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Saturday, June 8
Updated: Monday, June 10, 1:17 PM ET
Benson just wants a chance
By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
CHICAGO -- Lee Benson wants to talk to you: the NBA fan, the team owner, the GM, the player personnel director, the scout, the reporter; heck, even the janitor, considering he's mopped plenty of floors in a prison that you would never want to walk on, let alone clean.
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Second happiest day of my life (could be the draft). The first day was leaving prison. ... I'm real hungry. I want to make it. It's not about the biggest earring. It's not about the cars. I'll walk. I'd rather walk or catch the bus. That's how hungry I am. I'm not in it for the money. Look what I have now. I'm still barely making it. It's about me playing. ” |
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— Lee Benson
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Anyone who will sit down with him and watch his 6-foot-9, 217-pound frame slink into a chair and just listen to him would do just fine. He wants you to get to know him, to understand where he's been and what he wants to become.
"I'll be a big asset," said Benson, his size 18 feet awkwardly trying to find room between a chair and a table in a Wyndham Hotel lounge. "I was making 47 cents an hour, 80 something cents a day, 17 dollars a month. I scrubbed kitchen floors, took out the trash. I'll hustle, play hard in practice and do everything a coach wants. The community will love me. I just want to talk to them, whether they'll listen to me or not, all I need is five minutes. You ask the questions, I'll answer them. Doesn't matter who. I'll kick it with the janitor and mop the floors, too. I've done that, done it all."
Benson wants to shake your hand and have you remember it. It's hard not to, considering it spreads to nearly 10 inches. His hands are getting used to a basketball the past seven months after he had to scrape, push and elbow to get his hands on a ball for an hour a week playing prison basketball at the Warren Correctional Facility in Lebanon, Ohio, for eight-plus years.
Benson wants to win you over with his smile, his gleaming white teeth, and get you into some easy-going conversation. It's not that hard and he's not going to bite.
Yes, he has been to prison -- he spent eight-plus years for abduction with a firearm, drug trafficking and failing to comply with authorities. He was 19 in 1992 when he went to the Dayton, Ohio, housing project and changed his life forever.
As has been widely reported, Benson shot at a man with whom he was having words regarding a stolen car incident involving his cousin. The man escaped unharmed and Benson was arrested and sentenced to 7-to-25 years. Benson served more than eight years of the sentence but could have been out sooner because of good behavior if he had adequate legal representation.
In fact, no one seemed to pay attention to him until Francis Flax got word of the case. The Brown Mackie College coach recruited Benson's cousin, Marcus Stewart, and Stewart told Flax he should recruit his cousin out of prison. Flax took the tip and visited Benson in prison. Flax, who Benson said he's indebted to, kept up with the case, and eventually pushed for his release last August.
"Some of (why he was caught and sentenced) was unjust. Some of what happened was foolish on my part. But I didn't want to be labeled a snitch, especially in the 'hood," Benson said. "I can't cry about it. It was years ago. I paid my penalty."
Benson is 28 now and he's here in Chicago at the pre-draft camp about to alter his life yet again.
He's got a chance to be an NBA player. He could get drafted in the second round, but if he was 18, with his raw skills, he would likely be in the first round because the draft is all about potential.
"If he were only 18, instead of 28, and you could put him in a time capsule then it would be different," said Leo Papile, the Boston Celtics player personnel director. "He's got the raw basketball skills that you want to see develop."
But he'll be somewhere in the summer on an NBA roster. He might make it to a training camp and if he continues to work hard he could be on an opening-day roster. If he isn't, he'll probably be in the NBA Developmental League because the consensus among the teams is he's worth the risk.
"He's got to learn how to play but he's gotten this far without having a lot of experience at the professional level," said his Chicago pre-draft camp coach Marc Iavaroni, a former player and veteran NBA assistant who was with Miami but is heading to Phoenix. "If he can get to a situation that has a good teacher and a good system then he's a good gamble. He's got a great attitude. But he's got to understand that even though he's older it won't happen overnight."
The one thing Benson had more than anyone in this camp is patience -- and likely more hunger to make it than any of the players combined.
