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• CARON BUTLER STRAWS DRIVER

“There are two loaves of bread and four containers each of peanut butter and jelly and the ball kids are really busy making sandwiches,” Terry said. Before games, the team eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a habit that Kevin Garnett apparentlyīrought with him from Minnesota. Not surprisingly, Terry was quick to embrace some of the Celtics’ rituals when he joined them this season. Was with the Lakers, Terry settled for shorts from his friend and fellow Wildcat Luke Walton. “I was never able to get a pair of Shaq’s though,” he said, adding that he did not worry that his entire body could probably fit into one of O’Neal’s leg holes.

He tries acquiring the shorts of players he admires, like Stockton, or “I didn’t have any friends on Utah so I managed to weasel a John Stockton jersey from someone who worked there,” Terry said. If he does not have a connection, he is willing to grease the palm of a locker room attendant. On friends for help - having played in the league for so long he has friends on many teams. Over time, it became easier because Terry called he started wearing shorts from the other team. The game eventually arrived and Terry’s Wildcats won. We put on our uniforms in our hotel room hoping it would make game time come quicker,” he said. final, he and his teammate Mike Bibby were so wound up that they could not sleep.

In 1997, before Terry’s University of Arizona team played in the N.C.A.A. It started with a more traditional approach. “I’ve heard of guys who sleep in their own jersey, but his ritual ranks right up there,” Smith said. Before every game he sleeps in game-worn shorts belonging to the opposing team. “ ‘Oh man,’ you’d say, ‘That is strangeĪnd laughable,’ ” Smith said, “but anyone else could say the same about me.” Smith remembers Harold Miner, who had a compulsion to touch just about everything with his nose - his shoes, his headband, the basketball. His uniform he would go into the steam room or sauna.) (After growing up in Michigan, he hated cold so much that after putting on Smith also turned his chair all the way to his locker to dress, and he put a hot pad in his shoes so the leather and his feet would be warm.

CARON BUTLER STRAWS DRIVER

Scott’s fellow NBA TV analyst Steve Smith said, “I just took the route with the least traffic,” but he made sure on the team bus to take the back seat opposite the driver so he could “see But, he conceded, rituals “help keep players focused.” Scott said the routine was mostly for fun, and he knew his own skills were what enabled him to score. If I didn’t take that route I’d have a bad shooting game.” “I’d hear jokes from my family, but I’d alwaysĪllow time for traffic so I wouldn’t have to change it. “When I was in Orlando, I would take the same route to the game every night,” said the former star Dennis Scott, now an NBA TV analyst. Since everyone wanted to be like Mike, the rest of the N.B.A.

And Michael Jordan requested longer,īaggier shorts because he wanted to wear his lucky University of North Carolina shorts underneath his Chicago Bulls uniform. enacted timing rules that could potentially cut into some pregame rituals, like the Oklahoma City Thunder’s passing around chewing gum in a specific order. The Clippers’ Caron Butler calmed himself by chewing straws during games (McDonald’s and Burger King but not Wendy’s or 7-Eleven) before the N.B.A. And some can take them too far and even become ruled by ritual and superstition.Ĭhicago’s Rip Hamilton showers before games. players, like many other athletes, love routines. In fact, they were game-used shorts, the former property of Nate Robinson, who last played in New York in 2009-10. When Boston Celtics guard Jason Terry takes the floor against the Knicks on Thursday night, he will, of course, be wearing the home uniform, with that classic shamrock green.īut when Terry went to sleep on Wednesday night he was planning to wear a pair of Knicks shorts. Quirks of the Game is a regular feature on the Times sports blogs.

Jason Terry, in regulation shorts, in a game against the Suns on Jan.