Former NBA player Andre Miller talks about his journey to the court and how playing with the 'bigger kids' made his game better
For those who follow basketball, Andre Miller needs no introduction. The Los Angeles sporting star ranks ninth all-time in NBA career assists, having missed only three games due to injury in his 17-year-long career. "Most people, when they get a job, they choose a job. But, the NBA chooses you," said the now-retired Miller, who was in Mumbai on Friday for an out-reach programme for the NBA. He says it was a mix of luck and hard work that made him the player he is today. "My mom would always tell me to get out of the house and go play. So, I was always taking the bus from one court to another to play ball with the kids. At one such game, one of the coaches who was there in the stands, came up to me and asked if I wanted to play college ball. I wasn't even thinking about going to college then. Basketball gave me a chance to get a degree."
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Miller had an illustrious career spanning 17 years. Pic/Bipin Kokate
According to Miller, a good coach is secondary to kids learning the tricks of the trade themselves. "Coaching is important when you go pro. Kids mainly learn from each other. I never got better by a coach; I got better by playing with the bigger kids. Then, when I got to structured basketball, which involved a referee, I learned how to adjust my game. That's where the coach comes in. But it's the raw competitiveness in a player that takes him to the next level."
Miller is the only player in NBA history to have at least 16,000 career points, 8,000 assists and 1,500 steals without making an NBA All-Star Game. He believes that the NBA can be ruthless. "Getting to the NBA was more fun than playing in it. Everything that I went through to get to the NBA had much more meaning. In the NBA, basketball became like a job, a tough job that too, because there you get no loyalty. You could be a great player, but, by the time you wake up next morning, you could have been traded. I was traded once while I was napping on the mat."
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