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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Finally hanging on



 (The Spokesman-Review)
John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review

SEATTLE – In the cartoons, the coyote – or the park ranger or the hound dog or another refugee from hope – dangles from the precipice, clinging to a serendipitous branch growing, without explanation, at a 90-degree angle above the abyss.

This has been Dan Dickau’s professional basketball career, more or less.

Back in the funnies, the roadrunner or other nemesis du jour is seen putting saw blade to the branch, or else it simply pulls loose from the cliff, sending the poor clingee plummeting to pancakedom many feet below.

This, however, is not Dan Dickau. Not anymore.

This time the bough held. In fact, he’s even turned the treehouse into a room with a view.

The Dan Dickau Reclamation Tour, though far from over, hit the true homestretch this week with the New Orleans Hornets’ swing through the Northwest. After Tuesday’s 108-91 loss to the Seattle SuperSonics and tonight’s stop at Portland, the Gonzaga University grad will have played in front of upwards of 150 family members and close friends and thousands more casual ones, which meant cadging stacks of tickets from teammates at KeyArena and having his dad in Vancouver wrangle four entire Rose Garden suites.

See, this homecoming, people actually get to see him play.

“It’s like a whole different world,” Dickau said.

It is that. The last time Dickau was getting these kinds of minutes, he was establishing himself as the most prolific two-year scorer in GU history and becoming only the second first-round National Basketball Association draft choice in school history.

And since?

Well, hoop is a heartbreak, sports fans.

He was traded five times, not so much as suiting up for two of those teams. When he did get into uniform, it rarely got sweaty – in stops at Atlanta, Portland and Dallas, he played in just 97 games, averaging 8.5 minutes. His first-round status guaranteed him a three-year contract, but no club considered picking up the option on a fourth, so the clock wasn’t just ticking on Dickau’s career – it was like thunder from a timpani.

“All I ever wanted,” he said, “was an opportunity to show I could play. I never doubted my skills. I never doubted my ability. I just got lumped in as one of those guys who was going to need the ‘right’ situation.”

Who could have thought that something that looked so wrong could be this right?

In early December, the Mavericks shipped Dickau and a second-round draft choice to the Hornets, the NBA’s ultimate bottom feeders, for Darrell Armstrong. New Orleans was 1-14 at the time. They’re now 8-40, but for mere survival purposes, those aren’t the numbers that directly affect Dickau.

These do: 30.6 minutes and 14 points a game, his averages since joining the Hornets.

Math that means he belongs.

“He’s proven to people he can be a terrific point guard in this league,” said Mark Bartelstein, shifting into the kind of hyperbole that only a player’s agent can muster. “He’s a terrific shooter, he makes good decisions, his toughness – he doesn’t back down to anyone – and he’s done a great job of running that team.

“Really, there’s not an aspect of his game that hasn’t been impressive.”

The view from someone not on Dickau’s payroll?

“He’s earned (another) contract,” said one NBA scout. “He’s a backup, but he shoots it well enough and does enough other things that he can help somebody.”

Even two months ago, it was easy to dismiss such a notion – and many of us did.

Injuries had cut into his few opportunities in Atlanta. Coaches locked into rotations or contract investments in other players had limited his usefulness elsewhere. The trades had turned him, alas, into something of a punchline, but no one really could say for certain whether he could play or not.

Craig Ehlo knows the feeling.

The Sonics’ TV and radio analyst, Ehlo played 14 NBA seasons before retiring to Spokane, but like Dickau spent his first three scuffling for meaningful minutes.

“I tell him that our careers are so parallel,” said Ehlo. “Those three years were the toughest years of my life – because I always knew I could play, but it was out of my control.”

This has been Dickau’s hardest lesson – how little input he has in the business side of his existence, not that it was going to make him try any less.

“If it ever came to it,” Dickau said, “that someone finally said, ‘You know what – I think you’re done,’ I probably would have tried to find one more way to give it a shot.”

When he was traded to New Orleans, he waited until his second game – on the road against Houston – before knocking on coach Byron Scott’s door.

“I told him, ‘I haven’t been given an opportunity yet in this league. I know I can play – I just need a chance,’ ” Dickau recalled. “He looked at me and said, ‘You know what? You’re going to get a chance here. I don’t know if it’s going to be tonight or in a week, but be ready.’

“That night I got a chance to play and I played well, and from then it’s kind of been growing.”

No kidding. Dickau’s scored in double figures in 24 of 32 games since, with highs of 27 points against the Clippers and 16 assists against Philadelphia.

He didn’t have his best stuff Tuesday night – his 17 points came on just 6-of-20 shooting, the tipping point in a statistical draw with Sonics point guard Luke Ridnour.

But he doesn’t have to look over his shoulder after a game like that, but simply try to improve on it.

“If you’re not playing in the last year of a contract, it would be a lot more difficult,” he conceded. “In a situation like that, you’re desperate to show what you can do in a two- or three-game stint so that now your agent has something to talk (to teams) about.”

It’s Ehlo’s feeling that Dickau will be re-signed by the Hornets “because they’re the team that’s been able to see what he can do, and there’s a need.”

But if anything, Dickau is determined not to think about his contract status and the maddening possibilities.

“If I can (get a contract) here, that would be great,” he said. “But I really don’t know. My contract ends this year, and under the rules, you can’t talk to them about anything.

“And if I was to start thinking about that, I’d be selling myself and the team short. I just have to focus on playing hard every day and staying ready.”

In that respect, it’s no different than his previous two years – but in only that respect.

“You know, they’re going to have him on trivia questions,” said Ehlo. “Who was on six teams in three years?

“But so what? Like I told him – you’re going to make it, so have fun with it.”