MEAN STREETS TOB’WAY
FIZDALE JOURNEY TO KNICKS BENCH BEGAN IN HARDSCRABBLE WEST L.A.
IT IS beautiful, but too bright outside, and Helen Hamilton refuses to look up until she gets her sunglasses.
She puts them on, turns around, and is surprised, and thrilled, staring at a massive picture of her son, David Fizdale, on the marquee outside Madison Square Garden.
Hamilton scrambles to retrieve her phone from her bag and joins countless others on Seventh Avenue, snapping photos of the new Knicks coach, who stands on the sidewalk, smiling, and posing with a basketball.
Fizdale’s attire — a suit, tie, and thick-rimmed glasses —is odd. As a kid, he told his mother he would play at the famed arena. He didn’t yet know stars also reside on the sideline. “You can’t dream of this stuff,” Fizdale said.
JIM CROW was comfortable in 1930s Mississippi, and wasn’t leaving soon, if ever. So, a teenaged Robert Hamilton left Starkville first, and moved with his brothers to Los Angeles, where his grandson, David, was born in 1974.
Fizdale was the youngest of three children, raised by his single black mother in West L.A. and left by his white father, whose parents remained part of their grandson’s life. Fizdale often visited them on the well-to-do Avenue of the Stars, in the same building where “Star Trek” star Leonard Nimoy lived.
Home was a short drive away. Gunfire, gangs and a crack epidemic, too.
“It would be one night where you’d be in the house and you hear a drive-by shooting, and the next morning, I’d be getting up going to breakfast with my grandparents in Cen- tury City, and you didn’t have to worry about any of that,” Fizdale said. “But it was only 30 minutes away.”
A few miles from the skyline, Fizdale came face-to-face with friends lying dead in the street. Countless times, he could have been next, once needing to slide under a car in the middle of crossfire.
“Many times bullets were shot in the yard where I would be playing football or hanging out,” Fizdale said. “Rival gangs would just literally be walking outside of a car being driven slow, and bullets just being shot in our total direction ’cause they don’t know the difference between a gangbanger and a kid that’s just hanging out. So they didn’t care.”
Fizdale had a cousin who was a Blood and friends who were Crips, but also a mother who supported her family as a maintenance dispatcher at LAX, and a grandfather who had been a sanitation worker since fleeing the South.
In Robert’s backyard, Fizdale shot on a basketball hoop, built by his grandfather, and learned to grow food in his vegetable garden.
“They had a close and protective and loving family dynamic, and there was a sense of togetherness,” childhood friend and former WNBA star Tina Thompson said. “His mom was everpresent, although she worked very hard, and it was the same with his grandfather, because his dad wasn’t available.
“Some of the kids in [Fizdale’s] group of buddies, they didn’t make the same choices, so they found trouble, and trouble found them. It wasn’t a choice that his mother or grandfather would allow him to make. It wasn’t just his decisions, but the makeup of the family.”
Thompson lived a “balcony away” in the same, small apartment complex on Corning Avenue, and often tagged along with her older brother, Tommy, and Fizdale to play ball at Robertson Recreation Center, after doing their homework as quickly as possible.
“David was always seen as one of the guys who was always gonna be successful,” Thompson said. “It was clear by his focus, how he went about his business. For the many young men in our area, he was different in that respect.”
Fizdale was placed in the magnet, accelerated learning program at John C. Fremont High School — where being half-white was enough to be called “white boy” — and learned to navigate the dangerous South Central blocks from his cousin and high school coach, Sam Sullivan.
While driving those streets, Fizdale was pulled over on a regular basis because of police profiling, and he watched his city burn following the Rodney King verdict in 1992. He will not waste his current platform.
He will wear a Black Lives Matter T-shirt. He will passionately speak out against continuing racial issues, like removing Confederate statues.
“Many times bullets were shot in the yard where I would be playing football or hanging out. ... They don’t know the difference between a gangbanger and a kid that’s just hanging out. So they didn’t care.” — DAVID FIZDALE, ON GROWING UP IN WESTL.A.
“Everything I’ve gone through in my life and witnessed and experienced has shaped me into what I stand for today and that man that I am today,” Fizdale said. “When I see things aren’t right, and aren’t being addressed properly, in a respectful way, I try to make sure that I stand for something right and that I stand on the right side of history.”
Magic Johnson and Showtime were nearby, but Fizdale was recording Big East games from 3,000 miles away and modeling his play after St. John’s point guard Mark Jackson.
Fizdale lost just nine games in three varsity seasons and helped the Pathfinders to the City Section 3A title in 1991 — losing the state title game to the St. Joseph’s team led by Jason Kidd — and 1992.
“He showed leadership as far back as the 10th grade,” Sullivan said. “It was like me being on the floor.”
Fizdale found inspiration when his brother received a football scholarship to Hawaii. He long wanted to play at Cal before accepting a scholarship to the University of San Diego. There, his laid-back and infectious personality earned him a campus-wide collection of friends and the nickname of “The Mayor.”
