BIG3 No. 1 pick Andre Owens won’t stop moving
The 2018 BIG3 combine — the second in the 3-on-3 basketball league’s history — is essentially over. With the scrimmages concluded and a smattering of players, coaches and executives conversing with the media, a select few linger on the court. Cuttino Mobley and Andre Owens are two of the lingerers, locked in a seemingly intense 3-point shooting battle. Jannero Pargo is also, albeit less vocally, involved in the competition, while Corsley Edwards and Sam Mack watch the action from nearby.
“You can’t shoot,” Owens yells at Mobley, half-grinning. “You can’t shoot. You can’t shoot,” he says twice more for good measure.
As one of Power’s three captains preparing for the following night’s player draft, Mobley attends the event as a talent evaluator. Owens, who is not a captain and thus not guaranteed a spot on a BIG3 roster this season, claimed he wanted to participate in the combine but was convinced to take it easy: “My competitive nature naturally wants to go out here and play [but] once I got here and people were telling me, ‘Don’t get hurt. Just sit down.’ ‘Ah, OK. I’ll sit down.’” “Why are you playing?” these players asked him, according to Owens. “Everybody knows what you can do.”
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They weren’t wrong. Owens, then a member of 3’s Company, competed in the inaugural season of Ice Cube’s league for retired NBA players and ranked in the top five in points, rebounds, assists and steals per game. Not competing in the player combine was likely the prudent move, but turning it off can be difficult for Owens, a 37-year-old man with the energy of someone 10 years younger.
Spanning over a decade and four continents, including Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, Owens’ professional basketball career grinded to a halt in 2015 after one season in the Austrian Basketball League. Ever since his retirement, however, the 6-foot-4 shooting guard has made staying in shape one of his top priorities. “I’ve always worked out twice a day,” Owens told The Step Back. “I’ve never smoked or drank a day in my life.”
Owens, along with his trainer, Rob Blackwell, works with basketball players at Incrediplex, an Indianapolis gym the two of them affectionately call “The Lion’s Den.” Spending ample time in a gym certainly helps Owens stay in shape, but his disciplined approach is even more important. Every day, he holds the same workout hours, although the particular activities vary depending on how he feels. From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., he’s exercising. Before you know it, he’s back working out from 7 to 9 at night. Sometimes Brandon Rush (whose brother, Kareem, could be seen at the combine) joins Owens, who eschews lifting in favor of mobility and cardio-based exercises.
“The older we get, we get less mobile,” said Owens. “That’s the trick. A lot of people will just try to lift weights, but you got to be mobile.” He’ll shoot baskets, play one-on-one, refine his dribbling, run on the facility’s turf field, engage in change-of-direction exercises and partake in plenty of other aerobic activities that get him moving. Toward the end of his pro career, Owens also made a dietary change, cutting pork and beef from his diet. “It just gives me more energy,” he said.
Back at the combine, the rivalry between Owens and Mobley did not exactly appear out of nowhere. After spending one season as an Indiana Hoosier, Owens transferred to the University of Houston, where, from 2002 to 2005, he starred for the Cougars, starting all but two games from his sophomore season onward. Mobley, five years his senior, was also playing in Houston during much of that period, but as a member of the Rockets. During the two seasons in which the duo’s paths overlapped in the Lone Star State, Mobley was logging 40-plus minutes per game for a respectable Rockets squad alongside Steve Francis and Yao Ming. Meanwhile, Owens was still trying to prove himself at the collegiate level.
“We’re very competitive,” Owens said about his relationship with Mobley. “Every time we see each other, we’re trying to outshoot each other.” According to Owens, he and Mobley competed in pre-game shooting contests in three of the league’s touring cities last season — Brooklyn, Charlotte and Dallas — with the “little brother” emerging victorious each time. “He’s always trying to cheat because he’s Big Bro and I’m tired of it,” said Owens. “Beat him here [at the combine too]. He wanted to keep shooting until he got a win, but no. It’s all fun and love. It’s all love. We’re very competitive.”
Mobley eventually verified Owens’ story, saying, “Yeah, he beat me last year. Won’t happen again this summer.” The former Cougar also outdueled Mobley in regular-season BIG3 action last summer in Dallas. Owens’ 3’s Company squad edged Mobley’s Power, 53-49, with both turning in stellar performances. Mobley finished with 23 points, while Owens recorded 25 points and the win. Most notably, Owens hit the game-winning trey from the top of the arc (at the time, 3’s Company was already leading 50-49 in a first-to-50 format, but according to league rules, teams must win by more than one point). Unsurprisingly, Owens held his pose after releasing the shot.
Last season, Owens played for Allen Iverson. Teammates DerMarr Johnson, Al Thornton, Michael Sweetney and Ruben Patterson each filled a unique role, but the team went 3-5 and Owens wasn’t always given the opportunity to put the team on his shoulders. Of the league’s top-10 scorers, Owens finished dead last in usage rate.
With the Ball Hogs possessing the first overall pick of Thursday’s draft, coach Rick Barry and captain Brian Scalabrine had to have Andre Owens. While Scalabrine did acknowledge that the decision was not always a “no-brainer,” after going through the process, he had zero doubts he made the right call: “I was disappointed that he [Owens] didn’t participate in the combine, but after watching everything, it became clear as day that that’s exactly what the Ball Hogs needed, what I need, what Josh [Childress] needs, what DeShawn [Stevenson] needs, and there was no one better.”
The former Celtics champion said he initially considered a number of guys for the No. 1 spot, including Xavier Silas, Robert Hite, Terrence Williams and even Jermaine Taylor whom the Ball Hogs were able to nab later with their 14th pick. Ultimately, however, the current makeup of the team necessitated the selection of a big-time scorer, Scalabrine argued. Considering Childress and himself role players, Scalabrine concluded, “I want him [Andre] to be the best player in the league. I want him to take the responsibility, offensively and defensively, take accountability if we lose, share praise if we win. And I think a lot of people maybe don’t believe that he can do that, but I believe he can do that, so that’s why I took him.”
Barry said of the Owens selection, “We knew that we needed to have somebody who could score the ball for us and that if you had to do something with five seconds to go, who can create their own shot, who’s got some strength and size.”
“We’ve got two guys [Owens and Stevenson] who could flat out put it in the basket, score and get after it,” he said, adding that Owens will be expected to improve defensively. “We’ve got to play some good defense, but we’ll work on that. I had a good talk with him [Owens after the draft]. I think he’s excited.” The Hall of Famer also assured Owens he would not have to work as hard offensively this season, given the new plays Barry plans to install, which he hopes will reduce isolations (and ball hogging despite the team’s tongue-in-cheek name).
Owens credits the format of the league, with its touring nature (all eight teams travel together to a different city each week), for allowing him to grow friendly with his new teammate, Josh Childress, last year. “He’s funny,” Owens said of Childress, “but a lot of people wouldn’t think that, because they aren’t really around him. They’d think he’s quiet, but he’s really a great guy, and he’s very funny. He’s outgoing.”
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Energized for his second BIG3 campaign with a brand new team, Owens said he’s especially looking forward to a homecoming of sorts as the league opens its season in Houston at the Toyota Center on June 22. Although the schedule has yet to be released, Owens certainly wouldn’t mind facing off against Mobley in the city that shaped the early parts of each of their careers. Either way, Owens won’t grow idle, waiting for the season to open.
Until then, you can find him at Incrediplex doing what he’s always done.