Jensen: Road finally close to home for Temple alum Dionte Christmas

NEWARK, Del. - The call didn't go the way Dionte Christmas wanted. He thought he'd gotten the clean block. Sure the refs say before games: You miss some shots, right? We miss some calls. His initial flurry of anger also was about letting his man get backdoor on him, forcing the ref to make a decision, block or foul.

"It's the D League man," Christmas said later, riding away from the arena, the call already out of his mind. "You know one thing I noticed down here? Everybody is on the grind trying to get higher up. Even the refs, even the managers of the basketball team, even the people at the (scorer's) table. Everybody's grinding trying to get up to the big show."

The former Temple Owls star, who played four years at Samuel Fels High and also attended Philadelphia Lutheran Academy, has been there. His 31 games for the Phoenix Suns in 2013-14 gives Christmas a certain status on the Delaware 87ers. Not that it matters when you get on the court. Seems like yesterday Christmas was playing for Temple on North Broad Street? Now 30, he's the old guy on the 87ers.

Still grinding, Delaware's second-leading scorer, a 6-foot-5 guard averaging 16 a game just down I-95.

"My last push to make it to the league," Christmas said later in the car.

He's never been so close to home. You can't walk out of the arena in Afula, Israel or Mersin, Turkey or Thessaloniki, Greece and call your dad and say I'll meet you at the condo - I'll text you the address, plug it into your GPS - then get back up to West Oak Lane for the night since you're off the next day.

"Where you at? . . . I'm out back. You'll probably pull up right with us," Christmas said to his father walking out of the Carpenter Center, home to the 87ers, his latest home, after Afula and Mersin and the rest of the 11 foreign stops, which also included Paris and Moscow and Athens.

This was Delaware just after 10 o'clock on a wet January night, his game just ended, a win in the last ten seconds. The day had begun in North Carolina with a wake-up call a little after 4 a.m., a 6 a.m. flight from Greensboro to Charlotte.

"Today, it was tough, man," Christmas said, riding over to the condo. "I thought overseas was tough, but this is tough. In this league, we're sitting next to people, no exit rows, knees in the back of someone's chair. Another flight from Charlotte to Philly, then drive 45 minutes from Philly to Delaware, got like three hours of sleep, then right back to the gym."

Christmas turned down a more lucrative offer in Turkey, but there was a partial guarantee from the Sixers here, and the three-bedroom condo he shares with a teammate in Bear, Del. He knew going in the plan wasn't to get him to the Sixers, but to be a veteran presence on the 87ers. His oldest teammate this night was 25.

"It's crazy how fast time flies," Christmas said. "All the guys I hang with, the NBA guys I'm cool with, they're like my age . . . Here is like, 'Oh, God, I'm the old guy.' It's funny."

Just the day before, a 24-year-old teammate had asked: How is it being in the NBA? I want to know.

"I broke it down for him, Christmas said, explaining how the workouts are similar, that type of thing, but the expectation on day one, walking in, "from one to 15, everyone is a professional. You have to grow up really, really fast. You have to transition or you'll be out of there fast."

Like when he was in Phoenix. At camp, Christmas stayed with fellow Philly guys Markieff and Marcus Morris, old friends.

"I didn't have a car - staying with the twins, I'd go to practice with them," Christmas said. "They would get there an hour before practice."

Except one of the trainers told one of the twins that if Christmas wanted to make the team he had to start getting there two hours early.

"If he wasn't friends with the twins, I wouldn't have known that," Christmas said. "Get up every morning, catch an Uber or something, be there two hours early. If I didn't have the twins there, I would have gotten there an hour before and I probably would have gotten cut."

Before a game, you couldn't pick the older guy out by energy level. Christmas doesn't play the jaded vet, more like the one out there during warm-ups with an energetic vibe. Walking toward the hoop to get a rebound, he mimics a layup. Jumpers going in seem to matter to him. Chatter is part of his routine.

"That's always just been me," Christmas said, talking about how his coach, Eugene Burroughs, always wants him bringing energy and a positive attitude. "Even when things are going wrong, he's looking at me for that," Christmas said.

Burroughs uses the word wisdom. The coach, once a star at Episcopal Academy himself, a veteran college coach who had been on the Sixers staff, makes it clear he values it.

