Mims staying firmly
upbeat
Mark Woods
Defending Budweiser League champions adidas
Greater London Leopards may have only got off to a 1-3 start in the opening
six weeks of the season but their ebullient American coach Billy Mims flatly
refuses to be downbeat about his team's chances of achieving three titles
in succession.
"It's all gone exactly as planned. We were
actually hoping to open up the season one and three, but we've actually
increased our expectations because it's been a very bad one and three.
The only thing we could have done better was to be zero and four !"
"All jokes aside. The expectations of a
championship programme are always high and after opening with a win, we
still felt we had to make some changes, which is why we brought back Eric
Burks. We have a lot of new players, having lost John White and Makeba
Perry and even some of our role players moved onto greener pastures, but
we think we've done a good job of bringing in some younger British talent.
Ben Baum is one of the best young English prospects to come into this country
in quite a while and he's been in superb form so far. . We've brought in
David Attewell, a great young prospect also, kept Brian Moore and added
Stedroy Baker, so we probably have the best group of English guys that
we've ever had. If this team was in Europe tomorrow, it would be a very
strong team."
Aside from his responsibilities at the
Leopards, Mims has been involved in bringing in another member of his team
in early autumn. His new baby daughter Callie Elizabeth Mims. Last time,
the South Carolinan became a father, it proved a good luck charm in Leopards
first title winning year, and Mims acknowledges the similarity of both
his "jobs".
"With a lot of new players here, it's a
growing process for us. Babies are born, they have to crawl before they
can walk, and have to walk before they can run. All clichés aside,
when the end of the season comes around, this team will be running. Last
time I had a daughter born, she proved to be a great good luck charm for
her father so hopefully it will be the same this year. I can promise that
I'm going to be very focussed on the games in the future, because now I've
got two mouths to feed !"
Mims' early moves into the market saw the
arrival of 2.04 American forward Tim Moore, a veteran of the USBL, but
it was the belated return of 1998 MVP Burks which provoked the most surprise.
Acting as his agent, Mims had spent the summer lining Burks up with a chance
to make the NBA but with the lockout in progress, it was East London not
Miami on the guard's passport. Mims admits that he had mixed feelings about
re-signing his former star.
"At the end of the day, Eric and I are
like family. We have a lot of friends and family in common back in the
States and we went to the same university. Eric has achieved the
ultimate since he has been in British basketball, wining back to back Championships
and being the player of the year last year. So I don't think there is anything
left for him to achieve here. The ultimate desire for him would be to go
to the highest level, the NBA. Over the summer I worked very hard as his
friend, as his agent and as his coach to place him in a position to get
to the NBA with the Miami Heat. Unfortunately, it didn't work out due to
the lockout and although there was interest from Spain, Italy and Portugal,
Eric asked me to bring him back. He said that there are things more
important than money at of this stage of his career, plus personal issues
for him, but mostly Eric came home because he likes being a Leopard and
the organisation looks after him."
Whether it's playing father or father figure,
Mims will be hoping for success for his on and off court families. A nice
silver trophy would certainly look good in the nursery for starters by
next May.
