Traveling Man : Bullets’ Legler Endured CBA Stints, Far-Flung Stops and Crushing Setbacks but His Basketball Odyssey Has Happy Ending in the NBA

At 23, Tim Legler was cut by the Minnesota Timberwolves and retired in disgust.

At 24, he was playing in France when his wife, Jennifer, who spoke as much French as he did--none--asked how long this basketball nonsense would continue.

At 27, having just spent a heady half-season in Dallas, he and fellow rookie Morlon Wiley were promised multiyear contracts. Within weeks, Wiley was gone. Legler was cut a year later.

At 29, Legler has finally gotten that guaranteed multiyear contract, from the Washington Bullets, his eighth NBA team, after having played four stints in the CBA, three in the U.S. Basketball League, one overseas and one in a league for players 6 feet 4 and under.

There are players such as Anthony Mason who have played as far afield as Turkey but the story is always the same. It’s not the poverty that gets you, because the money is OK, or the culture shock, although that requires an adjustment. It’s the heartbreak.

“You never believe what people in the NBA tell you,” Legler says. “That’s what I tell everybody.

“People tell me, ‘Hey, such and such told me this, they told me that.’ Well, you can take that with a grain of salt. That doesn’t mean the paper it’s written on.”

Is there a player in the CBA who doesn’t believe he will make it one day? Legler is one of the fortunate ones, even if it took a long time and a lot of scar tissue.

An undrafted 6-4 guard from La Salle in 1988, he embarked on this odyssey without even knowing it. He just wanted to play basketball so he went to the CBA’s Rochester (Minn.) Racers for $500 a week to see what it was like.

It was tough.

“You had to have a roommate,” Legler says. “You and another guy on the team got a room together. Basically, all my money was tied up in food and phone bills, calling my girlfriend back home in New Jersey. . . . It snowed just about every single day. I had a small sports car and I must have gotten stuck in the snow 10 or 12 times that year, called Triple-A to pull me out of ditches all of the time because I couldn’t get up a hill or whatever.

“I remember it as a hard year because the team was really bad and the guys on the team weren’t exactly model citizens. It made it a long season. In the CBA, the worst thing that can happen to you is to start losing. If you start losing, selfishness really sets in ‘cause that’s all guys think about, trying to get called up and trying to get as many numbers as they can.”

Legler made the all-rookie team, marking himself as a comer if not a phenom.

After that, the hits started happening:

Spring, 1990: A stint with the Phoenix Suns during which he learned those three awful words, 10-day contract.

Says Legler, “It’s like playing with a refrigerator on your back. You know all the other guys on the team and the coaching staff got you under such a microscope to see if you can play. . . .

“There were guys that were just tearing up the CBA, that were unguardable down there, averaging in the 30s, and they get picked up and sent back down immediately. And I knew why. Wasn’t nothing to do with talent. It had to do with their head. Their head wasn’t screwed on straight. They would go in there acting like they owned the place. . . .

“You can go in there and shoot every time you get it, try to make something happen every time you get the ball. But it better happen.

“I know the guy who was in Dallas right before I was, had two 10-days, Lamont Strothers [a former No. 1 pick of the Portland Trail Blazers], they released him the day I got there. I was asking the guys about him. Every night, it was like one for 10 and six turnovers in 12 minutes. Every time he got the ball, he wanted to make a highlight film. He ran himself out of town that way.”

Fall, 1990: The Timberwolves guarantee Legler $50,000 to come to camp, with $150,000 more if he makes the team. At 11 the night before the season opens, he’s feeling good until there’s a tap, tap, tap on his hotel room door.

“I couldn’t even figure out why they were at my room,” Legler says. “I looked out the door and saw Coach [Bill] Musselman, I couldn’t think what in the world he possibly could want. It never even crossed my mind.

“What happened, Scott Brooks sprained his ankle when we got back from the last exhibition game and didn’t practice the last two or three days and they weren’t sure if he was going to be ready to start the season. He was the only point guard on the roster besides Pooh Richardson. They told me they didn’t think I could play the point.

“It was only for two or three games. I didn’t see why it was such a big deal. But they went out and signed Jim Thomas who hadn’t played in, like, months. He was at home working, living with his parents.

“After they released me, I went to an all-night diner and called my CBA coach. I called my girlfriend and told her I was quitting. I talked to my coach for about three hours. I went back home and stayed with my parents for three days. I got to watching some games on TV and my juices started flowing.”

He gets two 10-day contracts with the woeful Denver Nuggets, who are en route to a 20-62 record. They look him over and release him.

1992: Omaha and the CBA first, then four months in Limoges, France. Kelly Tripucka has just split from the French team and Legler gets the balance of his contract, $100,000, tax free, for four months’ work. Aside from the money, it’s hard. He and his wife don’t speak the language, make few friends and are happy to leave when the season ends.

1993: Legler makes the Utah Jazz but is cut in a month when the team decides to go with four guards.

He gets two 10-day contracts in Dallas and sticks. The woeful Mavericks, en route to a 11-71 record, are starting from scratch and like the looks of their young reserves.

Says Legler, “That summer, Norm Sonju was the GM; he invited me up to his camp in upstate New York, a camp for underprivileged kids from Dallas.

“He invited me and Morlon Wiley up there. And while we were up there, he sat down at a table and told me to my face, verbatim, he said, ‘Here’s what we have in mind for you guys, both. We plan on having you guys playing for a long time. We’re going to try to get you locked up to multiyear contracts, guaranteed. We really like what you’ve done for our team this year. You energized our team. We’re going to try and take care of you guys.’

“So we left there, both of us, we were like slapping five. Drive home, told my wife what they said.

“What happened, they brought in Quinn Buckner [as coach] and he wanted all his guys. He tried to get rid of every guy who was there the year before. He wanted all new players. When it came to me, he was going to have a hard time getting rid of me because they didn’t have any outside shooting. Morlon, they just cut. They didn’t give him anything. They did give me one year guaranteed, at less than what they told me they were going to give me.”

The following summer, the newest coach, Dick Motta, told Legler the Mavericks were picking up the option on his contract.

However, the Mavericks, with two No. 1 picks, used the second for another big guard, Tony Dumas. On July 1, the deadline for being notified, Legler went shopping and came home to find a message from a Dallas reporter on his answering machine.

Says Legler, “I looked at my wife and said, ‘I think they might not have picked up my option.’ ”

1993: Legler goes back to Omaha but is called up to Golden State, which is in the throes of a 26-56 season. He sticks for the final 24 games, shoots 52% from three-point range, is offered a one-year guarantee but gets a two-year offer from the Bullets.

He’s now averaging 24 minutes, is among the league leaders in three-point shooting and won the All-Star three-point contest after Jennifer had her labor induced to move up the delivery of their first child--Lauren--so he could attend.

“Friday and Saturday,” he says, “I was just bouncing off the walls, just get this over with, go back and finish the rest of the season.

“I talked to Jen right before I left for the arena that night. She said, ‘You have nothing to be nervous about. No matter what you do, Lauren’s not going to know if you did good or bad. When you come home, you’re coming home to me and her and you know we don’t care.’ ”

Legler says he has enjoyed his career, except for those moments when he got it in the neck. He made many friends along the way and learned to appreciate what he had.

“But it was definitely hard,” he says. “I know a lot of guys who probably never would have stuck with it as long as I did.”

There are a thousand sad stories in the CBA. There are only a few happy endings, but this is one.