Back in December, small forward Al Thornton was waiting for his phone to ring. The NBA lockout was over, he was a free agent, he had worked out with the Nuggets and there was interest from teams like the Bobcats, Knicks and Celtics. Thornton is 28, he was a lottery pick in 2007 and in his best season—his second year, with the Clippers—he averaged 16.8 points per game. If there are more than 400 roster spots in the NBA, Thornton figured, there must be one for him.
But Thornton’s phone did not ring. The Nuggets passed. The Celtics, even after losing swingman Jeff Green to a heart issue, didn’t call. As bad as the Bobcats may have been and as thin as the Knicks were, they did not have a place for Thornton.
“It was surprising,” Thornton said. “I thought I would be with a team, safe to say that. It was disappointing. I would expect to be on a team, a team that needs help. But it happened. And what happens, happens.”
Thornton’s path from rising star to forgotten free agent, he acknowledges, is largely his own doing. For one thing, he played last year for the Wizards and Warriors while battling a knee injury that he didn’t tell anyone about—he was an impending free agent, after all, and thought he could fight through the pain.
“I figured it would just go away,” he said.
The bigger issue, though, was Thornton’s off-court life. Thornton established himself as a talented scorer, but also established a reputation as a player who was unwilling to work hard and put in the time to improve. He had a maturity problem, too, and teams that considered signing him were worried that his off-court issues were impeding his on-court progress. One general manager told Sporting News that his team had considered signing Thornton but, “There are a lot of red flags, and you just want to see that he’s got all that under control. He is not a bad guy, he just does not have the reputation of a professional.”
So Thornton and his agent, Bill Duffy, had a talk. Thornton was going to have to address his off-court troubles if he planned to have a full NBA career. At Duffy’s suggestion, Thornton got help.
“I have had a life coach I have been working with, helping me with my life issues,” Thornton said. “It’s really been a good experience for me, because I feel like I can control my life better now. I started this summer, I have been working with him for a while. I can admit, I was doing a lot of immature things. But I am past that.”
Thornton probably would have been signed in December if not for his knee issue. Seeking answers for the persistent pain, Thornton went to see Dr. Marcus Elliott of Peak Performance Project in Santa Barbara, Calif. Elliott is a pioneer with the use of technology in identifying and correcting physical problems. When he began working with Thornton four months ago, he was surprised to find that Thornton was so injured that he could not even do baseline tests. Elliott discovered that the root of Thornton’s knee problem was his ankle—he has limited mobility in his left ankle, causing poor hip stability. The result was bad mechanics that, over the years, left him with tendinosis (chronic tendinitis with scar tissue).
Elliott and Thornton worked on “opening up” his ankle in order to improve his mechanics. They also worked on Thornton’s weight and increasing his ability to create force. After just two months, Thornton’s lost about 15 pounds, and his vertical leap was up to 41 inches, the best of his life.
“I know he has a reputation as not being a hard worker,” Elliott said. “But I can tell you, he was the perfect citizen when he was here. We were very demanding with him—he would spend an hour shooting, two hours on the court, two more hours doing rehab and working on his mobility. He wanted to fix his body, and as he started seeing results, he only wanted to work harder.”
In February, once Thornton was healthy enough to get back on the court, he signed to play in Puerto Rico, for Brujos de Guayama. He said he thought playing in the Puerto Rican league would be “a cakewalk,” but he’s been surprised by the difficulty of the competition. “If you’re not ready to play, you’re going to get embarrassed out here,” he said.
Thornton hasn’t been getting embarrassed. In fact, he is averaging 25.1 points per game on 50.2 percent shooting. He worked on three aspects of his game in the offseason: 3-point shooting, defense and rebounding, which had been weaknesses for him in the NBA. So far, so good—Thornton is shooting 36.8 percent on 3-pointers and averaging 9.5 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 1.5 steals per game.
He will play out the rest of the schedule in Puerto Rico and return to Santa Barbara for more work with Elliott. Then, according to Duffy, Thornton will likely play in this year’s summer league in July.
“Hopefully, he can do that and can ingratiate himself back into the good graces of the league,” Duffy said. “He is willing to prove himself.”
That will include proving that he has learned from his mistakes, that he is prepared to be more professional this time around. Thornton says he’s ready to do that, that the sting of watching his phone not ring this past December has hit home.
“It’s definitely been quite an experience,” Thornton said. “It has been eye-opening. It makes you realize, you can’t take anything for granted, nothing is promised. You had better be doing the right things, on and off the court. It has been a humbling experience, but it makes you want it that much more and makes you willing to work that much harder.”
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