Grizzlies’ Arthur would like to let smoke clear

Less than six months have passed since Darrell Arthur went for 20 points and 10 rebounds to help Kansas win the NCAA championship game. But playing such a key role in one of the most memorable comebacks in tournament history feels like much longer ago.
“Seems like a couple of years ago with everything that’s happened,” Arthur said Wednesday in a telephone interview with Sporting News.
Indeed. Since the Jayhawks celebrated in San Antonio, Arthur twice has made news for reasons he wishes he hadn’t. On draft night, he was expected to be a top-20 pick, but dropped to 27th at least in part because of an alleged kidney problem. Then he was traded three times before the draft was over, ending up with the Memphis Grizzlies. But at least the draft night was out of his control.
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“I started on a bad note,” said Arthur, who was fined $20,000 and must attend the seminar again next year. “Now I have to try to get back together.”
Give him credit for facing the mess head on. He promptly apologized to team officials for his transgressions. Since arriving in Memphis, he says he helped the Grizzlies open a reading center at a local YMCA, spoke to local churches and worked with area youth. He may be overly optimistic when he says it will take a “couple of months” for people to look past his mistake but, if nothing else, he has grown up fast.
And, unlike the Heat’s Michael Beasley, at least Arthur had the intelligence (or, perhaps, guts) to come out when security entered the room in the middle of the night. Beasley, the No. 2 pick in the draft, admitted to reporters Wednesday that he was in the room. When asked whether Beasley should have come out from hiding, Arthur said, “Yeah, he should have.” Hiding proved costlier for Beasley, who was fined $50,000.
Once sent home, Arthur had to face the Grizzlies’ staff as well as his mom. Who was toughest to tell? “My mom, definitely,” Arthur said.
He knows how furious David Stern is over the incident. Though he hasn’t talked to the commissioner yet, “I plan to soon to apologize to him.”
As he has maintained since being caught, Arthur denied any use of marijuana. “That was the females,” he said Wednesday.
Arthur already had been knocked around on draft night after word circulated that a kidney problem had surfaced in one of his pre-draft physicals. He blames the diagnosis on a dose of Claritin he took before a physical to help clear up cold-like symptoms. There he was, sitting at the draft with no idea that he was slipping because of a medical condition that did not exist. “After the lottery (picks), I started hearing that was the reason,” he said. “But I’m sitting there and I can’t really do anything.”
Arthur took awhile to be drafted, but once he was, he moved around in a hurry. The Hornets drafted him with no intention of keeping him and sent him to the Blazers for cash considerations. Portland then moved him (and Joey Dorsey, the 33rd pick) to the Rockets for the rights to the 25th pick, Nicolas Batum. Finally the Rockets traded Arthur to the Grizzlies for the 28th pick, Donte Green, and a 2009 second-round pick.