In the spring of 2002, Greg’s senior season at St. Francis had ended, and he was eager to join me in LA. It was the tail end of my unspectacular third season with the Clippers that had been limited to less than thirty games. Despite the fact that my agent, Jeff Schwartz, and longtime mentor Jerry DeGregorio were living in Los Angeles, most everyone felt that ultimately things would be best if Greg moved in with me and resumed his role of looking out for my interests.
But before I could even talk to Greg, he was on a plane to Los Angeles. The ticket was paid for by agent Dan Fegan, who was using Greg in a last-ditch effort to win me over. Greg was willing to help, but couldn’t tell anyone what he was doing. The whole thing was Gary and Dan’s ploy.
Gary was still Fegan’s guy and felt like he could make things right by finally delivering me to him. There were still a lot of hurt feelings from what went down before the draft, but Greg wanted to do what he could to relieve some of the long-simmering tension. Of course, this wasn’t going to make Jeff very happy. And as usual, I wanted to do what I could to avoid conflict.
It was the last game of the season, and Greg had just arrived in LA. I hadn’t even spoken to him. Greg headed straight to the game, but I wasn’t there. Greg spotted Jerry DeGregorio walking off the floor after the game.
“JD!” called Greg.
“What are you doing here?” asked a stunned Jerry.
Greg might as well have been the Angel of Death. He couldn’t possibly tell Jerry why he was in town.
“I’m here to see Lamar.”
“Lamar’s not here. I’ll take you to his house.”
So, they jumped in Jerry’s car and headed over to my place in the Marina.
Greg walked in the front door and I was stunned to see him. The next day, we went to lunch at Jerry’s Deli in West-wood. I ordered a couple BLT sandwiches, a plate of chicken tenders, and a giant strawberry milkshake, and he filled me in on the nature of his surprise visit.
“Dan and Gary are out here,” he said. “They want to talk. I don’t know if you want to fuck with them but you at least gotta sit with them.”
We drove to Greg’s hotel to pick up his stuff so he could move in with me. In the meantime, he called Fegan, who picked up the phone immediately.
“Lamar’s ready to talk,” said Greg. “Where should we meet you at?”
“I’m at a family barbecue,” replied Fegan. “I’ll call you in a day.”
We were stunned. He didn’t want to meet? I was ready now. He flew Greg out, came up with this grand plan, and then showed no urgency.
“Fuck him. I’m not meeting,” I said.
I couldn’t believe he would waste our time like that. I never talked to him again. Greg stayed in Los Angeles and partied with me until June. Then we picked up and flew back to New York. And for the rest of the summer, I slept on the pleather couch in Greg’s two-bedroom apartment, which was a fourth-floor walkup in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. This was the straight-up hood, but it was cool to be back home. The only alteration I made to the apartment was to buy a new air conditioner that we set up on the windowsill.
Living in a big house in a ritzy, celebrity-filled neighborhood mere steps from the Pacific Ocean, I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be a native New Yorker. So, we just got back to our roots. When I wasn’t visiting Liza and the kids, I sat on the steps in front of Greg’s building and flirted with the girls who walked by. People offered to cook for me, and I slipped them a couple racks to go buy groceries. I got to know everyone on the block, from shorties riding bikes and old heads dispensing knowledge, to street vendors who served up onion-smothered hot dogs, barbecue, and Italian ices.
I had money in my pocket and people who loved to be around me. I moved freely on the block. This is how we lived . . . and it was bliss.
In the late summer of 2002, when the sweltering but relaxing Brooklyn days began to fade away, we started making arrangements to head back to Los Angeles for my fourth season with the Clippers. Greg agreed to move to LA and be my manager. It would be his first season with me full-time as a pro and our first basketball season under the same roof since Redemption Christian six years ago.
While Greg liked to have fun and enjoyed the jet-set lifestyle, he was far more hardnosed than my other friends when it came to our careers. After all, Greg was now on board in an official capacity and had dreams of managing a stable of athletes or possibly becoming an agent. When he moved in with me, he cleaned house and helped me redo my entire program. That meant jettisoning some of the people who had been with me since my rookie season.