“He’s coming from South Central, entirely different than this little pristine Catholic school on a hilltop in San Diego — especially in the early ’90s — but he was comfortable in both worlds,” said Kyle Smith, a San Diego assistant coach during Fizdale’s four years, who later worked with him. “He was very gregarious, very outgoing, super social. He’s the kind of person that lights up a room when he walks in, and has time for everybody. That’s how he’s been since he was 18.”
A 6-foot-2 point guard, Fizdale was limited offensively and teased about his long arms. He was an intense and rugged defender — “Rajon Rondo without the athleticism,” Smith said — who was a three-year starter and averaged 1.6 steals for his career. As a senior, he was named All-West Coast Conference and averaged seven assists.
“He was wired a little bit tougher than most,” former teammate Andre Speech said. “That’s what made him such a good defender. He wasn’t gonna back down from anybody. He took it personal ... and he gave Steve Nash ... some problems back in the day.
“How he carried himself, he had qualities that made you want to follow him and listen to what he said. He was direct. He didn’t sugarcoat anything, and that’s what I liked about running with him the most.”
IT WAS Nov. 18, 1993, and Fizdale’s pager screamed 9-1-1. The sophomore called home, and his sister told him Robert had been shot multiple times and was in critical condition. Their grandfather — a deacon at his church — was followed home by a few young men after making a withdrawal at the bank and was shot on his front porch after refusing to let them in the South Central house on 56th and Hoover — where Hamilton’s daughter, husband and grandchildren were inside.
Another page came on Feb. 15, while Fizdale drove back to school from the L.A. hospital. His grandfather had died, shortly after their final conversation.
“It was really tough,” said Sullivan, Robert’s nephew. “That was the main male figure in his life. He looked to Robert as a dad, and he always gave him advice and made sure he had everything he needed. Robert was always that guy, a very strong male figure, and someone who was respected in the neighborhood, even by the gangbangers.
“Grandfather’s word was it. When he said something, that was the end of the discussion.”
Fizdale learned the shooter’s whereabouts before the police and briefly contemplated taking action against the killer.
Then, the morality embedded by his grandfather provided clarity.
“He wouldn’t have wanted that,” Fizdale said. “He was a forgiving man. He was a Christian man. I don’t want to continue a chain reaction of bad decision-making, and a lot of people suffering because of that chain reaction of violence and decision-making.
“And I don’t want my friends, who were willing to do that kind of stuff for me ’ cause they cared about me. I don’t want them to deal with the repercussions of it.”
DWYANE Wade and Gabrielle Union were emotional on the other end of the phone. Chris Bosh and his wife were, too, taking a break from their vacation to be the first ones to congratulate Fizdale on receiving his first head-coaching job, with the Memphis Grizzlies in 2016.
Wade and LeBron James had advocated for their beloved longtime assistant’s first opportunity as much as anyone in the NBA. It was 18 years coming. After working as an intern in the Miami Heat video department, Fizdale got his first coaching job as an assistant at his alma mater and showcased a unique blend of social, emotional and basketball intelligence.
“With his personality and charm, he’s like a human magnet, which is probably the best skill for coaching,” Smith said. “He has the most charisma, and is one of the best people-persons you’ll ever meet. He really gets people, and he establishes trust quickly with people.
“And his talent lies in basketball knowledge. He has almost a photographic mind. Like how Magic and Larry [Bird] saw the game, as a coach, he can recall plays and situations from days before without looking at film. It’s a gift.”
After four seasons at San Diego — where he married his wife, Natasha, and still returns in the offseason — Fizdale spent one year at Fresno State before contemplating an offer from the Golden State Warriors.
“He didn’t know whether he should stay or go, but he got his shot and he ran with it,” former player Shantay Legans said. “I remember helping him pack up, listening to old school rap. Back then, it was 50 Cent, and all those guys were going through their beef. He would say, ‘ You see these guys going hard at each other? That’s how you need to be on the court.’
“You could tell he had it, like you can with a great quarterback. He was real smooth. The first time I met him, I thought he was a player. But he’s the ultimate player’s coach. He could be your best confidant and then go out and get at you pretty hard.”
Fizdale, 43, spent one season with the Warriors then four years with the Atlanta Hawks before a career-changing eight-year stint with the Heat — where he earned the trust, respect and friendship of the planet’s best players, and won two NBA titles.
Though his first season as a head coach ended with a playoff berth, his feud with Grizzlies star Marc Gasol ended his tenure on Nov. 27 — 19 games into the second season — igniting widespread outrage and befuddlement from James, Steve Kerr and countless others in the league.
Teams attempted to take advantage. In the past month, Fizdale interviewed with the Suns, Hornets, Magic and Hawks.
He chose the Knicks, where he was selected from a field of 11 candidates. There wasn’t another option. “He’s perfect for New York. He could be Park Avenue or East New York,” said Smith, who lived in Manhattan while coaching Columbia. “He is someone that’s bigger than life. He’s someone that’s too good to be true. He’s a superstar.”