Los Angeles – With every step on the Staples Center hardwood, Nuggets guard Andre Miller gave a shout out to his beloved nearby neighborhood of Watts on Saturday night.
Miller hails from the small south Los Angeles neighborhood that is also home to Olympic gold medalist Florence Griffith-Joyner, actor-singer Tyrese, black activist Eldridge Cleaver, author Walter Mosley and such music groups as The Platters and The Whispers. But Watts is also the home of the infamous 1965 Watts riots and gang violence that still exists today.
Miller has taken the good with the bad and proudly has “Watts” stitched on his Converse shoes to make sure people know he hasn’t forgotten where he comes from.
“I wear it so everybody can get some,” said Miller, who has passed out more than 100 pairs of his Watts-inscribed shoes at home. “All my friends back home, they all see the Watts. They want some Watts. They like to see that on the shoe. Everybody is sporting them at home.”
Miller, 29, grew up in an era of Watts that was mired by gang violence and drugs. The crack cocaine scourge reportedly hit Watts hard from 1989-2005. The Los Angeles Police Department reported more than 200 homicides, most gang-related, at that time in Watts.
Three of Watts’ most notorious gangs reportedly formed a cease-fire agreement after the 1992 Los Angeles riots. There was a decrease in crime in the area for about eight years, but it was nullified after that, and violence escalated again.
“I was challenged,” Miller said. “Everyone talks about the gangs and stuff like that. But I never had a problem with that. I didn’t go to places where I wasn’t supposed to go. I didn’t go across town. I didn’t go to neighborhoods I wasn’t supposed to go in. That’s pretty much what it comes down to.”
Miller credits his “strict” mother, Andrea, for keeping him disciplined and out of harm’s way. Not only did Andrea keep close tabs on her son, she also had him in private school from kindergarten through high school.
“You just have to get your kid focused in certain activities and keep him involved,” Andrea Miller said. “As parents, you have to be visible, available and involved and let other people know that.”
Andre Miller spends most of his offseasons at his home in Sacramento. But when he goes back to Los Angeles to play pickup ball with other NBA players at UCLA in August and September, he stays in the three-bedroom home in Watts in which he grew up.
“When I go home (to L.A.), I’m right there,” said Miller, whose idle Nuggets traveled from Los Angeles to Sacramento on Sunday. “My mom, she tries to stay away from it a little bit. When I do go home, I make sure my family is cool. I still have a lot of family in that area.
“I see my friends when I walk down the street. For some reason, they know when I’m in town. They see me driving, and next thing you know everybody’s at my house.”
About 90 minutes before tipoff of the Nuggets’ 112-79 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday, Miller sat in the middle of his team’s locker room concentrating as he filled his ticket request list. He received 50 for friends and family, many coming from Watts. The 6-foot-2, 205-pounder sometimes surpassed that ticket total while playing for the Clippers during the 2002-03 season.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I didn’t mind buying tickets here and there,” said Miller, who is averaging 14.2 points, is fourth in the NBA in assists per game (8.3) and averages 4.8 rebounds. “A couple times, maybe once or twice, I bought 80 tickets.”
Said Andrea Miller: “They love him a lot in Watts. Whenever someone in the area makes a big jump in life, they are happy, whether it’s athletics or other fields. They love their own.”
With so many friends and family still there, Andre Miller makes sure he is an approachable role model when he is back in Watts. And even when he can’t be there, he finds ways to give back. For example, he paid for a Christmas shopping spree for more than 100 children that his mother ran in Watts last month.
“He doesn’t forget where he comes from,” said Ben Furnace, Miller’s first basketball coach. “He’d never forget where he went to school, played and one point where he lived.”
Said Miller: “I have a lot of support back home. A lot of friends. People keep in contact. I definitely try to represent it a little bit, in a right way, a positive way.”
Staff writer Marc J. Spears can be reached at 303-820-5449 or mspears@denverpost.com.
