In a sit-down with Gary Woelfel of the Journal Times, one thing was made clear: Samuel Dalembert and Scott Skiles did not see eye to eye.
The 31 year old veteran center was acquired from Houston in the off season. After contributing some solid minutes to the team’s gritty image and surprising record, Dalembert wound up spending the period between December 12th and last night on the bench.
His benching led to the eye-opening performances we’ve seen from one Larry Sanders, who now leads the league with close to 4 blocks per contest. Dalembert’s happy the team is winning, but he would have liked some elaboration on his sudden condemnation to Skiles’ dog house.
“There was no conversation”, he said. Nothing was said to me. He didn’t say, ‘Hey, this is what I want you to focus on or anything like that.”
Things had started to take a turn for the worse apparently after Skiles and Dalembert had a less than ideal conversation before a game. “We had a talk briefly at a shoot-around; I forgot where it was. I think it was in Boston.”, he said. “After that talk, everything went downhill.”
Dalembert also reacted to some rumors that Skiles had benched him for “partying too much and not taking his job seriously”. “Wow. I was partying too much? Where at? I would like to know where I was partying too much.” It’s hard to imagine the usually professional Dalembert having too many discipline issues. He continues: “I know where I go to restaurants. But partying too much? What off-the-court issues do I have?”
Unfortunately, being the professional that he is, Dalembert wouldn’t divulge too much more on his incident with Skiles:
“No, I really don’t want to go into detail. I don’t want to go into it because it really hurt me…I never try to keep hate in my heart for anyone because it’s not healthy. I wish him and his family well. I don’t wish bad for anyone.”
Catch the rest of the interview on the Journal Times.
Mohamed Abdihakim is a journalism student at Florida Atlantic University. He is a Phoenix Suns fan, who is not prepared for the possibility of Nash winning a title in a Lakers jersey. Mohamed is also an editor at Hoops Nation and contributes to Les Snobs. Interests include International basketball, Mad Men, and blues music. Nearly all stats are credited to Hoopdata or Basketball-Reference.
Twitter handle: @Abdi_hakim
