More Than a Ray of Hope for Howard

It’s late afternoon here, and 19-year-old Dwight Howard is 10 feet from the basket, leaning back, sweating, feeling the ever-present forearm of 56-year-old assistant coach Clifford Ray buried in his back. Ray is mumbling in Howard’s ear, talking, talking, talking, much as he used to do during his 10-year NBA career, when Ray’s animated on-court conversations with himself led opponents to think he was bonkers.

Howard, a rookie power forward for the Magic, takes a bounce pass from assistant coach Paul Westhead, spins to his left and tosses up a soft, short jumper. He does not look to see if it goes in. (It does.) Howard turns his back to the basket, in the same spot he had just left.

“Again,” Ray says. Westhead duplicates the bounce pass, Howard wheels into another spin and takes yet another shot that may or may not go in. Howard doesn’t look.

Two hours later, the Magic is playing the Heat, and the game is less than a minute old. Howard spins into the lane, repeating the same move he’d just been practicing, but seems surprised when he sees Shaquille O’Neal’s paw slap his shot away. A minute later, Howard gets the ball again and spins to the baseline for a hook shot. On this shot, Howard grimaces as he watches the ball in the air. He misses everything. Airball.

Howard remains in the game for the entire first quarter and two minutes into the second. After the embarrassment of his first two tries, he attempts only one shot. When he goes to the bench, Ray goes to him. “Don’t you get gun-shy like that,” Ray tells him.

This is the education of Howard, done on the fly, with mind-numbing repetition and harsh on-court lessons. He was the No. 1 overall pick in last year’s draft, a preps-to-pros forward who has been in the Magic’s starting lineup all season. He is, as Ray says, “a blank slate,” just a kid who, despite prodigious talent and confidence, has limited exposure to big-time basketball. He is athletic and already an excellent rebounder, averaging 9.8 (12th in the league).

As much as Howard’s education is about his talent and work ethic, though, it is also about Ray, the hardscrabble coach with the graying beard and a limp in his step. He has dedicated his post-playing life to shattering the notion that big men can’t coach. In fact, in Ray’s eyes, other big men are the only coaches who can properly teach big men.

“Down in the paint, it’s a different world,” Ray says. “I’ve seen everything down there. Wilt Chamberlain. Elvin Hayes. Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar). I know how to tell a young guy what to do, what to expect. I don’t claim that I can teach guards. So why are all these guards coaching big men?”

There’s no disputing Ray’s success. He has molded a long list of players: P.J. Brown, Adonal Foyle, Roy Tarpley, Erick Dampier, Nazr Mohammed. In his first year as a part-time coach in Dallas, in 1987-88, the Mavericks led the league in rebounding. When Ray was an assistant in New Jersey in 1995-96, the Nets led the league in rebounding. In Ray’s two years at Golden State (2000-01 and ‘01-02), the Warriors ranked first and second in rebounding. In Cleveland two years ago, Ray had the Cavs up to second in the league. And this season, the Magic, which ranked 23rd in rebounding last season, now ranks second, a big reason for the team’s surprising turnaround.

But Ray is accustomed to dealing with players who have limited talent or have underachieved. He works with all Magic big men but was hired last summer specifically to work with Howard. Ray got to know Howard last summer when Ray worked with Dampier and Howard in Atlanta and when Howard attended the Big Man Camp run by Ray and former Celtics center Robert Parish in Florida. The same repetitive post moves Ray and Howard work on before every game consumed much of their summer.

“Clifford practically lived with Dwight this summer,” says Magic Coach Johnny Davis. “Dwight is an eager student, and Cliff loves that. So, right from the beginning, Cliff was coaching him about everything -- playing in the post, conditioning, how to be a professional, nutrition, your attitude toward your teammates, right on down the line.”

Ray acknowledges that his coaching style is unorthodox and does not suit all players. But he is widely recognized as the best big-man coach in the league. Howard says Ray’s approach encourages players to trust him. He creates a bond with his pupils, to show he supports them when they’re failing just as much as when they’re having success. Dampier, who has had a rocky transition with the Mavericks this season, says he talks to Ray after every game, sometimes to get pointers and sometimes just to lift his spirits.

