Marcus Morris appreciation thread

Good stuff here. I'm too lazy to fix this font.

Quote:

‘If you fight one, you’ve got to fight them both’: The Morris twins at Kansas

Jayson Jenks and Rustin Dodd Mar 17, 2020 https://theathletic.com/app/themes/a...nt-icon@2x.png 22 https://theathletic.com/app/themes/a...ve-icon@2x.png

Before they joined the Clippers and Lakers within three weeks of each other this year, before they both played together for the Suns, before they were selected one pick apart in the 2011 NBA Draft, Marcus and Markieff Morris were talented but raw recruits at the University of Kansas.
By the end of their three-year careers (of course they left school together) they’d become a part of KU lore. Most was for good: Marcus won Big 12 player of the year, and the twins’ “Family Over Everything” mentality defined that era. Some was not: They got into two on-campus fights with members of the football team, and Markieff was arrested as a freshman for allegedly firing an airsoft gun out of his dorm window and hitting a woman in the arm.
There’s a lot to unpack, so let’s start at the beginning …
Bill Self, head coach: The thing about it is they were so lazy.
Kurtis Townsend, assistant coach: So lazy.
Tyrel Reed, guard: Very lazy.
Brennan Bechard, guard: They were probably the two laziest guys I’ve been around.
Matt Kleinmann, center: They were about as lazy as it gets.
Townsend: This is the degree of lazy. (Assistant coach) Joe Dooley, who recruited them, was driving them from the airport and they stopped and got Burger King on the way. They’re driving through the middle of campus and he goes, “This is the lake right by the football field.” It’s a beautiful setting. These guys just roll down the window and throw the garbage out the window. Dooley goes, “What the heck are you guys doing?” And they go, “We were done.” So he stops and made them go pick it up.
Self: Dooley and I go up and watch them, the first time that I’d been there to watch them. They have like eight stations that they’re doing, and each station is like four minutes. I think one of them did all eight and the other one did six because he had to go to the bathroom or something. They came to us afterwards and they said, “OK, coach, on a scale of one to 10, how do you think practice was? How do you think we did?” Dooley looked at them and said, “Minus two. That’s horrible.”
Conner Teahan, guard: It was winter, and we had these big blueberry jackets. We were watching film, and Markieff had the neck of his jacket come over his mouth. Coach Self would ask him a question and he would just move his head enough to where only his mouth would be over the collar and answer the question. Coach Self lost it one time. He just came over and grabbed his jacket and brought it down. It was like, “These guys are so lazy, he can’t even unzip his jacket to answer a question.”
Kleinmann: There’s a staircase in the middle of the Wagnon Student Athletic Center where you have to go up this giant round staircase. … Anybody can hear you. Marcus or Markieff was going upstairs, and the other was dragging behind him. The first one goes: “Hey, we gotta hurry up, we gotta go see Scooter, we got tutoring.” And the second one goes: “Nah, I don’t want to do that today.” And the first one turned around and goes: “I know why you don’t want to, because you’re lazy.” And I remember I was in with Joe Dooley at the time, and Dooley almost had a heart attack. He said it was like the pot calling the kettle black in front of his eyes.
Andrea Hudy, strength-and-conditioning coach: I remember taking them on a bike ride when they were in school.
Bechard: She literally takes you 10 miles on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.
Hudy: They just kind of threw the bikes to the side and were like, “This is bullshit.” I was like, “What are you going to do? Walk back? We’re eight miles out.” We were in the middle of a field.
Brett Ballard, director of basketball operations: One time, they were having to do extra conditioning and they had to get in a certain number of steps in on the stair climber in the weight room. And they had to do a lot of steps. Hudy was in there and at one point, we looked up and they were literally on the ground on their knees pushing the stair climber with their hands. Hudy had to yell at them.
Kleinmann: I was probably the worst big-man dunker Bill Self has ever had. But for a brief period of time, they were worse than me.
Self: They even said publicly, “Yeah, I can dunk, but it just takes so much energy.” They had rationalized in their mind that they need to conserve their energy, and not jumping was a way to do that playing basketball.
Barry Hinson, director of external relations: They finally dunked … maybe it was February of their freshman year.
Hinson: Coach kept saying, “These guys are special. They’re gonna be special.” And I had not been at that Power 5 level, and I just couldn’t see it. I didn’t doubt Coach. But I couldn’t see it.

