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By: Michael D. McClellan\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Tony Delk arrived in Boston as part of Rick Pitino’s UK pipeline, a member of the ’96 Kentucky championship team dubbed “The Untouchables” and still regarded as one of the greatest collegiate teams ever.\u00a0 Antoine Walker was on that team.\u00a0 Walter McCarty, too.\u00a0 Ron Mercer.\u00a0 Wayne Turner.\u00a0 All eventually wore a Celtics uniform, either playing for Pitino himself, or later for the man who replaced him on the bench, former UK assistant coach Jim O’Brien.\u00a0 Delk, brought in late in the 2001-02 regular season, arrived in time to help the Celtics end a six year playoff drought, the longest in team history.<\/p>\n “Tony helped fortify our backcourt situation heading into the playoffs,” O’Brien says.\u00a0 “He could handle the ball, and he was a great shooter.\u00a0 We knew he could help us.”<\/p>\n For the uninitiated, Delk’s hoops career got its start in Brownsville, Tennessee.\u00a0 Nicknamed \u201cShooter\u201d in high school, Delk transitioned from a noteworthy high school career to college prominence at UK, leading the Wildcats to that ’96 NCAA Championship over Syracuse.\u00a0 Delk was named the Final Four Most Outstanding Player, and capped his college career by being named a consensus first-team All-American.<\/p>\n Selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 16th overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft, Delk embarked on an 11-year NBA career that included stints with Golden State, Sacramento, Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, and Detroit.\u00a0 It was his abbreviated stay in Boston that endeared him to Celtics fans.\u00a0 He was there for that emotional playoff return, which included wins over Philly and Detroit on the way to the 2002 Eastern Conference Finals.\u00a0 Never-mind that the Celtics fell to the Nets is six games; Delk played a key part in that memorable Game 3 win, a 23-point fourth quarter comeback that not only breathed new life into an iconic franchise, but gave future Hall of Famer Paul Pierce a glimpse of things to come.<\/p>\n Delk finished his NBA career with averages of 9.1 PPG, 2.5 RPG and 1.9 APG, before signing a contract with the Greek basketball team, Panathinaikos, in Athens. He won the Greek Cup, the Greek Championship and the European Championship with Panathinaikos, and announced his retirement from professional basketball in November 2007. In 2008.<\/p>\n On February 14, 2015, the University of Kentucky bestowed its highest athletic honor on Delk, retiring his iconic “00” and raising his jersey to the Rupp Arena rafters.<\/p>\n “It’s a great honor, just to be amongst the great players here who have laced up, who have worn the Blue,” Delk says, recalling the event.\u00a0 “I’ve played with a lot of great guys, and to go from my backyard in Brownsville, to the hardwood of Rupp Arena, who would have thought that?”<\/p>\n Please take be back to the beginning.<\/strong><\/p>\n Covington was my birthplace and my hometown, but I made my name in Brownsville, Tennessee. I have brothers who are 15-to-20 years older than me, and they were my role models growing up.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t drink or smoke, and were really good influences.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t get to see them play because I was too young, but I lived vicariously through the stories that I heard from family and friends.\u00a0 They\u2019re the ones who taught me how to play fundamental basketball.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t easy on me.\u00a0 It was tough love.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Did you follow the NBA growing up?<\/strong><\/p>\n My brothers were Dr. J fans, so I initially became a Philadelphia 76ers fan.\u00a0 When you live in Tennessee, you don\u2019t get a chance to get all of the cable channels, but we got WGN out of Chicago.\u00a0 So when Michael Jordan blew up I switched allegiances and became a Chicago Bulls fan.\u00a0 They were always on TV, so it was great.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let’s talk high school ball.\u00a0 What memory jumps to mind?<\/strong><\/p>\n Our freshman team won the championship, and then my coach, Rick Sullivan, put me on the varsity team.\u00a0 It was a big deal because that didn\u2019t happen very often.\u00a0 He walked to the end of the bench during a game and asking me if I wanted to go in.\u00a0 I was scared to death!\u00a0 I remember telling him that I wasn\u2019t ready \u2013 I might have gone in and scored a couple of points, who knows \u2013 but I promised him that that I\u2019d be ready the next year.\u00a0 I started as a sophomore, and by the time I ended my career I was Haywood High School\u2019s all-time leading scorer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What kind of music were you into?<\/strong><\/p>\n Music was a huge part of my life back then.\u00a0 I listened to old school R&B legends like Marvin Gaye and the Temptations.\u00a0 Michael Jackson was a favorite.\u00a0 I grew up during the Ice Cube era, so I also listened to N.W.A., Public Enemy, Run DMC, Fat Boys, Houdini, Eric B, Rakim, the list goes on and on.\u00a0 Those artists were from my generation and brought in a completely different style of hip-hop and rap.\u00a0 It addressed topics like police brutality, which is still a major concern in the black community today.