July 22, 2010
Three days after getting the call he had been waiting for all his life, Kenny Hasbrouck stood silently in front of his new locker in the Miami Heat's team room and stared in disbelief. His prized Siena shirt, proudly and prominently displayed just hours before, was sliced to shreds.
Welcome to the NBA, rookie.
"Yup, they cut it into a hundred pieces," Hasbrouck recalls of his teammates. "Right after the Purdue game, as if I wasn't hurting enough."
Siena's most transcendent student-athlete vows he will never forget where he came from.
"I talk about Siena all the time," he says. "I wear my green and gold wristbands when I play, and the guys give me a hard time because they aren't the right color. I tell them (the wristbands) will always be part of my uniform. I'm a Siena Saint for life"
The first year of Kenny Hasbrouck's life after Siena had more twists and turns than a Jack Bauer visit to the Whitehouse, weaving an unlikely path from the suburban serenity of Old Loudon Road to the Art Deco neon hues of cosmopolitan South Beach. The voyage allowed Hasbrouck to briefly taste the sweetness of realizing his ultimate goal, but much work remains.
Hasbrouck went undrafted last June before catching the attention of the Heat. He was invited to a minicamp in Miami after making the Memphis Grizzlies's summer-league roster. Miami's interest grew when they saw the 6-3 guard perform. He was one of the final rookies who remained as summer faded to fall and appeared a strong candidate for the team's opening day roster, before an ankle injury curtailed his journey.
Following a successful stint in the NBA's Developmental League, Hasbrouck inked two separate 10-day contracts with the Heat in March before signing for the remainder of the season on April 5. He never appeared in a game, and although the Heat's affinity for his skills is obvious, his future with the franchise remains uncertain.
The latest stop was Las Vegas where last week Hasbrouck played for the Heat's summer-league team, and a shot at reclaiming his valuable roster spot. He excelled, leading the team with 13.6 points over the five games while shooting 49% from the field and 45% from 3-point range. The performance couldn't have come at a better time.
"Every time you step on the floor, you have something to prove," Hasbrouck said when asked if he felt pressure to perform. "But my mindset was just to make good decisions with the basketball and take good shots when I was open. Our team didn't have a real strong scoring threat, so our coaches told us to just move the ball and shoot with confidence when we had good looks."
Miami made waves this offseason by assembling a triumvirate of talent in LeBron James, Chris Bosh and franchise player Dwayne Wade. With dwindling cap space, the Heat have continued adding pieces of the puzzle in the last week, including Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Mike Miller, Dexter Pittman, and Jamaal Magloire. The Heat also re-signed Udonis Haslem and Joel Anthony.
Hasbrouck remains as one of 17 players listed on the Miami Heat's website roster. Two players are unsigned draft picks and four others are free agents. Under the new collective bargaining agreement, each team is required to carry 12 players on its active list, and at least one player, and no more than three, on its inactive list, which includes any players sent to the NBA Development League.
The Palm Beach Post reports the Heat is expected to add one more point guard and a player from its summer-league roster, which the paper claims could be Hasbrouck, to round out the maximum 15 member roster.
"The biggest challenge is not knowing what the future holds," Hasbrouck says. "I know the organization much better (than I did last year), know what they want me to produce, but at the end of the day it's a business and they have to do what's best for them."
Hasbrouck said his teammates in Miami help him keep the proper mindset and have given him great advice.
Dwayne Wade? "He is a true teammate," Hasbrouck says. Quentin Richardson? "He went out of his way to show me the ropes. Told me to keep grinding, to always be a professional and to realize it may take time to get where I want to but never to give up."
Hasbrouck hopes Miami's future plans involve him, and an opportunity to play for what may be the most followed team in the history of the sport.
When asked about the possibility of suiting up with the King, Chris Bosh and D-Wade, Hasbrouck laughs, contemplates the magnitude of the possibility and offers: "It's kind of like our Big Three," referring to Siena's class of Ronald Moore, Alex Franklin and Edwin Ubiles. "Our Big Three on steroids."
~By Jason Rich, SienaSaints.com