Greg knew Kamal McQueen from the basketball circuit, but he wasn’t all that familiar with Al Harris and the rest of my friends. Greg moved them to apartments in Sherman Oaks, forty-five minutes from my house. They were not happy about it, but they got free apartments and had their own space, so they didn’t have much room to complain. There were also several new rules put in place. No one was allowed to smoke in my cars. In fact, Greg didn’t allow drugs of any kind near anything registered in my name. After I’d been suspended twice for violating the NBA’s drug policy, Greg knew that something had to change. The environment I created was too lax. My house was party central, and there seemed to be marijuana smoke wafting through the crib at every hour of the day.
But this season had to be different: it was my contract year. The following summer I would become a restricted free agent and be able to sign my first veteran deal. There were tens of millions of dollars on the line. A third drug suspension would kill all of that and have me on a rail heading straight out of the league and back to Queens permanently.
Greg and I moved from our old house on the Strand to another: a new four-bedroom house in the Marina about ten minutes away. Our new setup included Greg, me, and Gus “Gusto” Kennedy, who had at one time managed the Long Island Panthers. Our new house was on Westwind Street along the Ballona Lagoon and was one of the most picturesque neighborhoods in LA. Harrison Ford lived two doors down. Directly across the street was a two-story villa Jean-Claude Van Damme called home. Every morning he’d step out on his balcony in his briefs, flex his ripped torso, and do yoga.
By the time the season rolled around, I felt focused and recharged. I locked in. I wasn’t gonna smoke. I was going to eat right. I was going to do everything my coaches asked of me. But mostly, I was going to play the best basketball of my career. No one had more at stake than I did. If I slipped back into my harmful ways and jeopardized my career, it would be no one’s fault but my own.
Greg also took over as my full-time driver, and as my top lieutenant, he came to every game—home and away—that season. He stayed at team hotels and arranged dozens of flights to make it to each city to be there with me before and after the game.
“I have to watch you twenty-four seven so you don’t fuck this up,” he’d say.
He even drove me to and from every practice that year.
Despite all of the team’s promise and no matter how locked-in I felt, we were going backward. After the All-Star break, Coach Gentry was struggling. The life had gone from his eyes. He was listless as he drew up plays that he knew we were probably not going to execute properly. As it looked like we’d miss the playoffs yet again, the players started to tune him out. Clippers vice president Elgin Baylor had lost faith in him, and they were barely speaking. The wheels had come off, and the players started thinking about vacation plans. We had blown twenty leads in the fourth quarter—more than any team in the league. We couldn’t guard anybody. We were getting booed at home. It felt like the team, despite its young core, was about to be blown up.
On March 3, 2003, word came down from the front office: Gentry was out. We were 19–39, last in the Pacific Division and riding a six-game losing streak. In three years with the Clips, Gentry had an 89–133 record. That was it.
“These decisions are never easy, and this one is especially tough, because Alvin and I had a very good working relationship,” Baylor told the New York Times.
On a road trip late in the season, I ran into an old face. After the game, waiting in the hallway outside the visitors’ locker room of the United Center in Chicago was Sonny Vaccaro. I was stunned to see him since we hadn’t crossed paths in years. The look on his face was one I’d never seen before. He wasn’t beaming or boasting. He didn’t greet me with one of his hearty, raspy-voiced hellos. His eyes looked sad. His demeanor was reserved. We exchanged warm pleasantries, but not enough to thaw any of the hurt between us.
I don’t hate Sonny. I don’t even dislike him. I respect Sonny. In many ways I still love him. We had been through so much together, but I won’t ever forget that summer in Las Vegas.
After several moments, Sonny’s eyes began to well up. Then tears streamed down his face. He tried to force words but couldn’t speak. He grabbed me by the face and kissed me on the cheek. It was an old-school Italian thing. It caught me off guard, but I didn’t protest. I’m a young black guy from the hood, and kissing another man is not part of our culture. But it was his way of saying he loved me after all this time.
I hugged Sonny and we parted without a word.
The season was a loss, and I battled lingering injuries. I played just forty-nine games, bringing my past two-year total to seventy-eight.
I finished the season averaging 14.6 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 3.6 assists on 43 percent shooting from the field. More importantly, I didn’t fail any drug tests. I felt I had played well enough to warrant a big contract in the off-season and was looking forward to sitting down at the negotiating table and setting myself up for life.
Boy, was I in for a surprise.