<\/p>\n I recently saw Straight Outta Compton\u00a0<\/em>and I thought\u00a0that movie was great!\u00a0 It took me back to when I was a young kid and being an N.W.A. fan.\u00a0 I remember when Ice Cube left the group and came out with his first CD, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted<\/em> which I had on cassette tape.\u00a0 I\u2019ll never forget being at a team camp, and our coach walked in when we were playing it.\u00a0 He heard the profanity, made this face\u2026and then he took my tape [laughs]!\u00a0 It was a big deal to me at the time, because back then you had to go out and buy your music, and cassette tapes were like $14 or $15.\u00a0 I had to save up for it…that cassette was an investment\u2026but I never got it back [laughs].<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tell me about the recruiting process, and your decision to sign with Kentucky.<\/strong><\/p>\n The recruiting process started for me when I began playing AAU basketball.\u00a0 Coming from a small town, it was my opportunity to show the world that this country boy could play with the city guys.\u00a0 I came out of nowhere \u2013 I was this long-armed who could jump out of the gym and score the ball.\u00a0 We finished third in the nation when I was 15, and a year later I was voted the most outstanding player in the whole AAU tournament.\u00a0 That really put me on the map as far as being one of the top recruits in the country.<\/p>\n All of the teams in the South started recruiting me \u2013Arkansas, Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Memphis State.\u00a0 I signed a letter of intent to play at Kentucky, even though I knew that it was going to be tough to earn minutes.\u00a0 The Wildcats had guys like Jamal Mashburn and Travis Ford.\u00a0 They\u2019d barely lost out on a Final Four berth against Duke, so I knew that this Kentucky team was pretty good.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What was it like making the jump from high school to one of the biggest basketball programs in college basketball?<\/strong><\/p>\n As a freshman, I didn\u2019t play that much.\u00a0 Dale Brown played my position.\u00a0 He was a JUCO All-American, and he\u2019d started as a junior, so he wasn\u2019t going to let me beat him out for his position.\u00a0 After three or four games I was ready to transfer.\u00a0 I remember calling home to my mom and saying, \u2018I\u2019m not liking it here.\u00a0 I\u2019m not playing.\u00a0 Maybe I should look somewhere else.\u2019\u00a0 It was very disheartening to watch my peers play, knowing that I\u2019d put in all of this work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You didn’t transfer.\u00a0 How come?<\/strong><\/p>\n Billy Donovan started working out with me.\u00a0 We would get together and work out in the mornings, and then we\u2019d play at night.\u00a0 He kept me in shape, and he kept me engaged, and he told me that my time would come if I just stayed ready.\u00a0 Dale Brown hurt his shoulder playing against Michigan in the Final Four, Coach Pitino put me in the game. \u00a0We ended up losing in overtime, but I played well against the Fab Five.\u00a0 The next year I led the team in scoring.\u00a0 The whole experience taught me to work hard and not buy into your own hype, because there\u2019s always someone out there working to take your job.\u00a0 Conversely, I learned that I wouldn\u2019t be given the job.\u00a0 I had to go out and earn it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The 1996 Kentucky Wildcats rolled to the Final Four, defeating Syracuse for the National Championship.\u00a0 How close were you as a team?<\/strong><\/p>\n The things that I remember most and are most special are a lot of the off-the-court things that we did together as a team.\u00a0 That’s one of the things that brought us so close together and made us the team that we were on the court.\u00a0\u00a0We won 27 games in a row, and we won a championship.\u00a0 A lot of that had to do with our closeness away from basketball.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Who were you listening to back then?<\/strong><\/p>\n Tupac and Biggie were the ones on the rise.\u00a0 Those guys were at the top of their game.\u00a0 And when we won the championship, Tupac\u2019s double CD, All Eyez on Me<\/em>, was blowing up across the country.\u00a0 I can\u2019t even tell you how many times I played that CD.\u00a0 He was a musical genius, just like Biggie.\u00a0\u00a0My favorite Tupac song ever is Hit \u2018Em Up<\/em>.\u00a0 Tupac fired off at anybody that had something negative to say, and you\u2019d better not say anything negative about him because he would come back hard.\u00a0 He put some lyrics together, and Hit \u2018Em Up<\/em> is a prime example.\u00a0 Tupac could spit fire.\u00a0 You could feel the venom that was coming out of his mouth whenever he was rapping.\u00a0 There was an intensity to his rap that very few could match.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What were you watching?<\/strong><\/p>\n The movie Friday<\/em> came out that year.\u00a0 Walter McCarty and I watched that movie over and over again \u2013 we knew the scenes, we knew the words, we knew the character\u2019s expressions.\u00a0 We really loved that movie.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How good is the competition at the NBA level?<\/strong><\/p>\n Unbelievable.\u00a0 You\u2019re playing against the best players in the world every night, so it doesn\u2019t matter the record of the team.