Minute TO Minute : Ferry Finds Limited Role in NBA--but He’s Happy With Choice

The Ferry tale takes another turn, with the basketball hero of two continents, parts of Southern California excluded, having reached a stopping point on your basic Durham-Los Angeles-Rome-Cleveland career connection.

Where it takes him next, besides the bank, is anyone’s guess.

What is known is that the Cleveland Cavaliers are paying Danny Ferry a guaranteed $14 million for five years, with incentives that could push it to $34 million over 10 seasons, for the second-best pseudo-European import on the team. Gerald Paddio, who didn’t even make it out of training camp in two previous NBA tries, has made a bigger impact.

No one seems too concerned, though, least of all Ferry himself. This may officially be his third professional team in a little more than a year, but he is a rookie, and that counts for something.

That Italian League business? The competition was tougher in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

With the Cavaliers, Ferry, a 6-foot-10 forward and former All-American from Duke, went into the weekend averaging 17.7 minutes, 6.9 points and 2.9 rebounds and shooting 40.2% while playing in 18 of the first 19 games. He has yet to start, even though a significant chunk of time has been open since John (Hot Rod) Williams went out Nov. 16 with a sprained foot.

“I have pressed at times, but I don’t know if that’s as much the expectations everyone puts on me or the ones I put on myself,” Ferry said. “I want to be a very good player, and I think I can be, but sometimes I want it a little too quick.”

It’s just that it has taken him long enough to reach this point. He may be struggling, but he’s struggling in the NBA. Be it ever so humbling . . .

Early on, he picked up fouls in bunches, a bad habit acquired in Italy, where hand-to-hand combat is practically the norm on defense. Too often, he passed up good shots or hesitated going to the basket. Defensively, he has not been quick enough to stay with small forwards, not strong enough to handle the power forwards.

The irony is that Ferry’s biggest reason for not wanting to come to the Clippers after being made the No. 2 pick in the 1989 draft was that he didn’t expect to get much time in a lineup that already had Danny Manning, Charles Smith and Ken Norman. And now look--17.7 minutes a game.

He expected to be taken by San Antonio as No. 3, mainly, he said, because the Clippers never even spoke with him before the draft. So, when Commissioner David Stern stood on the podium and announced the Clipper choice, Ferry felt he had been ambushed.

Ferry maintains that neither he nor his father, Bob, then general manager of the Washington Bullets, told the Clippers that making Danny their first-round draft choice would be ill-advised. Nothing was said of sitting out or playing the Europe card to force a trade, at least directly.

“They kind of knew that,” Danny said, a notion the Clippers reject. “But I never said anything to them, and my father never said anything. I think my father talked to them at one point. I’m not sure exactly who he talked with. I don’t think either side saw me fitting in there real well.”

So, before beginning contract negotiations or even visiting Los Angeles for the obligatory postdraft greetings, he was gone. Il Messaggero of Rome came calling, waving lire unabashedly, flying Ferry and his parents around the world, putting them up at the finest hotels during negotiations.

Reflecting on the events of 16 months ago, Ferry said the other day: “The whole time, it was very friendly. Even when I went over to Italy, Mr. (Donald) Sterling (the Clipper owner) and (General Manager) Elgin Baylor and (then-coach) Don Casey handled everything in a class manner, and I appreciated that. I know I put them in a bad position by going over to Italy, but at that point I was making a decision for myself.”

Whether he would have made the same decision if drafted by, say, the Spurs is a scenario impossible to consider, Ferry maintains. But he has never denied that the goal all along was to play in the NBA, or that he passed up that opportunity for a year without even giving the Clippers a chance to come close to the Il Messaggero offer, reportedly worth nearly $10 million if he stayed five years.

The cynics say Ferry snubbed the Clippers, a move engineered by Bob Ferry, who had been around the league long enough to know better than to leave his son’s future in the hands of an organization with a poor reputation.

The subject of all this calls the cynics wrong.

Daniel John Willard Ferry, who made his own decisions on which high school and college to attend, insists that no one was trying to pick his NBA team. It was his decision.

“I argue with that in one sense,” he said of the doubters. “I would have played for the Clippers and would have worked hard. But at the same time, I had an opportunity that I had to look at. It was for a lot of money and it was a great situation for me to go over to Rome. At the same time, the Clippers had so many forwards, I just didn’t know where I really fit.”

There are contradictions. But when the Clippers traded Reggie Williams and Ferry’s rights to Cleveland for Ron Harper and a series of draft picks on Nov. 16, 1989, there was no talk of how the Cavaliers already had John Williams and Larry Nance at forward. He calls this a great situation and a great opportunity.

The Clippers are happy, too, even if they took another public black eye before reaching this stage. They could only have dreamed of getting a player of Harper’s impact with the second pick they had spent on Ferry. They used one of the No. 1 choices this summer to get Loy Vaught and sent one of the No. 2s from the Cavaliers in a package to get Winston Garland from the Golden State Warriors. And they still have a No. 1 in 1992 to use or dangle for trade.

So far, the Cavaliers have a reserve forward--Ferry. Reggie Williams didn’t even make it through last season in Cleveland, cut when it became apparent his contribution would be minimal.

“I knew I wouldn’t be scoring 50 points on the first night, but at the same time I knew there would be an adjustment and I could do it,” Ferry said. “Hopefully, it won’t take too long.”