Benson spent one season at Brown Mackie College in Kansas and it's obvious to the naked eye that he needs work. But he doesn't need to be taught how to run, rebound and finish once he's around the basket. He got down court with his galloping strides faster than any other big man, and his 7-foot, 1-inch wingspan allowed him to get a handle on balls that others couldn't corral.
Benson is savvy enough to know he needs better footwork, especially in defending players farther from the basket. He said he has to work on his timing to block shots and needs better fundamentals around the low post.
He had these same raw skills once, getting recruited to Oklahoma out of Dayton Dunbar High when he was co-MVP of the city league. But prison ball is far cry from high school, Juco, D-I or pro ball. It's apparently about survival, toughness and getting off the court without an issue to be settled postgame. Call a foul? Are you crazy?
"If you call a foul then you're a chump," Benson said. "You don't want anybody looking at you and saying you're soft. You've got to keep your hard image. There are so many people on the court it's like football. Ain't no dunking. If you get a fast break then guys don't want to run with you. These games here can be physical, but in there? Nobody wants to be soft and you've got guys who are 6-foot trying to bang and elbow you or undercut you."
Milwaukee and Phoenix already have had Benson in town for workouts and interviews. According to his Roanoke, Ind.-based agents, Roosevelt Barnes and Eric Vaughn, who also represent Ray Lewis and Deion Sanders, the plan is to get him to as many teams as possible before June 26.
Barnes, who grew up with an uncle of Benson's, said Benson has workouts scheduled with Miami, Cleveland, Indiana, Houston and Washington.
"Lee is 28 but in a lot of ways his view on life is from a person much younger," Barnes said. "He enjoys every moment and appreciates everything. These 17- or 18-year-old superstar kids haven't gone through what he has. They don't appreciate this as much. Lee has been through it. He's going to sell himself. People will meet him and fall in love with him."
So far, there are no complaints from those in the NBA who have had that chance.
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This is a country that forgives and gives second chances and I'm sure he'll get one. He might not have as many years to play, but he's got the desire and passion and a great work ethic. ” |
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— Ernie Grunfeld,
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"I believe everybody deserves a second chance and he made a mistake and he's paying for it and now wants to go on with the rest of his life," said Milwaukee Bucks GM Ernie Grunfeld. The Bucks' director of scouting, Dave Babcock, was the first person from a pro team to call about Benson during the season.
"This is a country that forgives and gives second chances and I'm sure he'll get one," Grunfeld said. "He might not have as many years to play, but he's got the desire and passion and a great work ethic. He can win people over when they sit down and talk with him. He's got the great smile and doesn't complain about anything."
Not even being called names. It has happened and it will happen again. And an NBA team will have to deal with it, maybe more so than the Nets and Celtics who had to deal with name-calling directed at Jason Kidd and Paul Pierce during their Eastern Conference final two weeks ago.
"You can call me whatever," Benson said. " 'Ex-con,' 'Alcatraz,' 'Go back to prison' -- none of that bothers me. You can take the average person and put him in prison for three days and see the stuff I've seen. The average working guy who makes a mistake and put him in there and he's not mentally strong and he'll go crazy or end up hanging himself. I hate to say it but I've seen it."
HBO already has been in to do a piece. The movie deals are coming in fast and furious, although he keeps telling them that the script can't be finished yet. It is quite a story but he doesn't have the ending. And there he was, late Friday night, the former inmate from Warren Correctional coming back from dinner riding with his fiancé in a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Chicago. No, the story isn't done yet but it has taken on a fairy tale-like turn.
"Second happiest day of my life (could be the draft)," Benson said. "The first day was leaving prison. I waited so long for the release date. Now I just have to wait for this. I can't wait to hear the fans when I make a shot and see everyone in an arena. I'll do anything to play and I don't just want to make a roster. I want to start. I want to be in the rookie game. I want to be the MVP of the rookie game. I want to have a long career.
"I'm real hungry. I want to make it. It's not about the biggest earring. It's not about the cars. I'll walk. I'd rather walk or catch the bus. That's how hungry I am. I'm not in it for the money. Look what I have now. I'm still barely making it. It's about me playing."
And it's about him finally being free to play basketball. Now we'll have to see if he gets his chance. Just pull up a chair, sit down, give him a few minutes, ask anything you want and he'll answer so he can convince you why.
Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com. Katz covers the NBA draft for ESPN.com and ESPN.
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