Self: Everything should be qualified. I loved coaching them — I loved them — BUT they would challenge me on a daily basis. They quit numerous times. Multiple times.
Hinson: Running on the treadmill during practice was punishment, and I’m almost positive we had to buy two new treadmills because they just broke them. They wore them down.
Ballard: They became professional treadmill runners for a period of time.
Hinson: I wondered, “Are these guys any good? Can they play? We don’t even know because they’re over there running all the time.”
Self: One of their common lines whenever I would punish them was, “Man, this is bullshit. I came here to play ball, not run track.”
Townsend: Marcus didn’t make the time and everybody has to get on the line and run again. The next time he ran, he ran even slower and Markieff ran right next to him.
Bechard: Just so one wasn’t singled out.
Reed: It was a package deal, man.
Townsend: The whole team is getting mad at them because they’re having to run, and they’re yelling at Coach, “Man, we didn’t come here to run no track.”
Self: They were so close and they covered for each other so well that if Markieff was having a great day and I got on Marcus’ butt, that would bring Markieff’s level down. It was unbelievable. If I were to say, “Hey, you guys are lazy today,” in their mind they’d say, “Watch this, I’ll show you what lazy really is.”
Hinson: I don’t remember a time that they weren’t together.
Bechard: I don’t think I ever saw them apart. Ever.
Hinson: You think about that. I’m talking about everything.
Tyshawn Taylor, guard: They have this weird twin power. I used to say they could rule the world. They would team up on Coach Self and make him stop us from running or lifting extra.
Ballard: For a little bit I was their academic coach, so I would meet with them about how they were doing academically and check in with them about their grades. I’d get word that, hey, the twins missed class or they were late to class. I’d bring them in. I’d asked them if they missed a class, and it was funny because they used to look at each other and they wouldn’t say anything. I swear they were telepathically communicating to each other. I’d laugh and say, “Stop looking at each other. Just give me the answer.”
Hudy: We were playing Alcorn State, and I hadn’t heard of Alcorn State and I go, “Hey Marcus, where’s Alcorn State?” He goes, “In Alcorn.” I was like, “You’re funny and you don’t even know it.”
Self: Both were ridiculously bright on the court.
Townsend: They had an innate sense about each other.
Bechard: They always knew where each other were.
Reed: They knew exactly where each other were.
Teahan: There were a couple of highlights where you could see them not seeing the other one and either making a no-look or turning around and just tossing it. It was like, “How did you know the person was there?”
Taylor: I played against the twins in high school at a team camp at Rutgers University and almost got in a fight with their team. Kieff threw the ball at one of my teammates after he scored a bucket. He like threw the ball in his face, so we almost got in a fight with him. When I was about to go to Kansas, I told Coach Self that story. I was like, “I don’t know, man, those guys are wild. I don’t know.” And Coach Self was like, “No, these are the kind of guys you want on your team. You just don’t want to play against them.”
Self: That’s exactly true.
Taylor: The BB guns, right? When they were first moving in? They were probably in school for like a week and that shit happened.
Self: I was recruiting some really good player, and I’m getting ready to go in the home. … Kurtis calls me and says, “Bill, I’ve got awful news. The twins just shot somebody.” I said, “Oh my God, oh my God!” He said, “No, with an airsoft gun.” I missed the meeting, told them I had some emergency and I had to get on the plane and fly back. Those guys were just like, “What, Coach?”
Ballard: When the RA went up to their room, they just had the airsoft gun sitting out on the coffee table. So it wasn’t like they were like, “Maybe we should cover this up or maybe we should play dumb.” That didn’t even cross their minds. They didn’t think it was a big deal, and Coach was like, “You’re playing basketball at Kansas, you can’t do this type of stuff.”
Self: That was the first week of school!
Kleinmann: Their basic instinct was they’re going to fight.
Townsend: I think they grew up like that. … They were brash and bold, and they thought they were the baddest guys in the gym every time.
Self: Texas beat us here in a very emotional game. That was the next afternoon after Thomas (Robinson’s) mother died. The kids hadn’t slept. None of them had been to bed. So we play the next day and we play on emotion. We get ahead 18-3 and run out of gas and they end up dominating the game after that. That may have been the twins’ only loss at home. (Later), we win to go to the finals in Kansas City at the Big 12 tournament. Texas is getting ready to play in the semifinals.
Townsend: They ran through the middle of them.
Self: Our guys are walking by saying, “You better win. We want you to tomorrow.” I’m like, “Oh jeez.” But that was how they thought.
Teahan: I don’t remember the tunnel with Texas, but I do remember the tunnel with Richmond. (The twins) never backed down to anybody. If you want to egg them on, that’s a sure way for them to get in a fight. Richmond talked a lot of trash. We were a very dominant team, and one or two of them had said something in the pregame interviews, and then we got in the tunnel and the twins started lipping at them right away.
Taylor: It’s just part of who they are.
Self: I used to tell our guys when they’d go off a tangent: “Why doesn’t somebody just step up to them?” And they’d say, “Coach, if you fight one, you’ve got to fight them both.” Which is true!
Teahan: If you wanted to fight one of them, if you were going to do anything that bugged one of them, you better know where the other was.
Hinson: It was similar to “The Godfather.” You’re not gonna mess with this family.
Elijah Johnson, guard: They made us feel unbeatable. It was about more than just basketball with them. It was an attitude. It was a demeanor. Just the way we walked around and the way we felt about ourselves as a whole, it was bigger than basketball. We could beat you at basketball, and if we couldn’t, we damn near would kick your ass on the court. That’s what made us so unbeatable. Even if you gave us a hard time, we would just try to punk you. And they were the leaders of that.

