The King of East St. Louis
Page 3 Darius Miles grew up in the projects of East St. Louis, playing his ball on cracked, black-top courts branded with pleasant names like "The Hole." The wire-thin kid with big almond eyes bounced around the city finding the best run wherever he could. "I was doing stuff like skating down the street on roller skates, always looking for games, dribblin’ the ball. That’s how I worked on my handle," says Miles, laughing at the thought of himself, the lottery pick prince, whizzing around the ghetto on his skates, weaving through the shards of broken bottles, his rock never far from his fingertips. This is where the Panther was born, among the projects, chain nets and the broken glass. This is where he grew into his lanky, spidery body; the one that allows him to go up, under, around and through the normal heads he faces on the court every day. Watch clips of Darius Miles in action in high school and it looks like nine kids on the court with one more that’s a member of another species entirely. "I'm a coach's dream," he's said on more than one occasion. "I do everything. In one game last year I had 53 points, 15 boards, about 10 blocks, 8 assists and like 4 steals - and that was against Eddie Griffin. I do everything." "Everybody in my neighborhood always said I would be great," Miles says while staring down at the table in front of him, mindlessly tugging at the table cloth. "But it really didn’t click until senior year. It didn’t really click until then that I was the best player ever to come out of East St. Louis." That Wednesday night in Minneapolis, Darius Miles took another step toward fulfilling the prophecies laid out by the people in his neighborhood. His stepping out onto that stage was much more than meeting David Stern, it was a coronation. The phenom, the king of a neighborhood, had now become the king of the second team in L.A. and had taken one step closer to ultimately becoming the King of the NBA.
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