Sports

Serby’s Sunday Q&A with … Steve Lavin

Q: Does any part of you or any part of this team feel as New York’s basketball team to defend the Garden in the Big East Tournament?
A: Absolutely. From the first day that we meet as a team the goals are to win the Big East Conference regular-season title, conference tournament, and a national championship. Those are the goals every season and we amplify those and revisit those objectives throughout the season. Some years, those goals are more realistic than others but are working toward them on a daily basis.

Q: The Knicks don’t seem as if they enjoy playing at the Garden. Your kids do. Do you get that sense about your kids?
A: Oh, definitely. There’s a pep in their step and the vital signs go north from the moment our bus pulls up to the Garden entrance. Taking the freight elevator, and the walk towards our locker room. … There’s a palpable sense of anticipation that gets the adrenaline flowing.

Q: Do you think you’ve awakened the sleeping giant, as you called it when you took the St. John’s job?
A: I feel we’re moving in the right direction. My nature is optimistic, but I’m a realist and take a pragmatic approach to building our basketball program. So, the numbers indicate we’re making progress. Naturally coaches are competitive and perfectionist so I’m never satisfied with where our team or program is. The arc or trajectory has us on schedule in terms of building a sustainable winner. … The goals when I came here was to make St. John’s an attractive destination for the best basketball players in the country and to be able to build a program where prospects from the tri-state area would know they don’t have to leave this region to accomplish all the things that they want to in basketball. Talented kids ultimately want to play at the highest level in the NBA, as our own Moe Harkless is, and I think our current team has some players who have the potential to make a living playing this game.

Q: You have two years left on your contract, do you want to keep coaching here?
A: Absolutely. We have been in discussions working on an extension that would put the contract back to five or six years.

Q: Is St. John’s close to building a sustainable national power?
A: Absolutely.

Q: How close?
A: We are putting a foundation in place. What we need to be able to do now is punch through, and make the NCAA Tournament on a regular basis. We play a nationally competitive schedule. We’re playing on national TV. We’ve signed three consecutive Top 10 recruiting classes and we have players on our roster that are going to have the opportunity to play at the next level. It doesn’t hurt that we play our games in the greatest venue in the world in Madison Square Garden.

Q: Who are the teams to beat in the Big East Tournament, and is St. John’s one of them?
A: St. John’s is definitely a team to beat. The league has demonstrated over the course of the regular season to be as competitive as any in the country. And the empirical evidence, in terms of scores and overtime games between the bottom and top of our league indicate that this will be as good a conference tournament as there is in the country.

Q: Where do you think your team has made the biggest breakthrough?
A: I’d say understanding what it takes to win. Having a better sense for the ingredients it takes to be successful.
Offensively, getting better shots, we’re getting better looks, on our offensive possessions. We’re now playing more efficiently. Defensively, we lead the Big East in every important category except rebounding.

Q: Give me a single reason why your team will be dangerous in March.
A: Untapped potential. We haven’t played our best basketball game yet.

Q: What makes you think that your best is yet to come?
A: We have a freshman point guard (Rysheed Jordan) that improves with each practice and game opportunity. We had a tough schedule, and we’ve had to play musical chairs with the injuries, and players that have gone through real hardships off the court with the loved ones that have been lost. All those factors affects the rhythm, flow and development of your team but we are now finding our stride at the right time.

Q: Is this a Sweet 16 team?
A: If we crash the NCAA party, its a team capable of making big noise.

Q: Define big noise.
A: Big noise translates to W’s.

Q: Define it in a more inflammatory headline way.
A: Like The Post (smile). If we get in the NCAA Tournament, we’re capable of beating anybody in the country. If we can find a way to get into the NCAA Tournament, we’ll be a very dangerous opponent for any team to face. How’s that?

Q: What sense do you get for how hungry and motivated your team is?
A: I like where our team is in terms of chemistry, camaraderie, cohesiveness, togetherness. They are a group that wants to win games and do something significant in March. There’s no quit in this group. There’s a resiliency, a fight back, or bounce-back ability that’s unique.

Q: Why do you think you’re such a good recruiter?
A: First and foremost, I’ve been fortunate to work at two of the best basketball programs in the history of college athletics in UCLA and St. John’s. And add to that, great cities, centers of the world in Los Angeles and New York.

Q: But what trait do you think you have?
A: I learned from great mentors, from the coaches I worked under and studied … Being in a big family — five siblings — when you grow up in a big family, out of necessity to survive you’re forced to develop the ability to stand up for yourself and be able to win an argument (smile). I enjoy people, and building relationships, so to me it’s not really recruiting. To me establishing a rapport and a level of trust is the key to recruiting. I’m as close to the kids I didn’t sign, that went to other schools like Stanford and Duke but I’m still close with them because we developed a relationship or friendship and I have an interest in how they’re doing in their lives.

Q: How would you sum up the first year of the new Big East?
A: In my view, the first year of the Big East has exceeded expectations. The quality of basketball being played … the number of compelling storylines, whether it’s a Doug McDermott, a National Player of the Year performance, his dad (Greg) might be Coach of the Year. … Bryce Cotton is as dynamic of a guard as we’ve seen in our league since Dwight Hardy and Kemba Walker. … Naturally, we feel our team is a special group because of what they’ve endured, both on the court and off the court, and now we’re in position to do something special. I can’t remember a year that there’s been so many overtime games. I don’t think there’s a league in the country that has played more close games that come have down to the wire and are decided in the final possessions.

Q: Rysheed Jordan?
A: He definitely has Gary Payton defensive ball hawking prowess. Offensively, he sees the floor exceptionally well and has the ability to throw darts to his teammates. Heart of gold. The Pied Piper. Wants to bring others along for his journey. Has a great sense of humor.

