Young Star, Old Soul
By Ian Thomsen
Sports Illustrated
DEEP IN the fourth quarter of any tight game in Portland, shooting guard Brandon Roy sets the rhythm. As the sold-out Rose Garden urges its young Trail Blazers to go-go-go, Roy peacefully decelerates his dribble, making his way across half-court like a senior citizen oblivious to surrounding traffic, puttering along while an impatient defender swats futilely at the ball until, at last, he is ready to make his move, cross-stepping abruptly into the lane ...
... And then the ball is descending high off the glass through the net, and he is heading upcourt, his blank expression unchanged. When Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade attack the basket, they lurch, lunge and leap with enough g-force to lift spectators out of their seats. When Roy drives, fans' mouths drop open as they sit, dumbfounded. How did he make it there? "He's very deceptive," says Blazers center Joel Przybilla, who has been Roy's teammate for three years. "I don't know if it's how he plays the angles or what. It's amazing, because it looks like he's not even asserting himself, but he gets to the spot where he wants to get to and then, man, you're in trouble."
...
"HE'S ONE of my favorite players in the league," says Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers, who asks his staff to make highlight videos of Roy as teaching tools for his sons Jeremiah, a junior redshirting at Indiana, and Austin, a high school sophomore in Winter Park, Fla.—both guards.