“Dwight Howard is going to be a great, great player in this league,” Dampier says. “And he is going to be great because of Clifford Ray. He is going to be great because he has the best coach working with him.”

Howard was raised in Georgia, and his speech is Southern, sotto voce. He carries a book of goals with him, a practice that dates back to high school, and tops on the list is, “Play hard every night.” He went to a small Christian school, sang in the choir and was raised in a household where religion is strong -- Howard says he would like to use his time in the NBA to spread the word of God.

As a kid, he was a talented point guard until he experienced a 5-inch growth spurt in 10th grade and became the kind of versatile big man who inspires exclamation points in scouting reports. At 6-foot-11, 240 pounds, Howard has an NBA-ready body. That paved the way to his top-pick status and the $4 million-plus annual salary that comes with it.

“I’ve been blessed,” Howard says. “That’s something I realize every day.”

Ray, on the other hand, doesn’t think much about being blessed. He has a deep, booming voice and a mouth that would make a biker blush. He chuckles at Howard’s salary, pointing out that when the Warriors won the championship in 1975 and he led the team in rebounding, he remembers his annual check as $16,000.

“Clifford will tell you he does not have a chip on his shoulder,” says Al Attles, Ray’s coach with the Warriors. “But he does. And he should. The league has not always been kind to him.”

Ray says that when he first got the notion to coach big men, he sent his resume throughout the league and did not get a single call. He went to Phoenix to see Suns owner Jerry Colangelo but was told Colangelo was out of town.

“So I went to a restaurant at the Biltmore for lunch,” Ray says, “and I look over on the other side of the room, and there’s Jerry Colangelo. Out of town, my ass.”

Ray finally got a break in 1987 when he visited Mavericks owner Donald Carter. Carter told Ray the team already had hired head coach John MacLeod and did not need more coaches. But Ray held up his championship ring and told Carter, “MacLeod does not have one of these.”

Ray was hired, but only as a part-time coach. Carter put Ray in charge of the team fitness center, which meant he had to schedule practice time, mop the floors and clean the latrines.

“How many coaches have scrubbed toilets to get into the league?” Ray asks.

Even now, the road is uphill for Ray. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer six years ago while coaching in the CBA and underwent chemotherapy while coaching with the Cavaliers. He still has his blood checked every 60 days and works hard to keep his energy level up.

“One thing about cancer, though,” Ray says. “It makes you realize you don’t have time to sit around and feel sorry for yourself.”

Certainly there is no time for that now that Ray has been handed the most purely talented player of his coaching career. One Western Conference scout describes Howard as “part Tim Duncan and part Kevin Garnett,” which should put Howard on track to be one of the best players of his generation. He has a knack for passing and a smooth shooting stroke that eventually will give him range out to 15 feet. He runs the floor well and can finish on fast breaks. He still is learning to play NBA-caliber defense, but he has the physical skill and determination to be an All-Defensive team player.

“I still have a long way to go,” Howard says. “I want to be the best player of my era, and I know it is going to take a lot of work to make that happen.”

That work will be overseen by Ray, making for an odd coach-player pair. Howard came into the NBA on a red carpet, while Ray had to crawl back into the league. Howard has the bank account Ray never had. And, looking at Howard’s ideal NBA body backing in against Ray as the two work another drill in the post, it’s difficult not to think about the cancer that periodically has knocked Ray down (though not out). Ray laughs and says, “I remember when I used to have a body like Dwight’s.”

For all of their differences, though, Howard and Ray want the same thing -- to make Howard into an All-Star, to push him to fulfill his vast potential. In practice, when Howard starts flashing his dunking ability or his 3-point shot, Ray reins him in and reminds him that he is a big man and should act like one. For all Ray has endured, if he can sit back, five or 10 years down the road, and watch Howard dominate a game, he’ll be satisfied.

“To me, nothing is better than watching the guys I have coached in the past go on to success,” Ray says. “That’s better than all the money and all the glory. If you try to teach a guy the things you know, then you watch him do those things, that is a great feeling. And when they call you after the game and start talking to you about, ‘Did you see this?’ or ‘Did you see that?’ there is no better feeling in the world.

“When I am retired from all this, if Dwight calls me after his games, it will make it all worth it.”