ultimately matched by the Bullets<\/a>. What drew you to the Knicks? What made that offer sheet appealing to you?<\/p>\nI think back then, when the Bullets matched the offer sheet, the Knicks were looking for a small forward that could play on both ends, offense and defense, and that\u2019s something that they were missing. I talked to my brother, you know, quite a bit \u2014 back then and now \u2014 and he said \u2018we, as the Bulls team, were so glad that the Bullets matched the offer and you didn\u2019t go to New York. Y\u2019all probably would have beat us.\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018Man, don\u2019t tell me that.\u2019 (laughs)<\/p>\n
When you got traded from Washington to Portland in 1993, what was your reaction to being traded and how did you find out?<\/p>\n
I found out through my agent and (then-Bullets GM) John Nash, who was like, \u2018we\u2019re going to take you to a real good team out West.\u2019 Being in the league for like five or six years at the time, I knew it was part of the business that you get traded. Going out there and making it to the playoffs and winning 50 games almost every year, that was something I wasn\u2019t used to. Playing with guys like Cliff Robinson, Buck Williams, Clyde, Terry Porter, Rod Strickland \u2026 those guys kind of taught me how to win.<\/p>\n
What did you think kept you from enjoying the same level of individual success you had in Washington when you went to Portland?<\/p>\n
When I was in Washington, I was either the No. 1 or No. 2 guy behind like a Bernard King. When I went out to Portland, you had a Hall of Famer in Clyde Drexler, then you had guys like Cliff Robinson, Jerome Kersey, Terry Porter, Buck Williams \u2014 those guys who, I think, the year before, had made it to the Finals against the Bulls. I just had to fit in and do whatever they asked me to do.<\/p>\n
When your playing career ended, you worked as a coach, you coached in college and you did some player development in the NBA. What is something that fans or the average person doesn\u2019t know about the work assistant coaches or player development coaches put in?<\/p>\n
Being a player, you\u2019re in practice for three hours, but being an assistant coach, you\u2019re there for at least 10 hours. You have to go over game film, you have to stay afterwards if some of the guys want to work out and get some extra shots. It is very time-consuming.<\/p>\n
Much like yourself and Horace, you had 2 sons who were in the NBA within years of each other, and yet another who played overseas for years. When did you know or have any idea they could play at the pro level?<\/p>\n
After Jerian\u2019s senior year at Notre Dame, when Notre Dame went on that beautiful roll in March Madness, I\u2019m like, he put the work in, so you know, he had the chance. And then, with Jerami, I used to go up and see him play at the Carrier Dome and I remember they were playing Duke. He had like three dunks in a row and he was just a sophomore. After a couple of trips down, I was like, \u2018he\u2019s doing this against a team like Duke and you know what? Maybe he has a chance, too.\u2019 And he just put everything together and now he\u2019s been in the league for 12 years.<\/p>\n
What do you think is an aspect of your game that fans or other people may have underappreciated about how you played in your day?<\/p>\n
I can remember when I got traded back to Washington (in 1996) and they traded for Chris [Webber] and they had Juwan [Howard], Calbert Chaney, Rod Strickland, Tracy Murray and those guys. I had to play center (laughs) and I played it because we couldn\u2019t afford to have Juwan in foul trouble or Chris Webber in foul trouble. I took it upon myself to, you know, to try to guard Patrick Ewing \u2014 can\u2019t nobody really guard Patrick Ewing \u2014 and some of the other bigger centers on other teams. When I got back, I was like, \u2018I\u2019m going to sacrifice my scoring or whatever to help this team win.\u2019 That year, we made it to the playoffs.<\/p>\n
You played in 783 games across 10 seasons, scored 7000-plus points and made the playoffs just five times. Why is finding success in the NBA so elusive?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I think the game has changed so much since I played. The rules have changed so much and now, guys or teams don\u2019t concentrate on defense as much as we did when we played. You see games teams are scoring 140, 150 points and I\u2019m like, for me, it\u2019s not good basketball. They talk about get their points and score or whatever, so now, it\u2019s tough for teams to make it to the next round \u2026 to the playoffs.<\/p>\n
What aspect of being a rebuilding team vs. a playoff team is something maybe people don\u2019t understand about being those two different kinds of teams?<\/p>\n
Rebuilding, to me, is you have some talent there \u2014 a little talent. I think time has proven you can have talent \u2014 you can have three All-Stars on your team \u2014 but if they don\u2019t come and gel together, you cannot be a team that\u2019s making the playoffs. I think it\u2019s been proven so much the last five, six years. You have to gel together. I think most playoff teams, they gel together and they have talent. You need both. You just can\u2019t, in my opinion, have talent because if you look at when Phoenix had Bradley [Beal], KD [Kevin Durant] and Booker, they didn\u2019t gel.<\/p>\n
Is there anybody you watch in the NBA today and think, \u2018this player reminds me of myself?\u2019<\/p>\n
Ooh, that\u2019s a tough one. This may sound clich\u00e9, but my son, Jerami. He plays both ends, he maybe shoots a little bit better than me but we are similar players and he just kind of reminds me of me.<\/p>\n
What makes your era better than the current era? And what makes the current era better than your time when you played?<\/p>\n
When I played, it was more of a defensive game. You took pride in playing good defense. Somebody who scores like eight points in a row, you were like, \u2018you know what? I\u2019m going to shut you down.\u2019 Now, guys are go out and score 20 points in five minutes. When I played it was a more of a defensive game. Guys now \u2014 you take the big guy, Wemby [Victor Wembanyama] \u2026 never seen anything like it. Never seen anything like it. He\u2019s 7-foot-5, can come down, bring the ball up court, stop on a dime and shoot a 3-pointer. He can take you inside, left hand, right hand and what I really like about him is he plays both ends. Today\u2019s game is more of an up-and-down game. It\u2019s totally different. Like the Joker [Nikola Joki\u0107] out in Denver \u2026 those guys, they can come down and shoot the three with ease. Back in my day, we had, maybe, a few guys that could do that. But now, it\u2019s the norm.<\/p>\n
What are you most proud of in your NBA career? And also, what is your biggest regret?<\/p>\n
The thing I\u2019m most proud of is that I got a chance to get coached by some real good coaches. I got a chance to build relationships with guys that I played with. And just seeing and experiencing places that I probably would have never been and meet people I would have never met before. It has allowed me to have a great life. What I regret is that I didn\u2019t win an NBA championship. My brother\u2019s got four and I regret that I didn\u2019t win an NBA championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harvey Grant appeared in 783 career games, splitting time between Washington and the Portland Trail Blazers from 1993\u201396.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,290041,590,85],"class_list":["post-594329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-harvey-grant-qa","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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