As far as Brian Skinner, a 1994 Temple High School graduate, is concerned, it’s a blessing and an honor.
Ultimately, it means he has remained gainfully, albeit transiently, employed among the greatest athletes in the world for a decade. If there wasn’t a need for what he offers, he no longer would be in the NBA.
Skinner signed with the Los Angeles Clippers during the summer and is currently in training camp preparing for his 11th NBA season. He returns to the team that selected him out of Baylor with the 22nd overall pick in the 1998 draft.
It’s been a circuitous journey from the time he received the call from the Clippers at his parents’ home to his current station.
“A lot of players aren’t on teams and don’t have jobs,” Skinner, a 6-9 power forward, said in a recent telephone interview. “I’ve played for a lot of different coaching styles. I couldn’t care less about being called a journeyman.”
Skinner has played for seven franchises, and the Clippers mark the third franchise that he will spend a second stint with, joining Philadelphia and Milwaukee. Tracking his franchise transactions might make for a profitable junior high geography class project. From West Coast to East Coast to Midwest to Southwest, not necessarily in that order, Skinner has relished the challenge of filling a need for some franchise.
Since his first stint with the Clippers ended after the 2000-01 campaign, he has begun each season with a different team than the one he started with the year before. Skinner could record his own version of Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere.”
“I remember that first year. It’s not the same kind of feeling (now),” he said. “I’ve paid my dues after 10 seasons.”
After spending his first three seasons with the Clippers, Skinner went from Los Angeles to Cleveland to Philadelphia to Milwaukee to Philadelphia to Sacramento to Portland to Milwaukee to Phoenix and now back to Los Angeles. The arduous NBA schedule adds to the nomadic nature of the league, but Skinner intends to ride it out as long as someone will have him and he wants to have them.
“You have to (like traveling),” he said. “It’s a way to support my family and do something I know is only going to be one part of my life.”
And to think he wanted to be a baseball player as a youngster. Skinner has far exceeded his own expectations as a basketball player.
“I was never that guy I looked at and thought I’d be as successful as I was,” he said. “To play 11 years in the NBA, I never thought I’d be that guy. I can’t say that those were my hopes and dreams.”
But former Temple basketball coach Harry Miller invited Skinner to play in a summer basketball league in the early 1990s and his basketball skills began to develop along with his rapidly growing body.
Skinner was a key figure in a dynamic era in Wildcat basketball along with players such as Jerode “Smokey” Banks, Roddrick Miller, Patrick Fisher and Cornelius Chiles. The 1992-93 team was ranked No. 1 in Class 5A most of the season. From 1992-94 the Wildcats were 66-5.
Skinner and Roddrick Miller followed Harry Miller when he became coach at Baylor. They would have joined Banks in the fall of 1994, but Banks was tragically killed in an automobile accident prior to his sophomore year. Skinner probably would have followed Banks into the NBA.
Skinner left Baylor as the third-highest scorer in school history and was a record-setting shot blocker for the Bears, a skill that has made him a desirable long-term NBA player. He knows his role well and the teams that sign him know what they’re getting.
“I’m a defense, high-energy guy,” said Skinner, now 32. “I can give direction and leadership to the younger guys. I have knowledge of the game. You can’t replace experience. Athleticism is only going to take you so far.”
In his early days in the league, Skinner grew his skill and knowledge by playing summer league ball with noted bangers such as Hakeem Olajuwon, Mark Bryant and Derek Strong.
“I saw them as old, old guys,” he said. “Now guys are seeing me that way.”
The veteran Skinner isn’t quite ready to sit back and dissect his career. From a statistical standpoint, his best years were in a Bucks uniform. In 2003-04, he started 54 games and averaged more than 10 points and seven rebounds. He also logged good minutes in his second stint with Bucks in 2006-07 and was an impact player on the Kings’ ’05 playoff team.
He’s been with playoff teams such as the Allen Iverson-led 76ers and was part of a legitimate title contender with the Suns last season. The midseason arrival of Shaquille O’Neal, however, put a severe dent in Skinner’s court time.
Skinner is one of several veteran offseason acquisitions for the Clippers, joining Marcus Camby, Baron Davis and Ricky Davis. He’s happy to be part of it and see where he can help a franchise that usually contends for lottery picks rather than championships.
“I still have a passion for the game,” he said. “I want to continue as long as I can.”
In fact, whenever he hangs up his jersey - whichever team’s logo happens to be on it - he might put on a whistle and clipboard and stay in the game as a coach. Skinner is content to serve wherever he’s led.
“I believe God opens up doors and closes others. I can’t look back and wish,” he said. “I wouldn’t change anything about the life I’ve had and the career has been bigger than I ever thought.
“I consider this a chapter of my life I still want to write.”
twaits@temple-telegram.com
