NBA stars Gary Payton, Jason Kidd, Brian Shaw and Antonio Davis grew up in Oakland, Calif., yet each claim the best player to come out of their home town never made it to the game's biggest stage.
Demetrius "Hook" Mitchell had it all, players and scouts said. He could dribble like Allen Iverson, shoot like Larry Bird and, at 5-foot-9, dunk with more flair than anyone they'd seen to this day.
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_____ Monday Morning_____
A look back at the weekend and a look ahead at the coming week's action with a fresh new edge.
• Norman Chad's Couch Slouch
• Starting Lineup
• The Chat: George Gray, host of ESPN reality show "I'd Do Anything"
• 7 Days
• The Review: "Hooked: The Legend of Demetrius 'Hook' Mitchell"
_____ The Quote _____
"If we're normally in the dugout at the time they plan to do this, we're not going to not be in the dugout. We're not going to arrange, or rearrange, our routine to either be there or not be there."
-- Manager Joe Torre, making it perfectly clear where the Yankees will be when the Red Sox hand out their World Series rings before their home opener against New York.
_____ The Monday Morning Poll _____
Note: This is an unscientific survey of washingtonpost.com readers.
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"Hooked: The Legend of Demetrius 'Hook' Mitchell" is an award-winning documentary, to be released March 22 on DVD, about a young man many expected to be the next great player. Instead he missed his opportunity after being sentenced to five years in prison for trying to rob a Blockbuster store with a water gun while he was under the influence of drugs.
The footage of what Mitchell does with a basketball is amazing. He leaps over a car to dunk a basketball with the same grace he displays when he jumps over someone sitting at a desk on his way to throwing the ball through the hoop. The film devotes as much time to Mitchell's game on the playground as it does chronicling his life inside the California Men's Colony, where his dunks rival those seen at last weekend's all-star slam dunk competition.
The documentary shows how Mitchell became addicted to drugs and ended up in prison while several friends, particularly Payton and Shaw, became NBA millionaires. At no time does Mitchell try to make you feel sorry for him: He acknowledges that what landed him in prison was the last of several bad decisions.
The movie's one flaw is that it doesn't detail what exactly happened at that Blockbuster store on Dec. 27, 1999. Still, at about 90 minutes in length, it's a film worth watching.
-- Jon Gallo