Q: How is he emotionally now (after losing a relative)?
A: Better the last couple of days. Last week was the toughest week of his life. These kids have had real life adversity. The last six months the experience coaching this team is the reason I wanted to return for a second tour of duty on the sidelines. All of it — the high points, the low points, the challenges off the court, and the growth and development of young people who blossom right before our eyes. We’ve had dark moments during these past six months, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, because it’s an honor to work with kids on a daily basis in this profession.

Q: Is the St. John’s job different in any way than you thought it would be?
A: There’s always elements or aspects that you don’t anticipate. We knew that St. John’s had the potential to be great again. We’re not there yet, but we are moving down the tracks at a pace that’s positioning us to have a breakthrough.

Q: Have you envisioned what the city would be like what that breakthrough comes?
A: We got a sneak preview our first year when we made the run to the NCAA Tournament, and I believe we could have been a Sweet 16, Elite 8 or Final Four team if D. J. Kennedy doesn’t get injured against ’Cuse in the conference tournament. That year the Garden was electric, and the Johnnies Nation was engaged as there was a buzz about college basketball in New York city. That’s what we want on an annual basis. It’s a process getting there.

Q: What got you through your prostate cancer ordeal?
A: (Wife) Mary and my mom and dad were the only three people that were initially privy to the fact that I had cancer. So their support and having a basketball family to lean on. … Our first season was the perfect diversion or distraction from the reality of having cancer. The magical storybook season was the best medicine.

Q: What was the time away from your team like for you?
A: It was difficult. But I knew that I was not at full strength, or at a place where I could bring forth the level of effort and energy that it takes to coach at this level.

Q: What did you miss most?
A: The daily grind with your players and your staff working towards those common goals.

Q: How scary was it at the beginning?
A: I was actually in our offices at St. John’s when I received word of the diagnosis. It was August of that first year. It was numbing. … I didn’t want to share it with the players, because I didn’t want it to be a distraction to our season. I didn’t want it to affect our recruiting or it to be a distraction to the task of building our basketball program.

Q: Was there a low point?
A: First thing he asked for once he came out of surgery was his cellphone.
A: We were recruiting JaKarr Sampson (smile). I had to text him and his mother to let him know that it’s still on, this can happen at St. John’s. “I came out alive. Don’t listen to what the other coaches are telling you. I’m not in an iron lung. I’m not in a Vincent Price laboratory in the bowels in some castle like a Frankenstein. I’m alive and well, and St. John’s is still the place to come.” I remember my mom cried because she didn’t think it was wise to be on the phone recruiting during my initial recovery.
Not being able to coach was the most difficult time of my career. But I also knew that it wasn’t fair to try and lead a team when you’re not at the height of your powers, because you’re asking your team to give 100 percent, yet I was not able to do that myself. So that’s where I had to step aside.

Q: What was it like to be back with your team?
A: It was great to be back with the team, but five minutes into the (Lehigh) game, I knew I had made a bad decision. I returned too early. Not only because we were down 17, but I physically felt awful. I had made an emotional decision. It was 33 days after a 7 1/2-hour surgery and clearly returned prematurely.

Q: How long did it take before you felt like yourself again?
A: Probably a year-and-a-half. But I set myself back a year by initially coming back too soon.

Q: How do you feel now?
A: Great.

Q: Is it hard for you to believe that you’ll be 50 in September?
A: Yes. Yes. Next question (smile). Halfway to 100.

Q: What do you remember about Carmelo Anthony at Syracuse?
A: First time I saw Carmelo Anthony play was in Venezuela for the USA team, coached by Ernie Kent. I was actually chasing a prospect named Aaron Brooks, who ended up going to Oregon. You could tell Melo was special. His feel for the game, and his gift for scoring, is as special as anyone in the NBA. At Syracuse, Carmelo was one of those rare freshmen that was able to put his team on his back and then carry them to the promised land — Mike Bibby at Arizona in ‘97 … Pervis Ellison with Louisville … Carmelo.

Q: Do you think Carmelo Anthony is perfect for New York?
A: Yes.

Q: Why?
A: This is home. After what he did at Syracuse, and the experience he had there, it makes the Knicks a natural fit for him to finish his career here.

Q: But he wants to win a championship.
A: He could be part of the solution. He could be part of building that championship by staying and helping management and the coaches put together the pieces that will create the opportunity for a championship. I think long term, if he looks at the rest of his life, if he looks at the next 40 years, it makes more sense to stay in New York than it does to start over again somewhere else, because there’s no guarantee that where you go is going to lead to a championship, and now you’ve left your home and a place that for the rest of his life will be an epicenter for all things Carmelo Anthony.

Q: Jason Kidd?
A: In high school and college, he was as dominant a point guard as any that I can remember. His will to win, physicality, his ability to impose his will on opponents, was second to none. And defensively, his ball-hawking ability, his anticipation, the physical nature that he played the game with, set him apart from any of his peers.

Q: How come he didn’t go to UCLA?
A: Cal blanketed him well. Lou Campanelli was the head coach, Todd Bozeman was an assistant at the time, and they built a wall around St. Joseph’s High School, as they should. They enhanced the odds greatly that Jason Kidd was going to be playing for the Bears.

Q: Why is helping the homeless such a cause for you?
A: You go back to your upbringing, and the values that your parents and mentors instilled. Helping others, extending the olive branch, service, compassion, thoughtfulness, generosity. … Those were aspects that were modeled by my parents when I grew up as a kid.

Q: Do you feel like a New Yorker?
A: I do feel like a New Yorker. When I come out of the apartment in the morning and hit the sidewalk immediately I feel the vital signs go north, the adrenaline, the energy is intoxicating.