Quick with another good article on the Athletic, this time about Skal. Personally, I think he’ll be a rotation player next season.
———-
'Inches from death' to the NBA: Skal Labissiere appreciates opportunity with Trail Blazers
https://theathletic.com/850420/2019...e-appreciates-opportunity-with-trail-blazers/
Nobody knows how much, or even if, Skal Labissiere will play for the Trail Blazers this season.
And while sitting the bench is not an ideal scenario for the 6-foot-11 big man, Labissiere is not complaining. After all, he considers himself lucky to be alive.
In 2010, when he was 13, Labissiere was on the third floor of his family’s home in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, when a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit.
“It went from being sunny out to being pitch dark,” Labissiere remembers.
Pitch dark because he was buried under the rubble of his home. When the earthquake began, he ran to his mother, who was sitting in a chair. As the house collapsed and plummeted to the ground, a wall fell on Labissiere’s back as he huddled over his mother.
He was stuck in that position — huddled over his mom with a concrete wall on him — for more than three hours as his father and neighbors dug through the rubble. He lost feeling in his legs from the ordeal and didn’t walk for weeks. When he did start walking, it was with a pronounced limp.
His family — mom, dad and younger brother — all survived. More than 300,000 people did not.
So there’s more than just a hint of perspective from the 22-year-old when he smiles about his lot on a Blazers team with a big-man surplus. Even as team captain Damian Lillard last week — unprompted — marveled at Labissiere’s shot and skill while noting that he could be playing for several NBA teams, Labissiere said he can’t help but soak in the reality that he is here.
“Things like this? Playing time? Yeah, it’s frustrating at times, but I’m good,” Labissiere said. “After what I’ve been through, believe me, I’m good. God got me to this point, and I still have a ways to go. I’m excited about what’s ahead here.”
Starting Tuesday in Memphis, and throughout this week in Portland, there will be a reminder of the bridge between that dark moment under the rubble and the bright lights of the NBA.
It was Memphis where Labissiere moved, eight months after the earthquake, and it was Gerald Hamilton and his family who took him in. The Blazers play Tuesday in Memphis, then Hamilton and the family are flying to Portland on Wednesday to spend the week watching the Blazers play Oklahoma City and Phoenix.
“Memphis is basically my second home,” Labissiere said. “And they are my family. They are my people.”
When Labissiere was a youth he played soccer, but as he sprouted in height, he thought he was too tall for the sport. Around that time, he saw Kobe Bryant play on television and fell in love with basketball.
“As a kid, it was always my dream to get here (to the NBA),” Labissiere said. “I prayed every night and I worked. I knew I wanted to be here, I just didn’t know how I was going to get here.”
Turns out, the most devastating day of his life was also his most opportunistic.
“A lot of people died in that event, which is awful, but for me, God used that experience to open doors for me,” Labissiere said.
His father researched and contacted Reach Your Dream, a nonprofit organization that promotes “spiritual awareness, self-confidence and innovative thinking.” Hamilton, through Reach Your Dream, flew out to Haiti to meet Labissiere.
“I was just trying to help a kid by providing an opportunity,” Hamilton said. “I had no idea he would end up being in the NBA.”
Eight months after the earthquake, and a month before he would start eighth grade, Labissiere — all 6-foot-7, 154 pounds of him — moved to Memphis and in with the Hamiltons.
“It was pretty hard at first,” Labissiere said. “I was leaving my family, living with people I didn’t know, and I didn’t know English. I started school and was around students I didn’t know and couldn’t understand.”
Labissiere credits teachers for putting in extra time to help him learn English. And he said the Hamiltons involved him with all their activities.
“It was a long process at first. Everything was different. Especially the food,” he said. “I was used to rice and beans, plantains and the way we cooked our chicken. I got here and it was … burgers … wings … and the way it was cooked was just different.”
And so was the basketball.
“Basketball-wise, it was probably a bigger culture shock,” Labissiere said.
It didn’t help that he was rusty. He hadn’t played since the earthquake, because his back was injured and his legs were just getting back to normal.
