J.R. Smith caps Cavs title with lovely, tearful tribute to parents
Sunday was a special day for J.R. Smith. Yes, it was special because he contributed 12 points, four rebounds, two assists and a steal to help the Cleveland Cavaliers knock off the Golden State Warriors, 93-89, in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals to earn the first championship in Cleveland’s franchise history.
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Yes, it was special because Smith — the gunner so often maligned throughout his 12-year NBA career for his shoot-first, ask-questions-later approach — made his presence felt as much with committed and hard-nosed defense in his 39 minutes of work as with the flurry of eight quick early-third-quarter points to cut into the Warriors’ halftime lead and keep Cleveland in the fight. Yes, it was special because this sort of performance, ending in this sort of exultation, didn’t always seem like the sort of moment that Smith — inarguably talented, but mercurial, with a tendency toward on- and off-court outbursts at inopportune times — would ever get to experience.
“I mean, I thought about it a lot, honestly, getting to this point,” Smith said during his trip to the interview podium after Game 7. “The more my career went on, it kind of dwindled, and it was more about just playing the game. I’ve been playing this game, fortunately for me, since I was 3 years old.”
And then, J.R. opened up about why this day, in particular, was so special to him.
“It’s on Father’s Day,” he said. “My dad put the ball in my crib.”
“I mean, my parents, my family, that’s the biggest inspiration in my life,” said Smith, tears streaming down his face. “I’ve been in a lot of dark spots in my life, and if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be able to get out of it. But they are who they are. They fought with me. They yelled at me, they screamed at me, they loved me, they hugged me, they cried with me, and they always stuck by my side no matter right or wrong.
“I know a lot of people don’t have their parents in their life, their mother, their father, but I’ve got the best two you could ask for, I swear. There’s six of us, and they didn’t treat any of us different. They loved us the same. They treated us all the same, and I just wanted to be like them when I grow up.
“I mean, my dad is easily one of my biggest inspirations to play this game. To hear people talk bad about me, it hurts me because I know it hurts him, and that’s not who I am. And I know he raised me better, and I know I want to do better. Just everything I do is for my parents and my family. I mean, I don’t really — the cars are nice, the houses are nice, but none of this matters without them. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here. I don’t know where I would be, honestly. If it wasn’t for them, if it wasn’t for the structure and the backbone that I have, I wouldn’t be able to mess up and keep coming back and being able to sit in front of you as a world champion.”
Smith has spoken before about the impact his father, Earl Jr., had on his career, and Dad has weighed in, too, often colorfully. In a Grantland feature written by Jonathan Abrams last year, he detailed his tilted tutelage of the game to his kids — “Defense was the last thing I taught them, because you can make it without defense” — and vigorously defended his son entering the NBA draft straight out of high school while arguing against the imposition of a minimum age for draft eligibility.
“Come out of high school and [you’re] in the top 30 of the NBA draft,” he said. “You go to college, you get exposed. Now, you’re out the draft. You’ve got to get the money when you can go and make a few million dollars without doing that manual labor. You can get an education later. I know how hard it is. I worked a long time to even try and make a million dollars. It don’t come easy.”
As Smith told ESPN.com’s Brian Windhorst earlier this month, his father’s influence extended beyond the court, too:
“My dad used to say, ‘When you’re ready to get married, you’ll know.’ I’m like whatever, everyone says that. A lot of things my dad said growing up didn’t make sense to me, not even a clue. He used to say, ‘There’s a time and place for everything.’ But I was like when is the time and place? I was 18 years old when I came to the league, I got a pocket full of money. I’ve got cars. I’ve got females. I’m like what’s the time and place? Slowly but surely, I’m starting to get it.”
No less a reference than three-time NBA Finals MVP LeBron James will testify to J.R.’s journey toward “getting it.”
“Obviously, I know what J.R.’s been through in his career — people counting him out and saying he’s this, he’s that, not understanding […] what J.R.’s been through, and people just saying that there’s no way he can be a winner, ” said James, whose vote of confidence helped bring Smith to Cleveland last season. “When our GM [David Griffin] came to us last year and said, hey, we’ve got a deal to get Timofey Mozgov and get Iman Shumpert, and the Knicks are going to throw in J.R., I was like, ‘What? They’re going to throw in J.R. into the deal?’ And I was like, ‘OK, I’ve got him. I got him.’ And J.R. turned himself into not only a huge boost to our team, but he turned himself into a two-way player, both sides of the floor. And I think those emotions came out of J.R. at the end of those games.”
And, beautifully, during a postgame news conference that the NBA world won’t soon forget.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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