没意外的话，Darrell Armstrong 将会加入 Nets。 Thursday, October 04, 2007 BY DAVE D'ALESSANDRO Star-Ledger Staff Jason Kidd has a new backup today, and, age notwithstanding, it might be the best one he has ever had. Darrell Armstrong, one of the NBA's quintessential perseverance stories and a 6-foot point guard who can still scoot at 39, decided last night he'll play his final season with the Nets, his agent confirmed. "Darrell's very excited about it," said Glen Schwartzman, whose client also considered a return to Dallas. "He was very intrigued with the idea of going back to the Mavs, and they wanted him, but we just think that with Marcus (Williams) down for a little bit, it's a chance for Darrell to come in and play." Armstrong, who will sign a partially guaranteed, $1.2 million contract later this week, cleared waivers yesterday at 6 p.m. after being cut by Indiana Monday. He received a call from Nets coach Lawrence Frank around that time and needed only two hours to make up his mind. Still, there was a dilemma: Dallas probably had a coaching job awaiting Armstrong as soon as he decided to retire, but the Mavs already have two point guards in Devin Harris and Jason Terry. "And the Nets have a chance to get out of the East," Schwartzman said, "so Darrell can play with a winner again." Armstrong is the classic late bloomer, but he is a pro's pro who has made up for lost time. He didn't play college ball until his senior year, mostly because he was a standout kicker for the football team at Fayetteville State (N.C.) -- so good that an African-American newspaper, the venerable Philadelphia Tribune, named him as the kicker on its all-time black college football team in 2003. After graduating in 1991, he bounced around three minor leagues -- the Global Basketball Association, the United States Basketball League and the CBA -- and played overseas Cyprus and Spain, before catching on with the Orlando Magic at the age of 26 in 1994-95. Armstrong was a little-used bench player for most of his first four seasons during the Shaquille O'Neal-Penny Hardaway Era, but everything changed for him as that team started to break apart. Indeed, he hit the league like a tornado during the lockout season of 1998-99, when he swept the Sixth Man and Most Improved awards while playing for Chuck Daly. Overnight, he had become one of the league's most acclaimed ball-pressure defenders and floor leaders. It was often said that he led the league in floor burns. As recently as two seasons ago, in Dallas, then-coach Don Nelson called Armstrong "one of my toughest guys. He'll fly into a pile and come up with the ball better than anyone we've got." He also left an impression on every coach and teammate he has had -- so profound that Nelson's replacement, Avery Johnson, allowed him to run team film sessions (without the coaches present) three times during the Mavs' 2005-06 run to the Finals. "I've always been a sparkplug; I've always been an energy guy," Armstrong said last season. "I get a chance to sit on the bench and watch the game. Then once I get out there, I know what we need, I know what I'm supposed to do." So it's hardly surprising that he can still play one more year, before becoming a coach. The Pacers regarded him as an untitled coach, but he still contributed. Late last January, with Jamaal Tinsley injured and Sarunas Jasikevicius sent packing, Rick Carlisle gave Armstrong two starts against Chicago and Miami. He responded with a near triple-double against the Bulls and led a fourth-quarter comeback victory against the Heat. In those two victories, the Pacers were a plus-26 when Armstrong was on the floor and a minus-17 when he wasn't. Boston coach Doc Rivers, who had an acrimonious parting with Armstrong in the summer of 2003 after coaching him in Orlando for four seasons, could not help but notice. "The biggest mistake I have made as a coach was when we decided in Orlando that Tracy (McGrady) was going to be the leader. That meant we had to move Darrell," Rivers confided to the Boston Globe last Jan. 28. "I knew on the first day of training camp that we had made a huge mistake, because Tracy wasn't ready and Darrell's presence was missed. It was a horrible decision. You needed his energy, his drive. He makes people practice. He plays with a will, a drive, and he really believes that his will and effort can change a game." Notes: Allan Houston and his wife, Tamara, will deliver their third child this morning (the baby's already six days late), so he still hasn't made any decisions about where he'd like to resume his basketball career. "We're going to get to that Friday," agent Bill Strickland said last night.... Williams underwent surgery yesterday to have a screw inserted into the fractured fifth metatarsal of his right foot. He'll be on crutches for two weeks, and then begin rehab. The Nets expect him back on the court in six weeks. http://0rz.tw/ed3aF --

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