“When he started here he was extremely out of shape,” Hamilton said. “But he was very skilled. He had a nice jump shot, could shoot a jump hook with either hand, no problem. But his footwork was bad, and he was very skinny.”
But one thing Hamilton soon discovered was that Labissiere didn’t just talk about wanting to make the NBA, he worked at it.
“He’s a borderline workaholic,” Hamilton said. “A very focused young man. He knows what he wants, and he took complete advantage of the opportunity, from the academic side, the spiritual side and definitely the athletic side.”
Not everything was easy. He helped Evangelical Christian win a state championship in his first season, but as a senior he was ruled ineligible after his transfer to Lausanne Collegiate School was deemed for athletic purposes only. When he signed with Kentucky as a five-star recruit, Hamilton became scrutinized for his role in the process.
“We’ve been through trying times,” Hamilton said. “And we’ve been through a lot. But all those different situations brought us closer together.”
Last week in Boston, as national reporters interviewed Lillard, the star guard brought up Labissiere as an example of the Blazers’ talented roster. Yeah, most people know Rodney Hood and Enes Kanter, Lillard was saying, but they likely don’t know the talent of Labissiere.
“People don’t know yet that Skal can play,” Lillard said. “He has a skill set where if he is put in the game he can help us. He can shoot. He’s a good shot blocker. He has good ball skills … he has skills.”
Lillard said he knew because the day before, the same day the team got stuck in an elevator at their Boston hotel, he ran into Labissiere and other teammates playing one-on-one. He was impressed, and it sparked a memory of watching Labissiere on television as a rookie during the 2016-2017 season.
“They were playing against the Suns, and it was the first time I got to see him play a lot of minutes,” Lillard said. “I think he had 30 and 15 (it was actually 32 points and 11 rebounds) and he was hitting jumpers, finishing in the paint, blocking shots … and I was like, ‘OK. He can play.’ And this year, in Sacramento, I was expecting him to be in the rotation.”
The Kings, however, drafted Marvin Bagley with the No. 2 overall pick and planned on using Willie Cauley-Stein and Kosta Koufus at center. After playing only 13 games, Labissiere was traded to Portland for Caleb Swanigan.
“I’m in a good place right here,” Labissiere said. “So far, from what I’ve seen, this is a great organization. The way they treat their players, and looking at their history and how they develop guys, I think it’s going to be good for me. And just the work they’ve put me in since I’ve been here, I think I’ve gotten better.”
In Portland, he has played in two games for a total of four minutes. He knows he likely won’t see much action as the Blazers play Jusuf Nurkic, Kanter and Meyers Leonard at center, and Al-Farouq Aminu, Jake Layman and Zach Collins at power forward.
But he also knows how quickly life can change.
“Like this (snapping his fingers); that’s why I don’t take life for granted,” Labissiere said. “I’ve experienced it. It was only a matter of two or three seconds and my life went from being normal to wooosh! … chaos.”
He had friends die. And he watched as his family, and his city, were relegated to sleeping in tents outside. It’s why he is so quick to smile, and why he eagerly soaks in the coaching he’s receiving with the Blazers.
“I think he’s looking at this as a new opportunity,” Hamilton said. “And he knows he can learn from some really good veterans, and get a chance to know what it takes to be in the playoffs.”
In July 2017, Labissiere returned to Haiti and held a basketball camp for about 50 children. It was the first time he had returned since the earthquake. (His parents and little brother have moved to Florida.)
In Toronto last week, Labissiere said he was just talking with his best friend about how everything has come full circle.
“I was telling him how the whole journey has been so crazy,” Labissiere said. “But no matter how much I talked about it, people will never understand the things I’ve been through, as far as the whole experience of coming from Haiti to here. It’s just amazing to see the work that God has done in my life.”
Or simply, the fact he still has life.
“It’s a miracle, plain and simple,” Hamilton said. “This guy went from inches from death to being resurrected and living his dream out in the NBA.”
