Little Big Man Much-traveled Elliot Perry has earned a solid spot in the NBA. by PAUL GERALD Photo By David Sowell Elliot Perry The socks are still pulled high, the six-foot frame still carries just 152 pounds, the voice is still soft and Elliot Perry is still in the NBA. But even though his physical stature is diminutive, it's obvious after a few minutes in the New Jersey Nets locker room that Elliot Perry is a pillar on his team. He only plays an average of nine minutes and scores three points a game, but you see his worth to the Nets as he walks from player to player, offering advice and encouragement after a tough loss. You hear it when the man he backs up, superstar Stephon Marbury, calls Perry "one of the most incredible people I've ever met." You feel it when his coach tells you Perry brings "stability, wisdom, vision, and experience" to his team. Perry calls all of this "doing my job, staying positive, supporting the team in whatever role I can." It is an attitude which couldn't be much rarer in today's NBA. It's probably his sense of perspective, after nine years in the league, that's most striking about the 29-year-old Perry. He finished in 1991 as the number-two scorer in University of Memphis history, with 2,209 points. He was also the only player in Metro Conference history to record career totals of more than 2,000 points and 500 assists. As a senior he led the Metro Conference in scoring (20.8 points per game), steals, and assists. And yet he didn't stick at first in the NBA. He was drafted in the second round by the Clippers, but they waived him, and he went to La Crosse, Wisconsin, to play in the Continental Basketball Association. He finished that season getting in a few games with the Charlotte Hornets, but spent the next one with a 6-50 CBA team in Rochester, New York. "It was a growing experience," Perry says. "It's like great singers, talking about how they used to sing in smokey bars and in hotels before they made it to stardom. You don't want to be in the CBA, but you have to go there to get where you want to be." Perry got where he wanted to be in spectacular fashion in the 1993-94 season. He was a Grand Rapids (Michigan) Hoop when Kevin Johnson of the Phoenix Suns got hurt. The Suns signed "EP," as he's known in the NBA, to a 10-day contract on January 22, 1994. That very night, he started for the Suns and got 11 assists in 23 minutes. The Suns signed him for the rest of the year, and he averaged 3.9 points and 4.6 assists in 16 minutes per game. The next year he took it to another level. He opened the season with the Suns and, because Johnson was still hurt, he started 51 games, averaging 9.7 points, 4.8 assists, and 1.90 steals. His quickness continued to benefit him, as his steals average was eighth best in the league. He also shot .520 from the field, second in the league among guards, and made 42 percent of his three-pointers. He was even the NBA Player of the Week one time, and he was the runner-up for NBA's Most Improved Player. The next season he started 26 more games as the Suns made the second round of the playoffs. His best game, statistically, was January 12, 1996, when he had a career-high 35 points, 13 assists, and career-high six steals against the Dallas Mavericks. "I've had to learn a lot in the NBA," he says. "In college, you're gonna get a lot of shots, a lot of touches, a lot of minutes. But when you come to the NBA, you get limited shots, limited minutes, limited touches. The guys are just so good. But I've shown that when I get a certain amount of minutes, I can put up good numbers, and the team wins." Indeed, Perry's record as a starter in Phoenix was 51-27 (.653). He says his years in Phoenix were his career highlight so far, but he's still got a chance at more good times. It looks like it won't happen with the Nets, though. They've slipped back to their traditional spot in the lower echelon of the NBA standings, at 19-30 and probably not in the playoff picture. Even though he thinks he's still perfectly capable of starting in the NBA "but that's not important to me" Perry is known in the league as a dependable backup and a stabilizing locker-room presence. He spent two seasons with Milwaukee, backing up Sherman Douglas and then Terrell Brandon; now he gives Marbury a few minutes off each night. So what keeps a tiny guy like "EP" in the NBA? "I just stay positive, have a good attitude, and try to be a guy who doesn't have a big ego," he says. "I know if they bring a guy in and pay him a lot of money, or a guy's got some years on me, he's going to get the minutes. So I just come in, work hard, and make sure I'm capable of keeping the team running if he goes down. The key to staying in the league so long is staying positive so people around the league will have something positive to say about you." Marbury practically gushes nice things about Perry. "His heart is as big as Texas," says Marbury, who gets 23 points and 8 rebounds a game. "He teaches me to be patient, to slow down, to let the game come to me. He's always being positive, making me feel good, pumping me up, always motivating me. Whenever I know I need somebody to talk to, on or off the court, I know he's always gonna be there for me." Perry has another year on his contract with the Nets, and he says after that one he'll start signing one-year contracts and see how things go. He figures two, maybe three more years after this one. Then it'll be back home he has a house in Germantown and, after a year of "completely relaxing and taking it easy," he wants to work in finance. He spends his summers playing in "phenomenal quality" pickup games around Memphis, with guys like Lorenzen Wright, Todd Day, Cedric Henderson, and Penny Hardaway. He doesn't go out on the road. He says (like a lot of NBA players) that Salt Lake City is the worst stop in the league. He collects African-American art. "I've been on every side of the scene," he says. "I've been cut, I've been traded, I've been in the CBA, I've been called up to the NBA and sent back to the CBA, I've made the minimum, I've made a lot of money, I've been on a division champion, and I've been on a team that's struggling." And you know what? He's still there, and to some people he's a six-foot giant. Paul Gerald now lives in Portland. You can e-mail him at letters@memphisflyer.com.