Townsend: Bill would do stuff like, “All right, so-and-so get in there, Markieff’s not starting tomorrow night,” and then it would piss Marcus off and he’d go, “Well, then, I ain’t going to start, either.”
Taylor: I remember (Self) charging Kieff up a couple times, then looking over and smiling and winking. He loved it. He knew that’s when they were more locked in.
Self: I would say things and just turn to other guys, and they’d start laughing because they knew I was just trying to fire them up.
Taylor: We were running and Kieff was jogging through it. Coach was like, “Look at Kieff, he’s lazy,” and threw the ball. And if I’m telling the story the way I remember it, I’m pretty sure Kieff threw it back at him and Coach Self caught it.
Self: He’s not the first player that’s ever done that.
Taylor: Some people don’t like it or talk shit about it. But that edge that they play with, I think that’s one of their biggest strengths. It separates them. You can’t teach being a dog. You can teach somebody how to shoot, you can teach skill shit, but you can’t teach heart and you can’t teach being a dog.
Ballard: Marcus one day was like, “Hey, Coach, just because Markieff is having a bad day doesn’t mean you have to yell at me. I’m having a good day.” Coach laughed about that.
Taylor: He knew they needed to play at a certain level to be what they could be. He had a great way of pushing them and getting the best out of them. I’m sure it was more of a challenge for him because there’s two of them. So when they stand down, they’re standing down together, every time. You can’t tell Kieff something and not expect Marcus to do that, too. Coach knew that, or he learned that, but he knew they were motherfuckers, and he wanted that. He loved that. Gotta have that, bro.
Ballard: That bond — it ultimately made our team better. They had a bond about as strong as I’ve ever seen from any two people.
Teahan: As they’ve progressed, they’re probably some of the hardest-working people I’ve ever been around.
Bechard: Their work ethic went through the roof.
Reed: They just figured it out. They realized how much work it takes and what Coach Self was trying to instill in them.
Taylor: They just put in the work, bro.
Self: The other thing is: They’d do anything for their teammates. Their teammates loved them. They loved those guys. They developed that phrase, “Family Over Everything,” FOE, and that was their trademark. But they actually really felt that. They loved their teammates.
Ballard: I grew to love them and just how much they improved across the board.
Hinson: Let’s get one thing straight. From their freshman year to their junior year, it didn’t matter. They still were on the treadmill.
Self: I loved coaching them. I didn’t like some of the stuff that we dealt with from time to time, but I loved coaching them.
Marcus Morris: Coach Self, we’ve never seen eye to eye on nothing. Zero. But man, what he did for me and my brother was special. He taught us the definition of hard work. He was a father figure to us. He was on us very hard, and I really couldn’t understand why. But when I left here and I went to the real world and I got to the NBA, everything he instilled to us I use it today.
Reed: I went and watched Marcus play in the Garden last year. We couldn’t have come from more different backgrounds. I came from small-town Kansas and they came from inner-city Philly. … He got me tickets, and we were talking after the game. He was like, “Yeah, (Kansas) wants to retire my jersey, but I’m just not sure.”
Self: I called Marcus and I tell him the great news. What’s the first thing he said?
Bechard: “What about Kieff?”
Self: I said, “Marcus, no disrespect, Kieff could have got his jersey retired if he stayed another year, but you were the Big 12 player of the year and All-American and Kief wasn’t. This is about you.” He goes, “Nah, this is about us.”
Bechard: He didn’t even want to do it, which is funny. That’s them.
Reed: I told him, “When they see your last name up there, they’re going to think of both of you.”
Self: When Marcus went out to accept it, he brought Kieff with him. So they stood together.
Marcus Morris: My partner in crime. Two kids from North Philadelphia. We took this journey together.
— Additional reporting by C.J. Moore