\u00a0 The talent is so good that you can\u2019t take a night off.\u00a0 You have to bring your A game every night.\u00a0\u00a0You realize quickly that if you\u2019re going to get paid \u2013 and keep getting paid \u2013 you have to perform your job and show them that you\u2019re there for a reason.\u00a0 For me it was always about always trying to prove a point, that I belonged.\u00a0 Each and every year there is a draft.\u00a0 Each and every year they\u2019re bringing in the best players from college and around the world.\u00a0 There\u2019s also free agency.\u00a0 That means that everybody is coming for your job.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trades are a part of the business, and you’ve been involved in a few.\u00a0 What’s it like to start off somewhere and then try to fit in somewhere else?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s about being in the right situation and being on the right team.\u00a0 I had really good seasons with certain teams\u2026I was finding my rhythm, loving the city, and enjoying my teammates\u2026and then I would get traded and have to start all over again.\u00a0 That was the hardest thing for me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You’re something of a quiet guy.\u00a0 What was your approach to playing the NBA game?<\/strong><\/p>\n When I played the game, my intensity level went off the charts.\u00a0 Off the court I like to have fun and joke around, but on the court I wanted to rip your heart out.\u00a0 A lot of that fire came from sitting the bench at Kentucky, watching my peers play and knowing that I should be on the court.\u00a0 I took it personal, and I was pissed off.\u00a0 I\u2019d take the court pissed off at the person guarding me, even if they didn\u2019t know it.\u00a0 I wanted to annihilate them.\u00a0 That has to be your mentality. I tell kids today, you have to have a soft voice, but a killer instinct. And the players who are the greatest, some of those players have a killer instinct.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On January 2, 2001, you scored 53 points on 20-27 shooting from the field as a member of the Sacramento Kings.\u00a0 What was it like to be in the zone?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThat was my second game back in Sacramento after ending up in Phoenix.\u00a0 It was one of those games were all of my shots came in rhythm.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t like when you see a guy going for 50, 60 or 70 points, and his teammates are feeding him the ball.\u00a0 My teammates weren\u2019t feeding me. \u00a0I was getting my shots, but so was Rodney Rogers, Cliff Robinson, Shawn Marion, and Jason Kidd.\u00a0 It was all in the flow.\u00a0 I made nine or 10 consecutive shots, and I remember somebody saying, \u2018Dude, you\u2019ve got 45 points.\u2019\u00a0 I was in a zone, which I had to be to score that much volume, because I wasn\u2019t the kind of player who commanded 20-to-25 touches a game.\u00a0 Role players don\u2019t get that many touches, and I certainly wasn\u2019t a star like Allen Iverson.\u00a0 On that night the opportunity came, and I made the most of it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Kentucky pipeline was alive and well in Boston.\u00a0 Did that help you adjust to life in a Celtics uniform?<\/strong><\/p>\n Once I got to Boston it felt familiar.\u00a0 Walter McCarty, Antoine Walker, and Coach O\u2019Brien were all there.\u00a0 Those guys knew me, and they knew my game.\u00a0\u00a0Coach O\u2019Brien allowed me to play to my strengths.\u00a0 He knew that I wasn\u2019t a traditional point guard \u2013 my gift was scoring \u2013 so he would have guys like Antoine help handle the ball.\u00a0 I knew my role, which was to take intelligent shots and put the ball in the hole.\u00a0 I knew I wasn\u2019t going to be a start in college, and I had to be able to accept and embrace my role, and that\u2019s what I did with the Boston Celtics.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You were part of that epic 2002 playoff comeback against the Nets.\u00a0 What do you remember most?<\/strong><\/p>\n It reminded me of how loud it was in Sacramento when I played for the Kings.\u00a0 They were the only show in town, and I can\u2019t begin to tell you how loud ARCO Arena was with the screaming fans and those bells horns.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the fan base was like when the Celtics were winning, and the fans went nuts in that Game 3 comeback.\u00a0 We dug ourselves a big hole, but we were able to lock down on defense and then the shots started falling on the other end.\u00a0 Boston fans had only known winning as far back as Bill Russell, so the six-year playoff drought had created a lot of pent up emotion.\u00a0 We got the momentum and the fans fed off of that, and we fed off of them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Celtics brought you back the next season.<\/strong><\/p>\n My second season with the Celtics was a lot better.\u00a0 I suffered a bad ankle injury partway through the season, but I finished strong in the playoffs.\u00a0 We won that first round playoff series against Indiana, before going on to have a tough series against New Jersey.\u00a0 We were happy to make the playoffs, but losing to the Nets again was a bitter pill to swallow.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There were some of us who thought you were going to be in a Celtics uniform for several more years.