Message Board Poster Makes Hornets Training Camp

[method man]

Link is here.

http://www.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=699747

This is so unbelievably cool. From going through the whole thread, this guy Ron "thethief" Murray (a poster in the Orlando Magic board on the expanding RealGM sports forums) is a real humble guy who has had quite a few hard knocks in his life.

Here is his life story:

So here it is, one giant rant about my life and evolution…best I can do…the memories aren’t as clear on the actual numbers and stuff as far as actual stats from the tryouts, but pretty close, so don’t gig me too hard…

So basically let me lay it down to you like this, in 1996 im in high school finishing up I was a 6’6” / 6’7” SG/SF/PF with serious body control and power, I was decent enough, played strong with the ball at the 2 and 3 and I really helped my team mates out by being unselfish and sacrificing my body, which is how I play. I had scouts from Tennessee, Boston, Rutgers, San Diego, and a few other smaller schools come out and watch me play, I didn’t get it, because I felt that I played awkwardly, didn’t have the proper skill set and didn’t quite love it as much yet, but ok.

My brother ends up getting in trouble pretty badly, my family doesn’t have enough money to help him out, I graduated from h/s months ago, I felt even more awkward because I grew another 2 inches or so over the summer and I feel like things are crushing me. I went to play for a skills camp in Texas, they had a lot of games going on and there was a cash prize for the best team, so I figured why not. At the camp I was thrown into the 5 spot, I never had to deal with guys that big with the weight and strength that they had…it turns out, I was pretty decent it at.

A scout aka the head coach of a college in Mexico was there and he was looking for a few players, they needed them badly as the school had only been playing basketball for 2 years at this point. I was offered a lot of money to play for them, housing, expenses and transportation as well as a top level education. The laws in Mexico aren’t what they are here in the NCAA, we needed the money, I took it…I spent almost 2 years down there, I learned Spanish, became good in chemistry and engineering, I learned where not to eat/drink and I learned how to cook big meals with limited cooking area.

The school got in a lot of trouble, the basketball program was shutdown for a number of years, once it got shutdown, I found out my aunt was sick, so I went to live with her in SC, where I enrolled at Winthrop, I was immediately hounded to play ball for them, so I did. I met a body builder there who taut me how to work my shoulders and deltoids properly, I also started kickboxing again, which I hadn’t done since H/S and never as tough as this. Well tough break, some white kids hated me, so no playing time and my aunt died.

I hated life for a little bit, I hated basketball, however my kickboxing was going great and I was bulking up, and great news the tape measure says im 6’10”, bad news, no cash.

My uncle calls me up and says man, I can get you a paying gig in ball for a pro team in Europe, and they would love to meet with you. I met up with them, they saw that I was big and black; they loved me, offered me a “max deal” basically about $40k US plus an apartment, deal. Its not euro ball, but there is some decent competition here, haha not so much…

I was a circus act there, but I was way better than everyone else and fell in love with ball again, a French team in the Euro league approached me and offered me double, plus a chance to live in France. Well now im balling out of control, I met my wife and I also now speak French…

At this point I have learned that it is like slavery playing in the euro league when your from the US, they treat black men like gods up front, but behind the scenes we are dogs, and they treat our image like such. I got hurt, my arm popped pretty bad on a dunk, I was told it would be ok, well I got into a big blowup fight with the coach on a super train once I found out that I had suffered damage and they covered it up.

A friend of mine had gotten released and signed with anther team Jerusalem, he got me a sit down with the camp, after getting rested and healed I signed with them for a big time contract, haha 2 years and the equivalent of about $140k if I can remember correctly…I was a pretty big factor for the team, the listed me at 7’ and referred to me as the rhino, I got DEEZ while playing for them, I was running people over left and right. Contract was up, no re-up so I went home and got married.

Got a job in the insurance business with my automobile knowledge, started doing that and I got a call from a scout from the Lakers that I had met while overseas he offered me a chance to tryout for them, talk about EXCITED, I didn’t know this could happen. So I went to the tryout, put up about 12 points average over 3 games, 7-8 rebounds and about 50 blocks , but they said I was good any a few areas just not spectacular in any one. Plus they had just brought in Samaki Walker, they had Medvedenko, Madsen and Horry, so tough break.

Was given the chance to transfer to Miami with my company, enrolled at Miami, finished up my studies and got my degree in the first part of 02.

Got a tryout with the celts, my former home town team, didn’t really go so well, I had like 5 points, 6 blocks, 3 rebounds and 45 fouls, didn’t make the cut to the next round, basically I aggravated my arm real bad.

I had to get down on my job, got a little advancement, focused less on ball, and actually had a few kickboxing fights, did darn well got dubbed THE THIEF for my ability to steal a mans spine once I landed the first blow, hung out more with the family. Got a call from my uncle, the Pacers were looking for guys, I some how got a tryout with them, and it was a joke, no one was paying attention, they had the goofiest guys out there, I dropped something like 25 points, 20 assists and 7 blocks in a game and they said thank you…that was it…I was sooo furious…and then in the beginning of 2003 I went for a roundhouse kick and I cracked my knee, no more of that thanks.

I was offered a huge position with my company out in Denver, moved out there with the wife. We enjoyed it a lot, made great contacts in my company as well as some great advancements, no longer working in the auto side, now im handling big loss catastrophes. Met Francisco Elson from the Nuggets out there at the gym, super awesome guy, we balled it up a lot together, I jumped up to his shoulder one day and blocked his shot off the top of the box and he stared at me, said the nuggets at an open tryout coming up and I should check it out. I thought about it, I was pretty furious with myself over the last tryouts, but I did it. It happened to be my best tryout ever, I played something like 7 straight 5 on 5’s, I had a running total of 120ish points, 50 rebounds, 26 blocks, 35 assists, their strength and condition coach was checking me out like he wanted to date me and their shooting coach told me I was a lock…I knew there that it was a done deal, I was gonna play with Melo…nope, no love…got a nice gym bag out of it though…

So that was it, lost the love, figured I really wasn’t as good as people had said and how I thought, felt awkward again…boo bam…here I am…never gonna do it again…then you guys started saying how the Magic needed a big guy, so I got to thinking, got kind of itchy inside, spoke to my uncle, saw Thomas Gardner, a long time family friend, lost his chance to play ball in the NBA and he felt just like I did, we talked about me trying out again and both of us got excited. So my uncle talked to them again after 10 tries in the past and they said there was a possibility, plus my uncle has a friend in the Hornets organization and he said he can probably get me looked at there too…here we are…

hope that takes care of any questions...man biggest internet post from me ever...

EDIT: let me add that all though many aspects of the Euro League are dark, i enjoyed traveling all over, learning languages, eating different foods, meeting a ton of life long friends who i still talk with and hang out with, i enjoyed learning how to shoot the lights out without contest, i felt free overseas, goofing off in other lands was fun, Shanghai was the best, we got buck wild and had the best time there, and no one said anything to us...great stuff, get a little lumpy thinking about it...ok im done...enjoy the thief memoirs...

[Ghost of]

You know, I can't verify if all that's true but it sounds like the man has really put together quite a life. An interesting set of experiences and making the NBA would be great but would not at all detract from what he's overcome and what he's accomplished (learning languages, balling around the world, gaining career skills, meeting his wife, etc) if he did not.

Basically, it's icing on the cake.