knicks tenure ended after the 1997-98 season, when Holloway was still a sophomore, and Mason’s last season in New York ended when Holloway hadn’t even begun his collegiate career.
Furthermore, Brunson was not on a guaranteed contract at the time, and started that 2000-01 season with the Heat, was waived, then signed on with the Celtics before returning to New York later that season.
Holloway went on to recall a practice where he stole the ball from Brunson and scored, and was immediately benched for it for the next two practices for showing up a veteran.
“We’re in practice. You know Thibs, they do three-a-days, and two of them is all defensive practice,” Holloway said. “Rick Brunson came down and scored, and he elbowed me…so I went down and scored on him. The very next play, he brings the ball up, I rip him, I score, and Thibs is like ‘Whoa, young fella, he’s a veteran. Go stand on the wall.’ The next two practices…I didn’t say a word.
“People are like ‘Yo Rick, why did you do that? You know how Thibs was gonna do that.’ He was like ‘He’s trying to take my spot.’ I was mad at him then, but now we look back at him, it’s surviving.”
That story from Holloway would certainly anger a contingent of modern Knicks fans who spent much of this past season frustrated that Thibodeau, then the assistant and now the head coach, relied too much on veterans and was hesitant to give his youngsters more playing time. But this version of the story has one too many holes to put much weight into it, thought it is possible he could be misremembering the names associated with the events. Still, Knicks fans were quick to call him out.
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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