Former Zags hoping they make cut in NBA
Back when they were basketball teammates on the Gonzaga University men’s basketball team, Dan Dickau, Blake Stepp and Cory Violette used to occasionally golf together.
Dickau and Stepp could play. Still can.
As for Violette, well …
“I just went along for the heck of it,” admitted the 6-foot-8, 255-pound former Bulldogs center. “It was worth the price of the greens fees just to listen to those other two talk trash to each other.”
That was three years ago, when Dickau was a senior and Stepp and Violette were sophomores. And with all three having gone their separate ways – Dickau and Stepp to the NBA and Violette to Italy, where he began training camp earlier this month – they don’t get together much any more.
Still, Dickau and Stepp, in conjunction with Saturday’s third-annual Coaches vs. Cancer Golf Classic and BasketBall Gala that is co-chaired by GU coach Mark Few and his wife, Marcy, managed to hook up at Spokane Country Club on Friday for yet another of their friendly, but fiercely competitive, golf games.
On this day, however, the trash talking that had been so entertaining for Violette never surfaced. Instead, most of the conversation was serious, and centered on the uncertain NBA careers both are facing.
Stepp, a 6-foot-4 shooting guard and two-time West Coast Conference Player of the Year, will leave later this month for Minneapolis, where he hopes to earn the last open roster spot with the Minnesota Timberwolves, who made him the 58th pick in this year’s NBA Draft.
“They’ve already have 11 players signed,” he said of the Timberwolves. “But the open spot is at my position, so I’ve got a chance if I play well.”
Dickau’s situation is just a tenuous, even though he has already played in the NBA – albeit it sparingly – for two seasons.
The 6-foot point guard, who was a first-team All-American as a senior at GU, expects to attend camp with the Dallas Mavericks. But he admits he could still end up anywhere after having already been traded four times since being selected in the first round of the 2002 NBA Draft by the Sacramento Kings.
“Heck, I might get traded again before this round is finished,” Dickau, a 6-handicapper said while waiting on the 14th tee. “That’s why I keep my cell phone with me all the time.”
After being traded by the Kings to the Atlanta Hawks shortly after the 2002 draft, Dickau struggled through an injury-plagued rookie season, playing in only 50 games. Then last February, as part of a five-player deal, he was shipped – along with Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Theo Ratliff – to the Portland Trail Blazers, in exchange for Rasheed Wallace and Wesley Person.
It was a trade Dickau embraced wholeheartedly, having grown up just across the Columbia River from the Rose City.
“Since I was a little kid, I dreamed about being a Blazer,” he said at the time.
The move allowed Dickau and his wife, Heather, a former member of the Trail Blazers dance team, to return home where their first child, Claire, was born on June 4. But Dickau’s playing time with Portland was also minimal. He played in just 20 games.
“I came into a situation where they had just signed two other point guards, and they never completely gave the job to any of us,” he explained. “I never fully took charge when I had the chance, and they went away from me.”
Dickau was hoping to establish himself in the Blazers backcourt this season, but had his plan jarred to its foundation last month when Portland announced it was trading him and forward Dale Davis to Golden State for point guard Nick Van Exel.
“I was really shocked,” Dickau admitted. “I had no clue it was coming, and neither did my agent. I knew that a possible deal was in the works, but I never heard any rumor with my name involved.”
Still, he remained upbeat, thinking he would get a good look from first-year Golden State coach Mike Montgomery, who “runs a system very similar to what we ran at Gonzaga.”
Dickau rented a home in the Bay Area shortly after the trade was announced, but less than a month later, the Warriors shipped him to Dallas as part of another five-player deal. And after needing legal help to get out of his Bay Area lease, he has rented another house in Dallas.
During Friday’s leisurely round of golf with Stepp, it was suggested that maybe that’s why Few keeps inviting him back to his Coaches vs. Cancer BasketBall Gala: “You’re the only guy who can donate jerseys from five different NBA teams to the Gala auction.”
“Yeah,” Dickau said. “In fact, I donated one this year and I’m not sure which team it’s from. I think it’s a Blazers jersey.”
The one advantage Dickau has over Stepp, however, is that he will get paid this season, whether he makes an NBA team or not. It is part of the three-year guaranteed contract he signed as a first-round draft pick in 2002.
“It’s been disappointing moving around so much,” Dickau admitted. “But like (GU assistant) Tommy Lloyd told me, not many guys get a chance to make a living doing what I’ve done for the last two years.”
And he still gets the chance to make it back to Spokane each summer to renew old golf – and basketball – acquaintances.