No Rest for the Righteous
How good would Seattle's Moochie Norris be if he could just get some sleep?
Posted: Tuesday February 16, 1999 02:53 PM
By L. Jon Wertheim
 A basketball Bedouin who has played for 10 teams in seven years,
Moochie Norris was a long shot to make the Sonics roster. But
that doesn't mean the 6'1" lefty point guard, one of the NBA's
early-season surprises, was a sleeper.
Martyn Bernard Norris -- his grandfather nicknamed him Moochie after
the Cab Calloway tune Minnie the Moocher -- has suffered from
insomnia since his mother, Irma, died of cancer in 1989. He
rarely gets more than two hours of shut-eye a night and says he
has "tried everything" to solve the problem. Last year, while
toiling for the Fort Wayne Fury in the CBA, he'd go to bed
wearing glasses that flashed lights and emitted a thumping sound
when he closed his eyes. (The thinking was that he'd focus on the
noise and lights and clear his mind.) But on a typical night,
Norris is doing push-ups and sit-ups, reading the Bible or
listening to the lullabies of another erstwhile member of the
Fury, Master P. "My coaches ask me, 'Did you sleep last night?'"
he says. "I say, 'Yeah, I got a lot of sleep -- 8, 10 hours.' But
it's really more like one or two."
Norris's prevaricating notwithstanding, Seattle's coaches are
swooning over him. He's endowed with fiendish quickness and a
nasty crossover, and his strong play against Payton in training
camp obviated the need for Seattle to sign a veteran guard such
as Kevin Johnson. "Moochie is good with the ball, and he has a
knack for making the right decisions," says Sonics coach Paul
Westphal. "At his height you'd better be crafty, or you'll be
bagging groceries."
Norris hasn't had to say, "Paper or plastic?" but he has survived
a dizzying hoops odyssey. A native of Washington, D.C., he spent
two years at Odessa (Texas) Junior College and then decamped to
Auburn. He was declared ineligible before his senior season
because of recruiting violations, so he transferred to West
Florida, where he played in just 16 games. He was a second-round
pick of the Bucks in 1996 but was cut a few months into the
season. From there, he bounced like a pinball from team to team,
playing in France and Chile, doing an eight-game stint with the
Vancouver Grizzlies and four tours of duty in the CBA. "I saw him
during the lockout when Fort Wayne played against Yakima," says
Westphal. "I thought, That little fella can play."
The rest of the league thought the same thing after Norris's
performance in Seattle's season opener against Portland. During a
fourth-quarter rally, he drained four three-point shots and
helped to neutralize Blazers playmaker Damon Stoudamire. At one
point during Seattle's 91-88 victory, Westphal turned to Payton
and asked jokingly, "How'd you like to play some two [shooting
guard]?" Norris finished with three assists, three rebounds and
12 points and was an instant Seattle fan favorite.
"Unbelievable," says Norris. "I started the season in the CBA,
and now I'm on a top team where the fans yell out my name when
I'm on the court." Were it any other player, one would be tempted
to call it a dream come true.
Issue date: February 22, 1999
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