A DIFFERENT WORLD W
A long way from playing for Nets, Tyshawn Taylor traveling globe searching for another shot at hoop stardom
PHILADELPHIA — Tyshawn Taylor glanced at the bench, patinting his chest as if to say “I got this.” He stepped to the foul line and hit four shots after a technical foul before adding a one-handed fast-break dunk as Team FOE pulled away.
Team FOE, or Family Over Everything, is one of 16 left in The Basketball Tournament, a winner-take-all event with a $2 million purse that started with 64 teams composed of former NBA players, current D-leaguers and a host of others from different reaches of the world. Taylor, a former point guard for powerhouse St. Anthony in Jersey City, Kansas and the Nets, is the star of his team that will next play Thursday.
People know his name here, whether it’s the former Jayhawks teammates on his team or the contingent of fans who chanted for him as he closed out the game. Years removed from the brightest lights, Taylor is being recognized for basketball in a good way again. Not for his NBA flameout. Not for his nine-month hiatus from the game. Not for his arrest less than a year ago.
“He had a rocky road,” his mom, Jeanell Taylor, said, “so if he ever got the opportunity to get back in, I think it would be so much better for him. He would do the proper things, take different steps.”
Back in the NBA that is, which Taylor realizes isn’t his next step after finishing the 2016 season with Guaros de Lara in Venezuela, his fourth country since leaving the NBA in 2014. His journey throughout the world has no permanent base, instead consumed by uncertainty, self-doubt and longing for prior stardom. He commandeered St. Anthony to a 32-0 record his senior year and guided Kansas to the 2012 national championship game.
But search his name on the internet and the first link aside from player bios leads to his arrest for cashing a fraudulent money order. That’s not the Taylor he wants people to know, nor the one he thinks he is. The 26-year-old has rediscovered the belief in himself and the belief in his game. A year later, he carries both wherever his journey takes him, trudging along on the quest to return where he once was.
“I’m the name. I’m the Tyshawn Taylor, so everybody’s gonna know that name,” he said. “There’s a lot more that goes into it, obviously. It can’t just be what’s read. I have to be more.”
Before Taylor’s path veered out of the spotlight, the Trail Blazers selected him 41st in the 2012 NBA Draft. He was traded to the Nets and was a brief rotation player after Deron Williams suffered an ankle injury before the All-Star break. Taylor bounced in and out of the D-League while playing time with the Nets never panned out — in two seasons, he averaged eight minutes over 61 games — and for the first time in his basketball career; Taylor wasn’t a prominent figure.
He was traded to New Orleans on Jan. 21, 2014, and released two days later. The Celtics’ D-league affiliate acquired him, only for Taylor to join Atléticos de San Germán in Puerto Rico’s top league less than a month later.
Taylor’s journey around the globe has also included pit stops in Russia’s second division, Turkey (though he never played a game and was cut after two weeks for being out of shape), back to Puerto Rico’s first division and Venezuela’s top league. He’s played in no more than 28 games for each team, even though he averaged double-digit points at all but one stop.
“He’s just go, go, go, go, go,” Jeanell said. “It’s just, ‘I’m here today and I’m gone tomorrow.’ ”
Taylor has told his mom not to visit him overseas. She’s offered because of the despair she heard on the other end of the phone, which stems from a desire to get back in the spotlight. “Ma, I can’t do this.” “Ma, are we gonna be all right?” “Ma, I wish I can get back in the league.”
At the end of April 2015, Taylor was out of a job. The next month, his chances of finding a compatible team took a hit when he allegedly cashed a fake money order for $1,000 cash at Big Banner Food Store in Hoboken. Owner Luis Jimenez gave Taylor leniency, declining to press charges right away because he knew Taylor’s family, offering a chance for Taylor to periodically pay him back. Calls and texts to get Taylor to do so went unreturned, so Jimenez pressed charges in late July and Taylor finally turned himself in Aug. 6 and was released on bail the same day. His agent, Justin Haynes, said the charges have been dropped.
“He would walk around here like he had all the money in the world while he was in debt,” said Luisiana Jimenez, Luis’s daughter.
“Not to be funny, but obviously I have more than a thousand dollars,” Taylor said. “I lost jobs overseas because they would pull up this article about me.”
Exactly how much he has isn’t clear. His agent declined to say how much Taylor — whose rookie contract he signed with the Nets in 2012 was for two years and $1.3 million — has made playing around the world.
Taylor received calls from other teams but none were appealing. The teams were not only bad, he said, but they asked him to save their seasons. He spent time only sparingly in the gym and didn’t think he could live up to those expectations — with two kids to take care of and “real-life” responsibilities to handle.
It wasn’t until February that Taylor finally found his fit with a Venezuelan team on which he averaged 16.4 points and 3.7 assists while shooting 41.9 percent from deep in 28 games. Haynes expects Taylor to get an offer to return, but Taylor wants to keep his options open in hopes of more exposure elsewhere.
“The sky’s maybe not the limit,” said Mario Little, Taylor’s close friend and Kansas teammate, “but you still gotta reach for the stars.”
Taylor lives in New Jersey and his mom lives in Florida. Whenever he’s in the U.S., he bounces between locations to visit the woman who raised him and to organize his belongings at home so he can take them wherever his next destination is. He said he is trying to support his kids through a career that has provided anything but stability.
He frequently uses the hashtag #theonetheyforgotabout on Instagram. It’s a reminder he still has something left in the tank. The memories of stardom in high school and college are what motivated him during his hiatus and still do today. He knows he won’t be that prominent as an individual again, but he yearns for the big time with the belief he can get back there some day.
“He’s just go, go, go, go, go. It’s just, ‘I’m here today and I’m gone tomorrow.’ ” — Jeanell Taylor, Tyshawn’s mother