This is the story of a basketball star who possesses every gift a player could ask for - except a team. He practices by himself early each morning, attends classes and works for wages in the afternoon, and then he tries to steer clear of trouble in his free time while hoping for another chance.
Life could have been so easy, but there it is; a few bad decisions, a mix of immaturity, and he's an unemployed basketball phenom.It didn't have to be this way for Silas Mills. The one thing no one disputes is that he has surpassing talent. One college coach says he would be a first-round NBA draft pick after a couple of years of collegiate play and that he could play in the CBA right now. Another coach calls him the best player ever signed out of high school by the University of Utah.
Two years ago, in a preseason poll of league coaches, he was predicted to be the Newcomer of the Year in the Western Athletic Conference. Some voters included the Utes in the Top 20 that year simply because they believed Mills would be on their roster.
But since then Mills has been kicked off of two college teams. He is enrolled at Salt Lake Community College these days, but he doesn't play for the school's team. If Mills has his way, he will be playing for Utah before the season is finished, but who knows if that will happen.
Mills was originally signed by Utah in the spring of 1991, but he was dropped from the team in September of 1992 for disciplinary reasons. After another year and similar results at a Kansas junior college, he transferred to SLCC last summer, hoping to regain admission to Utah. According to Mills, Utah officials told him he needed grades of C or better to return to Utah. Mills says he learned last week that he earned two C-plusses and two A's.
"I'm just waiting for Coach Majerus to tell me what's going to happen," says Mills. "I hope to know by the end of next week. It's all up to Coach Majerus and the team. I feel like I've done my part."
Majerus refuses to discuss Mills, but it is known that they will meet on Thursday.
If the decision to place Mills back on the team were based on talent alone, it would be a no-brainer. Mills was a prep All-American at Milwaukee's Washington High School three years ago, averaging 20 points and 9 rebounds per game. His talent was confirmed when he was named the Most Valuable Player in the McDonald's Kentucky Derby prep all-star game. Mills says he "blew off" all recruiters for the chance to fulfill his dream of playing for Majerus, another Milwaukee product, because "he knows the game."
Mills was a Prop. 42 student, which required him to sit out his freshman season at Utah. After his freshman year, he returned to Milwaukee for the summer. By the end of the summer, Majerus had told him not to come back.
"I was being stupid," says Mills. "I was back home being real crazy, being on the streets, not caring about anything. I was into all kinds of crazy stuff. He (Majerus) kept hearing about me getting in trouble at home. I didn't go to work. I was just in the streets all the time."
And that was definitely no place to be. "It's inner city," he explains. "It's not a nice neighborhood. It's nowhere you'd want to live."
Mills attended and played basketball for Garden City junior college in Kansas last winter, but he lasted only half the season. Mills says he quit; his coach, Kent Davison, remembers it differently. "No, he didn't quit," he says. "He got suspended."
"As long as he had the ball, he was fine," Davison continues. "He was much more talented than the other players we had, but the mark of a good player is involving the other players . . . He didn't get along with the other players, and he didn't seem to care if they liked him or not. He was a good player, but his head got in the way. I don't doubt his abilities. It's a question of whether he'll adapt to what a coach wants him to do. It comes down to maturity. That's probably the reason I kicked him off the team. All his life he's been able to do things, and people put up with it, and I wasn't willing to do that."
After leaving Garden City, Mills returned to Salt Lake City. "I talked to Coach (Majerus), and asked if he would you take me back. He said yes, if I got myself together. He wasn't going to have no jerks on the team."
Mills enrolled at SLCC last summer and took jobs working construction and making deliveries, both to pay his tuition and rent and "to make time fly."
"He realized his only chance to make the NBA or any life in basketball is to learn the game and spend some time with a guy like Majerus," says one Utah official. "He's been trying to do this all on his own. We haven't helped him at all. He's done everything himself."
Still, he wasn't quite able to avoid trouble. Last fall, Mills and current Ute players Phil Dixon, Ed Johnson and Darroll Wright were involved in a verbal confrontation at an on-campus cafeteria, which prompted Majerus to suspend his three players. According to Mills, he tried to restrain Wright, another Milwaukee native and a friend since childhood.
"I wasn't involved like they were," he says. "I was trying to get him away from there. I was trying to be the father of the bunch."
Still, Mills says, "Print this. I'd like to apologize for the incident in the cafeteria. To Ramona Adams. To the Dean of Students. To the team. To Coach Majerus. To Captain Shepherd. I was involved in that. We made a poor choice."
That notwithstanding, the incident might be the last straw for the no-nonsense Majerus. If Davison wasn't willing to give Mills a second chance at Garden City, then what about Majerus? He already has shown considerable patience with Mills, who twice tested positive for marijuana during his freshman year.
"I paid the price," says Mills. "I had to run every morning. And after the second time I had to be tested every week."
Majerus knows well the kind of talent Mills could bring to his team. Even after letting Mills go last year, Majerus, who gives compliments sparingly, said, "He is a great talent. He's the most talented kid we've brought in here . . . But he is also, of all the kids I brought in here as Prop. 42s, the kid that has had the most problems. I don't know if I ever could have channeled his talent into a situation that would have helped the team, or if it would be devisive . . . I'll be surprised if he makes it back here."
Utah assistant coach Jeff Judkins once said of Mills, "He's a great passer, a great ballhandler, a great rebounder. He could play CBA ball or European ball right now. He's that good. He's a 6-7 forward who jumps out of the gym. He's the only guy I know who can play all five positions. He's that type of player. If we could get him this year or get him for next year and have two years with him, he'd be a 1-to-10 pick (in the NBA draft)."
For the past few months, Mills has climbed out of bed at 6 a.m. daily to run, lift weights and shoot baskets at a local gym, preparing for the day he'll play basketball again. Still, all that talent might not be enough to convince Majerus to give him a second chance. What would Mills do then?
"First, I'll cry," he says. "I don't know. I haven't thought about it. That would be a shocker."