<\/strong><\/p>\n I felt I was really coming into my own, but that\u2019s when Danny Ainge was hired.\u00a0 He wanted to make some changes and put his touch on the team, so he started to dismantle some of the core players that had reached the Eastern Conference Finals the year before.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got to understand that when a new GM comes in, he has a different vision, so it was time to move on.\u00a0 But my years in Boston were amazing.\u00a0 Getting to play for one of the greatest franchises in history, you know, it doesn\u2019t get any better than that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tell me about Paul Pierce.<\/strong><\/p>\n When I think of a guy like Paul Pierce, I think of his love for the game and how hard he played.\u00a0 Paul competed harder than most stars at that time.\u00a0 He spent extra time before and after practice, doing whatever it took to be an elite player.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Did you ever meet Red Auerbach?<\/strong><\/p>\n I never met Red Auerbach, but I remember him coming to the practice facility and I could smell his cigar.\u00a0 We all knew that he was in the building.\u00a0 I never got a chance to speak with him, but I appreciate what he did for black culture.\u00a0 He was one of the first to open up the door and bring in black players and provide them with opportunities that hadn\u2019t existed before.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Did you ever meet Bill Russell?<\/strong><\/p>\n You can\u2019t be a Boston Celtic player and have not met and talked to Bill Russell.\u00a0 He is one of the greatest men I have ever met.\u00a0 He\u2019s a guy that\u2019s helped pave the way for our culture, and what\u2019s he\u2019s done beyond the basketball court is remarkable.\u00a0 He is a true pioneer.\u00a0\u00a0Bill Russell also has the best stories, and he is one of the funniest guys.\u00a0 That laugh is contagious.\u00a0 When you hear him laugh, you can\u2019t help but start laughing.\u00a0 You might not know what he\u2019s laughing about, but whatever it is, you\u2019re laughing right along with him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Out of all your coaches, which one had the biggest impact on your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n Coach Pitino while I was at UK. He taught me the game \u2013 the mental aspect and the physical aspect. But most importantly, he prepared me for life after basketball. In fact, as a senior, Coach Pitino set me up with a really good business manager who\u2019s been with me since 1996.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What\u2019s an important lesson from Coach Pitino?<\/strong><\/p>\n The most important thing that he taught me was to not let money define who you are, and to always stay humble. Because of that advice, once I began making a lot of money, it didn\u2019t change who I was as an individual.\u00a0\u00a0The money that comes in, in tandem with the fame from being on TV, results in an extreme pressure to change and let it go to your head, but my foundation in which Coach Pitino helped to create kept me grounded and humble.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What did this foundation consist of?<\/strong><\/p>\n Mostly, it was surrounding myself with a good circle of friends, which was something else Coach Pitino provided. His circle of friends became our circle of friends. That\u2019s one of the things I enjoyed most about him. He didn\u2019t allow us to go out and meet new friends that that could take us away from being who we were, or give us money or some other thing we thought we wanted.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Why did you choose the number “00”?<\/strong><\/p>\n My brother wore it before me, and I wanted to honor him.\u00a0 I think I did a tremendous job just representing his number.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The University of Kentucky retired your number.\u00a0 What does that me to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n It’s a great honor, just to be among the great players who have laced up and worn the Blue.\u00a0 I’ve played with a lot of great guys, and it was fun just being a part of the program.\u00a0 To think of where I came from – starting out playing in Brownsville with my brothers, and then making to the hardwood of Rupp Arena, who would have thought that?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Last Question:\u00a0 If you had one piece of advice for others, what would that be?<\/strong><\/p>\n Hard work trumps shortcuts every time.\u00a0 Put in the work, stay faithful to whatever it is that you choose to pursue, and you can walk away knowing that you’ve done things the right way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: Michael D. McClellan\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0Tony Delk arrived in Boston as part of Rick Pitino’s UK pipeline, a member of the ’96 Kentucky championship team dubbed “The Untouchables” and still regarded as one of the greatest collegiate teams ever.\u00a0 Antoine Walker was on that team.\u00a0 Walter McCarty, too.\u00a0 Ron Mercer.\u00a0 Wayne Turner.\u00a0 All eventually wore a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[783,773],"tags":[470],"class_list":["post-16347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dark-days","category-featured-interview","tag-tony-delk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/basketball.png\")
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