 
|
Nov. 5, 2009
CHICAGO, Ill. - When Tim Parham stepped off the University of Eastern Shore campus in 2006, he did so still harboring a dream of playing in the NBA. Despite not being selected in the draft that year, Parham never gave up. He embarked on a globe-hopping basketball tour that has taken him all over the world. Now three years later, and fresh off another small taste of the NBA life, Parham is anticipating today's NBDL draft as another chance at "livin' the dream." "I had a lot of opportunities to go back overseas," Parham said. "But I'm not getting no younger and I'm still trying to make this thing happen, so I'll just go to the D-League, try it again and see what happens." He'll be passing up much better money overseas, but for him there was no question. "When an NBA team tells you to go you are going to go," Parham said. "This is the dream no matter how much the money is overseas, when the NBA team you worked out with for a month tells you that you have a chance if you go to the D-League then you go. I took the chance." Parham's participation in today's draft, which can be followed online at NBA.com or watched live on NBATV tonight at 7 p.m., has its roots in that first shot in 2006. That year, he was on the NBA Summer League roster of the Chicago Bulls and then participated in a mini-camp with the Golden State Warriors. But after not making the training camp roster Parham was off to Poland where he got his first taste of professional basketball. It was a long season and just before he was set to return to the NBDL Draft in November he suffered a hamstring injury that hampered his chances. Despite being selected in the fifth round by the Bakersfield Jam, Parham wasn't able to make the roster. His body betrayed him at the worst possible time. Following the disappointment of being cut by Bakersfield, Parham ended up playing in Germany. Then in 2007 he played for a Mexican League team in Saltillo, Mexico averaging 18 points and leading the league with 11 rebounds a game.
What followed was a whirlwind of basketball. He was in Uberlandia, Brazil and then played in the Sudamericana Liga in Caracas, Venezuela. In September of 2008 he moved to Turkey where he averaged 15 points and led the Turkish league with 11 rebounds a game. The "human double-double" then got the break he has waited for. He had kept in contact with the Bulls organization since that 2006 Summer League experience and then invited him to mini-camp. Parham approached every day at the Bulls' training facility like it was his last. But every day he shined and every day they asked him to come back the next. It went on for three weeks. "I impressed the whole organization," Parham said. "I was there every day playing with the Bulls, not prospects, but the Bulls. It was a real good situation whether I made it or not because it made me know that was where I belong. I was playing my game against these dudes and it was working." But in the end he was caught in a numbers game. He was the last man dropped before training camp started. "I was an injury away from making the training camp roster," Parham said. "Since the last time they had seen me they said I improved a lot. They was expecting someone to get injured, but instead they didn't have a place for me and they said `We want to put you on our D-League team.'" Of course, being one of the 200 players in the pool for today's draft doesn't mean that he'll end up on the Iowa Energy - the team affiliated with both the Chicago Bulls and the Phoenix Suns. Any of the league's 17 teams could pick the 6-foot-9, 240-pound forward. Many have been in contact with him leading up to the draft. As Parham sits at home in Chicago tonight waiting to hear his name called, he'll rub the scripted "The Dream" tattoo that sits on his arm under the NBA's famous silhouette logo. He'll be thinking about the fact that he's 26 years old and in his physical prime. And he'll know he's running out of chances. Whoever selects him tonight, he's ready to capitalize this time around. "This time around it is going to be different," he said. "I have been playing overseas and I have a lot more experience. I'm in the best shape I have ever been in. I know where I am and where I need to be." Feature story written by Shawn Yonker |
|||||||||
| ||||||||||
