Ricky Frazier in his own words about the NBA
Posted on: May 22, 2020 at 08:37:11 CT
FIJItiger
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Lifted from the book "The Hardwood Legend: The Ricky Frazier Story". If interested it kind of reads like a middle schooler wrote it and it obviously hasn't been edited by anyone, but the bulk of the book is a one on one interview with Ricky where the author basically just transcribes the conversation.
Here are Ricky's thoughts on why he didn't make it in the NBA and what happened:
After college I was drafted by the Chicago Bulls. 2nd round pick, pick 27 overall. I went to Chicago and I went to all the camps that they had. It was like 2 games away from the preseason and they had to make a decision about the roster. Paul Westhead was the new head coach and he came from the Lakers. At the time a lot of people were saying that Magic got him fired from the Lakers but that was talk. He was there in Chicago and he loved the way I got up and down the floor. He told me that I reminded him of Michael Cooper and that I was going to fit in the system really good.
In the preseason we were practicing one day and Artis Gilmore fractured my left jaw. I had a hairline fracture so that put me off everything. I think if that had not happened to me I think I would have had a nice promising career in the NBA. To be honest about it not to be bragging I think I would have had a pretty good career in the NBA. I’m quite sure that if I got over that hump I would have been all right.
After I got that hairline fracture I expected that I would be put on injured reserve. I was doing so good that I thought they would put me on injured reserve and bring me back and see how I finished up. That didn’t happen. A question I was asked by the Chicago staff puzzled me, they asked if I had heard from anybody from MU. Obviously they hadn’t and I was trying to get in touch with coach Stewart to see if they could help me. I ultimately had to go all the way back to Charleston in order to get my jaw fixed.
I had made it through all the camps including the veteran camp. They had given me the number 23 and everything. If I had just backed off Reggie Theius I would have made the team easy. I looked at the Chicago team that I was with and the veterans on the team weren’t worth a quarter. They couldn’t play but they got that contracts based on who they knew.
They had me at my size at the college level playing the power forward next to Stiponavich. What do I look like playing power forward in the NBA at my height? They needed me down low in the post at Mizzou. When I got to the Bulls they saw it as not having enough experience at the guard position. Its not that I couldn’t play it because if I couldn’t then they would have cut me in min camp. The preseason is when they put me out there and all of those statements came from the reporters. The Bulls staff was telling me that I will be on the perimeter and wouldn’t be on the inside having to wrestle with the 7 footers. I was loving it and that’s when me and Reggie Theus couldn’t get along because I was outside with him.
Well I had a chance to get back into the NBA the following year. The next year the Pacers invited me to camp but that was it. The 3rd year the Hawks invited me to their camp. At this point I realized it wasn’t going anywhere, so when the opportunity came for me to play overseas I took it. I didn’t want to keep playing I the summer league and during the season I had to sit and watch everybody else play. All I was doing was waiting until the summer and hoping teams offered me the $20,000 to practice with their team for 3 weeks.
(Frazier then explains his overseasons career. First going to Italy, then Turkey, then the Phillipines. While at the last stop his father died, he went home for the funeral, and the team moved on and signed someone else in his absence)
I wasn’t willing to start over so I wasn’t going to play for anyone else. They told me that I was a good player and American players always went with the team who paid the most money so they had already filled my position. So that was that and was the last time I played anywhere. I had fun while it lasted though.
After it was all over I was depressed. I didn’t have anything to do and nobody came to me with any other options.