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."
Up until that time, life had been hard. "A mean story," is how the new Cavaliers guard summarized his youth.
Three things got him through -- faith, basketball and art. A gifted artist who writes poetry and can play music by ear, West used all three to cope with tough circumstances.
His parents divorced when he was young, leaving his mother to care for Delonte, his older brother Dmitri and younger sister Danielle. Despite working two and three jobs to make ends meet, Delphina Addison had to move her family frequently to a series of small, cramped apartments in dangerous neighborhoods around Washington, D.C., and Prince George's County, Md.
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