By Nikos Varlas
Eurohoops.net recently uncovered the offer that Joey Dorsey received last summer from the NFL and the Houston Texans. If he has said yes, he would have been just the third professional athlete in the American sports history that played football after a career in the NBA.
Now, Dorsey is one of Olympiacos stars in the Euroleague play offs and he is still waiting an offer from Houston. But this time it will be the Houston Rockets of the NBA! The team that traded for him in the draft night of 2008, when he was picked by the Blazers in number 33.
Houston tried to get him again through a trade last season, but the vice president of Toronto Raptors, Maurizio Gherardini, didn’t want to let him go. Rockets GM Daryl Morey still wants him. People from Houston recently traveled to Europe to see Dorsey play against Efes Pilsen in Istanbul and he was informed that in the summer there may be a guaranteed contract for him and a spot in the roster of his old team.
What will he do, being a free agent in the summer? He doesn’t exclude staying in Europe: “I can improve here and understand better the game. I can dominate. Olympiacos and coach Ivkovic remind me my college years in Memphis and my beloved coach Calipari! It’s about the team and winning! In the NBA, it’s all about the stars and the show”.
In January Dorsey’s career took the right turn, when he left Caja Laboral. Coach Ivanovic didn’t want him in Spain, Joey was usually punished by him and he was asked to lose weight. In the meantime his agent had an open line with CSKA Moscow and Olympiacos.
Why he didn’t chose the favorite to win the Euroleague? “I wanted to be in a team that will give me playing time. My long time friend Kyle Hines plays also in Olympiacos. And my teammate in Toronto, Linas Kleiza, that had played in Olympiacos told me the best things. His advice was to sign with the Greek team”.
That’s how history is made. And nothing would have happened, if in 2001 a childhood friend of Joey didn’t pushed him to play basketball for the first time in his 18 years! Dorsey is Baltimore born and raised. His friend was born in Brooklyn, his father was Puerto Rican and his mother African-American. He and Joey became friends when they were 8 years old and the young kid from Brooklyn moved to Baltimore after the death of his father.
That day in 2001 he said to him: “You will play basketball with me today. Five on five and we will be opponents”. Joey wanted to, but his mother had forbid him to play any sport and he was worried.
He tried basketball for the first time. He played at center and he was good. His childhood friend was right! Next year, Joey played his first official game in High School. He had 18 points, 16 rebounds, 4 blocks and the winning basket.
A local Baltimore newspaper wrote in the front page: “Dorsey, the player that we didn’t know about”. It was the day that his mother Charlene was convinced to let him became a professional player. What the paper didn’t write? Carmelo Antony was the childhood friend of Dorsey, the first person that scouted his talent in the neighborhoods of Baltimore.