Joe Forte

In todays Charlotte Observer. What a dumbass

 

4 years later, where is Joseph Forte?

Former Tar Heels star tries to resurrect career

SCOTT FOWLER

ASHEVILLE - Within 30 seconds of Joseph Forte's first appearance Friday night on the basketball court, he does something breathtaking.

He fakes right and goes left past one defender. With another in his face, Forte leaps both backward and sideways. He's 15 feet from the basket, falling out of bounds on the left baseline, when he launches the shot.

It swishes.

There is a smattering of applause from the 500 or so fans sprinkled around Asheville's ancient Civic Center. One minute remains in the first quarter of this minor-league pro basketball game. Forte doesn't start for the Asheville Altitude, so he has just checked into the game.

At age 19, Forte's successful jumpers were greeted with roars from more than 20,000 people in the Dean Dome. As a college sophomore, he was a first-team All-American who averaged 20.9 points for North Carolina and shared ACC Player of the Year honors with Duke's Shane Battier.

At age 23, Forte is trying to resurrect a basketball career that flamed out, he says now, mostly because of his immaturity.

The sparse crowds that watch him play in places like Asheville, Fayetteville, and Columbus, Ga., don't bother him, he says.

"Is it embarrassing? No," Forte says. "What's embarrassing are some of the things I did -- some of my bad behavior. I mean, I've been arrested. So I can't look at a crowd and go, `There's not enough people here.' If I was coming fresh out of North Carolina and seeing this, I'd probably be disgusted. But I've got a different perspective now."

Forte left North Carolina early, after his sophomore season, and was a first-round NBA draft pick in the summer of 2001.

But he barely played during his two NBA seasons, one in Boston, one in Seattle. And since leaving Chapel Hill, Forte has had problems with coaches, teammates and the police.

`My golden years'

Forte says he has taken control of his life. And he is such a natural charmer -- enthusiastic, baby-faced and outwardly candid -- that as we talk over lunch in Asheville he sounds like a comeback story on the verge."The years at Carolina were my golden years," he says. "And then in the pros, the main problem was I just wasn't playing and I didn't know how to handle it. I didn't control my emotions. I understand that I was wrong."

Forte says now that he should have stayed at Chapel Hill for four seasons rather than two.

"Basketball-wise, I was ready to go early," he says. "Emotionally, I was not. ... I've been a basketball wonder for some time now, but has my attitude been a wonder to be around?"

Doesn't he sound mature? And he's trying to heal old wounds. He drove to Chapel Hill last week, on his own, to spend quality time with former North Carolina coaches Bill Guthridge and Dean Smith.

"Hopefully Joseph has hit rock bottom and he's going to grow from all of this and have a nice NBA career," Guthridge says. "I think the world of him. I just wish I could have helped him more through all this adversity."

Forte seems to be taking his reserve role in the NBA's developmental league like a man. He seems to be taking responsibility for past mistakes.

And then I think about what happened earlier that day at Asheville's practice. And I wonder ...

Guthridge and Doherty

But let's wait on that story. We must remember how good Forte was to understand what he lost and what he wants back.

He played in the shadow of current Charlotte Bobcat Keith Bogans in high school at DeMatha High in Maryland, but wasted no time removing that shadow once he got to Chapel Hill.

Guthridge started Forte at shooting guard as a freshman. On the first collegiate shot Forte ever took, he hit a 3-pointer. Fans quickly learned to recognize his No. 40 jersey and appreciate both the pun and the sweet shooting touch.

Forte was ACC Rookie of the Year in 2000 and helped Guthridge's third and final Tar Heels team pull off a string of upsets to get to the Final Four. Forte averaged 16.7 points -- more than Phil Ford, Michael Jordan or anyone else ever scored at North Carolina as a freshman.

Forte and his younger brother Jason, a senior at Brown who was the Ivy League Player of the Year last season, were raised by Wanda Hightower, a single mother. Forte adored Guthridge, whom he considered a caring father figure.

Guthridge retired in 2000. The Tar Heels, after failing on their first try to get Roy Williams to leave Kansas, hired Matt Doherty as coach. Doherty allowed Forte to shoot even more often than Guthridge had, but Forte says their relationship was a mixed bag.

"It wasn't all bad, because we were winning," Forte says of the 2000-01 team that won 18 in a row and finished 26-7. "But we didn't understand each other. We didn't communicate very well."

Forte also admits some of his teammates had problems with him that season -- "sibling rivalry," he calls it. Some believed he was a selfish player who shot too much.

He says Doherty yelled at him a lot in practice and sometimes he would yell back.

Says Doherty: "I was trying to hold Joe to a level of accountability that any coach would expect from their players. Work ethic. Unselfish play. I was very direct and honest at times, and maybe that was different than what he was used to."

Forte says the financial security of his family was a key issue, and Doherty's aggressive coaching also helped make him decide to leave after his sophomore season. (It's also true that given Williams' occasional public turbulence with Rashad McCants -- a player with whom Forte believes he has "a lot in common" -- Forte and Williams likely would have clashed as well).