"You hear his voice in the locker room," Burroughs said. "He brings that to our team. The guys like him. He's always joking, laughing, lively. You can always hear Christmas."

As far as making the NBA, Burroughs said, "He's probably an acquired taste for a veteran team, he'll be the guy who comes in and fits right in. If he's going to get a shot, I think that's the type of situation, as opposed to a young team trying to rebuild and grow."

The atmosphere at an 87ers game is part professional hoops, part Chuck E. Cheese's, with two moon bounces taking up space to the side of the court, in constant use. It doesn't faze a guy who has played in Greece, saw coins and firecrackers hit the court. Teammates would tell him not to go to the sideline to get a ball that had bounced over to the crowd. Why not? Christmas found out when he was wet from spit, having to be held back from fighting.

"Another game, we lost to our rival team, the president of the team told me, 'We can't leave for two hours, they're making fires outside,' " said Christmas, explaining that it was the home fans acting up. Even when they could leave, "We can't go out to eat."

Along the way, Christmas picked up, you never know who's watching and where that might lead.

"To this day, I still thank Tyronn Lue," Christmas said. "He really changed my life."

Lue, now Cleveland's coach, had been running player development for the Celtics, which included coaching the summer league team. He brought Christmas in the summer of 2012, for sessions in both the Orlando and Las Vegas leagues. "He gave me so much freedom," Christmas said.

He didn't make the Celtics but that exposure, Christmas said, led to the best contract of his life, over a million guaranteed with CSKA Moscow, a big-time outfit that flew on its own private plane. Even though Christmas was let go in February, the checks all cashed and he signed for the rest of the year with an Italian club, in Siena. He still appreciates all the support he also got from Doc Rivers, then the Celtics coach.

That Boston experience led Christmas to his real NBA break the next season in Phoenix, since the Suns had hired Ryan McDonough from the Celtics. So his next season, Christmas was with Phoenix for those 31 games, which he values that time more as time moves along.

Lue also brought him into Cavs camp last season and Christmas lasted through four preseason games, but he said, "To be honest, going into it, I kind of knew what the deal was," calling his chance of making the final roster of the eventual NBA champions "slim to none" based on the guaranteed contracts they had.

Still, Christmas said, "I took full advantage."

Like being around LeBron James, he said. He could pick LeBron's brain a little bit. "If I did something wrong, I would always go to him, and he would have no problems saying things to fix it, like if I did a wrong defensive adjustment. He wouldn't brush me off. I'd speak to Kyrie [Irving] a lot, too. He'd tell me how to slow down off the pick and roll."

His 2015-16 was kind of crazy. Christmas went to Israel for a month "kind of injured," he'd had a back injury in Cleveland. He should have waited until he healed until he went over. Same thing when he was let go after a month.

"I should have come home, gotten whole," Christmas said.

But there was an offer from a big team in Athens. He only lasted four games.

"I played OK but I didn't play the way they wanted me to play," Christmas said. "If you're not what they want you to be, they'll send you home and get another American fast."

This time, Christmas said, he came home, got to Temple every day for treatment, got healed, signed a deal in Turkey.

"I ending up averaging 20 a game," Christmas said. "I shot the ball really well, scored 30 a couple of times."

This is his first D League experience. It's surprised him a bit. The money isn't as good as overseas but "when I was overseas, you see guys who played in the NBA, but not too many [who think], 'I belong in the NBA,' " Christmas said. "I come to the D League, feels like at least three or four guys on every team could be in the NBA. Makes me feel further away than I thought I was. Makes you grind even harder."

He does feel like he's having one of his more consistent seasons.

"You've got to have a short-term memory," Christmas said. "You can be one of the best players in the D League and in three weeks you can be playing terrible; the GMs and scouts will be on to the next."

He's been saving his money, thinking about buying a house, how to make smart investments. He wants to stay in the game when he's done. He might start helping out with an AAU team this summer. He's just not done. The shoulders still square up, jumper still leaves his hand as quickly. He talks about the "thousands and thousands of people out here" trying for 15 spots on 30 teams.

"Just time and place," Christmas said. "Get the right person to like you."

Whatever the wake-up call, he's up looking for that door, now that he's learned how to spot it.

"You have to keep knocking," he said.

mjensen@phillynews.com

@jensenoffcampus