Damon Stoudamire gave up pot, became Blazers’ leader again By KERRY EGGERS Issue date: Fri, Oct 1, 2004 The Tribune A year ago, Damon Stoudamire was coming out of six weeks in the NBA’s anti-drug program in Houston, a little angry at the world and plenty disappointed with himself. His reputation besmirched by three marijuana arrests in an 18-month period, his basketball career at a crossroads, the Trail Blazer guard’s future was in his hands. Good hands, it turned out. Stoudamire cleaned up his act off the court and got to business on it, re-establishing himself as a leader and key component of the team. “It’s been a nice turnaround for me,” says Stoudamire, who will be with the Blazers when training camp opens Tuesday. “It’s been real cool.” Stoudamire, 31, entered the Houston drug treatment program in June 2003. He says he hasn’t had a toke of pot since. “I’ve always been the type of person who, when I put my mind to something, it’s going to get done,” he says. “I wasn’t into a lot of things. I’m not a heavy drinker. I wasn’t doing major drugs or things like that. I just smoked pot sometimes. I don’t anymore. I cleaned that out of my system.” Stoudamire had slipped to the end of coach Maurice Cheeks’ bench in 2002-03, piling up DNP-CDs (did not play-coach’s decision) even more quickly than the drug arrests. The former NBA rookie of the year and career-long starter took a verbal beating from fans and some indifference from Cheeks, who once sized up journeyman Rick Brunson and remarked, “Rick knows how to run a team. Damon is still learning.” Last season, with the Blazers thin in the backcourt, Stoudamire re-emerged. He ranked ninth in the league in minutes played at 38.0 per game — by far the most in his 61?2 seasons with Portland — while averaging 13.4 points and a team-high 6.1 assists. “I had a good season, but I felt like I could’ve done a lot more. It can get better. It can get way better,” he says. Stoudamire, a career .411 shooter from the field, shot .401 last season. He was a solid .365 from 3-point range and .876 from the foul line, 10th in the NBA, though he averaged fewer than two attempts per game. ‘A good person’ He spent more time playing basketball and working on his shot this summer than he has for many years. “I want to get my shooting percentage up to 44 percent this season, and I can get my scoring average up from 13 points to 16 or 17 points,” he says. “I would like to get to the free-throw line four or five times a game instead of one or two.” Stoudamire, who grew up in Northeast Portland, understands his place in the community. He has always been generous giving his time to charitable causes, and at times with his pocketbook, too. He donated $250,000 to keep Portland Interscholastic League spring sports alive in 2002. Last year, in honor of his grandmother, Wanda Matthews, he contributed $300,000 toward the $3.2-million Albina Head Start McCormack-Matthews Center, a state-of-the-art facility for low-income children that opened last week. But for Stoudamire, the more important thing of late has been to stay off the police blotters. “I think I’ve always been a good person, but 99.9 percent of the people know only what they read about you or see on TV,” he says. “When you put yourself in the position I put myself in, you’re not going to be looked at as a role model. “I kind of took that and told myself to get back to where I was, to be a leader on the floor and in the community. I had to change my mind-set and get back to being a people person, opening up again and not being mad at everybody and everything. I’ve always been a take-charge, outgoing type of guy, both on and off the basketball floor. For a couple of years, I got away from that. Over the last 12 months, I’ve gotten all that back.” Family provides support Stoudamire is grateful for the support of his family. Just as important is the presence of his girlfriend of two years, Houston native Natasha Taylor, who lived with him at his West Linn home last season. “She’s been good for me,” Stoudamire says. “In tough times, she’s been the one constant besides my family. She never wavered on me. Through the last 12 months, I’ve weeded out a lot of people, seeing who was really true and who wasn’t. She stood by me.” In recent years, Stoudamire has summered in Houston, “my home away from home.” This summer, he says he had plenty of time to spend with his 5-year- old son, Damon Jr., who lives with his mother in Atlanta. “A few weeks ago, I flew to Atlanta to be there with him on ‘Bring your father to school’ day,” he says. “I picked him up in the morning and took him to school. You should have seen the smile on his face. We went to sit in the cafeteria, eat doughnuts and talk. It was a quick 45 minutes, but it was priceless. “It was better than all the money I could have, to see how happy he was about me being there.” Stoudamire can hardly believe he is about to enter his 10th NBA season. He will make $12.5 million in the final year of a seven-year, $81 million contract. There are no contract extension talks, so he will probably become a free agent next summer. For now, though, he is a rejuvenated Blazer. “You know what’s funny?” he asks. “The way it went last season gave me extra enthusiasm to work hard this summer. It’s like being young again.” --

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