The Tar Heels wanted Forte to stay. Dean Smith advised him to, as did Doherty, who said he could play more point guard as a junior since that would likely be his position in the NBA.

Forte wasn't buying. He recalls: "My relationship with Doherty was slowly but surely declining, and I'm thinking, `This thing is only going to get worse.' Right now I'm at my peak. I don't know what my junior year may bring."

Doherty says as soon as he was hired at North Carolina in July 2000, he was made to understand that Forte would probably go pro after his sophomore season.

"That's why I signed Jackie Manuel so fast," Doherty says. "I was aware we were going to need another `2' guard."

Doherty says he also believes Forte, along with Michael Jordan and McCants, are three of the best players the Tar Heels have ever had in the final moments of a close game.

"I wish Joe Forte nothing but the best," Doherty says. "It'd be a great, unbelievable story if he got back to the NBA."

The NBA blues

Little went right for Forte after he went pro. The Boston Celtics drafted him in 2001 with the 21st overall pick, signed him to a three-year guaranteed contract worth about $3.2 million and decided to make him a point guard. But 6-foot-4, 192-pound Forte struggled with his ball-handling and was stuck on the bench."They were looking out for my future," Forte says, "but I didn't get it. All I could think of was I was an All-American as a shooting guard, and now they want me to do something new."

Forte irritated the Celtics. Once he figured out he wasn't going to play, he acted like he didn't care about the team. He showed up late for practices.

"Joseph was used to being the best," Guthridge says. "And when he wasn't, he just didn't handle that right."

The Celtics gladly traded him to Seattle after one season. There, things got worse.

 

Forte still wasn't playing. He pouted. He needled his teammates. He sang happily in the shower after one loss -- "I was singing `What goes up, must come down,' " -- he remembers, and made teammate Jerome James so angry he tried to attack Forte.

No one was hurt in the scuffle, but the Sonics' response to the incident was telling. They suspended Forte for a game and fined him $11,000. They didn't punish James at all.

In early 2003, back in Maryland, Forte ran afoul of the law. He was stopped for going 90 mph in a 65-mph zone. In the car, police found marijuana and a pistol.

"I was a person basically trying to escape reality," Forte says. "And I felt alone. I felt like I needed protection. I thought someone might try to take a shot at me. I had to call my mother from the jail. It was embarrassing."

After one season, the Sonics were so desperate to be rid of Forte that they ended up firing him. They would pay him the final million of his contract just to stay away from Seattle.

`A new dream'

For nearly 15 months, Forte didn't do much of anything. He stayed with family and friends in New York and Washington, D.C., trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life.

"My dream had always been to make the NBA," Forte says. "I had done that. Now I needed a new dream."

It turned out to be the same as the old one. So he made himself available for the NBDL, where players make about $20,000 a season. Asheville, under former DePaul coach Joey Meyer, picked him up.

Now Forte comes off the bench for Meyer. In 13 games, he is averaging 17 minutes and 5.8 points. He flashes brilliance occasionally -- and from what I saw he should start -- but he isn't a dominating player.

"Now it's up to Joe to take advantage of the opportunity that he's got," Meyer says. "It remains to be seen if he will. He's going to have to show he's got a good attitude. I tell all these guys -- not just Joe Forte -- that they are trying to be the last man on an NBA team. And those teams don't need an idiot as their 12th man."

Forte will still test a coach.

At the practice I watched, Meyer told a group of five players that each must make two free throws in a row before practice would end. Forte was in the group. He likes to shoot his free throws off the glass occasionally in practice because, as he would say later, that means: "I can make mine, plus dessert."

Forte waited until he was sure Meyer was watching his second free throw, and then he proclaimed: "The bank is open!"

Meyer, alert to the slang, looked intently at Forte.

"Don't bank a free throw," he said. "Don't fool around."

Forte dribbled, paused ...

And banked it.

The free throw was perfect, banging off the glass and nestling into the net.

"Run!" growled Meyer, pointing to the other end of the court.

Forte ran, laughing to himself and clapping his hands.

Meyer smiled a little once Forte was gone.

But you could see a hardness in the coach's eyes, too. And you could tell that Forte better not bank any more free throws for awhile in Asheville.

Scott Fowler

 

he should wear #40.

 

Shoulda stayed in school if only to mature as a person. Probably going to be seeing more of that unless the NBA institutes a minimum age requirement.

 

Agreed, he was a good kid and then just went off the deep end late in his last year.

 

Did he at least get paid? I mean, he's not hurting for money is he?

 

he is/was an idiot, but at least he is trying to do right. he even said "I didn't get it". As a Tarheel fan ,I was all for his talent, but really didn't care for him. much like McCants. McCants seems to be somewhat "different" this year. could be he is realizing some things(read: maturing) too while he is still in school.

 

Right, at least through all his problems or dislike for the situation he did come back to school at least for another year.

 

He was and received the 3 years he originally signed with Boston. After that none to my knowledge