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First posted over on another site...

http://blog.cleveland.com/sports/2008/03/traveling_west_finds_cleveland.html


Traveling West finds Cleveland
Posted by Mary Schmitt Boyer March 09, 2008 17:22PM
Categories: Cavaliers



Joshua Gunter/The Plain Dealer
With so many tattoos, Cavaliers point guard Delonte West's body reads like a storybook of his life.On a cold and windy November night, Delonte West found himself all alone on a playground with a basketball and a prayer.

The 10-year-old dropped to his knees, placed the ball in front of him and spoke the words in his heart.

"Lord, this is all I ever want to do," he said, referring to playing the game of basketball. "It's all I know how to do. I never asked you for anything. Well, I did ask you that one time to put a treasure chest full of gold coins under my bed, and you never put those under my bed. But just help me get to the NBA. That's all I ask. I'll forgive you for the gold coins."

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Do not post entire articles

Yeah this article was in the plain dealer the other day. Such a great character guy and we'll love having him in the locker room with his dry humor and wit. Sorta like Pollard but he can actually play basketball.

I read this a few days ago and Delonte immediately jumped up a few notches in my book. Sounds like a great guy and a real role model type of player. Here's hoping he gets more and more assertive.

Yeah anytime anyone sees an article about Delonte West in any publication over in Cleveland... I would love to read it since I don't get a chance to read them usually. I'm in the DC/VA/MD area.

yeah, Ive never read or heard much about him. he is definitely the kind of guy that exemplifies the "you cant judge a book by its cover" line. From some of my friends who dont follow hoops like me he was "the guy with all the tats" part of the trade.

as a player alone I was excited to see him become part of the cavs, now I'll be rooting even more for him. When I saw him play a few times with boston I liked the way he played. I am anxious to see him play against billups and rip to see if he can stay with those guys defensively.

breaking news!!! a lot of basketball players used to be poor.

As Delonte said "I've been on my way to Cleveland for a long time". What's funny is that there have been rumors of both Wally and Delonte headed to Cleveland for years. It's kinda cool that they finally made it here after several years. He seems like a good enough kid these days, luckily he found a coach that was able to get through to him that he needed to do better in school and then was a good enough basketball player that he attended college. His story could have been very different.

There's actually been rumors of Ben Wallace coming to Cleveland for a while as well. Funny how we got all three in the same trade.