LOS ANGELES — Chris Herren was a highly touted basketball player when he was young. But his time at Boston College, Fresno State and the Boston Celtics became tainted by a decade-long addiction to cocaine, OxyContin and heroin.

“The tough times that my family went through, my children went through, I went through, it became a family illness,” Herren says.

Emmy-winning filmmaker Jonathan Hock became interested in the rise and fall of Herren because sports didn’t help him defeat his drug addiction.

“We tend to look to sports to provide the stage for redemption in life. And for Chris, it was when he gave up his sport where he was able to find his redemption. And that twist was very compelling to me,” Hock says.

It was so compelling, Hock agreed to direct “Unguarded,” the latest in ESPN’s documentary series “30 for 30.”

Hock compares Herren’s story to the documentary he made on the life of football player Marcus Dupree. His ESPN documentary, “The Best That Never Was,” showed how Dupree was one of the top prospects as a high school and college player, but he never lived up to those great expectations.

Herren — who’s been sober for more than three years — agreed to the documentary because he wanted to shed more light on drug addiction and the recovery process. It was the same reason he co-wrote “Basketball Junkie: A Memoir” with Bill Reynolds, which documents his career on and off the court.

“No matter what depths you go to in life, if you give up, you can get up. And I think that’s the beauty of this film,” he says. “I think there’s a lot of people out there. I don’t care if the book sells another copy. I’ve received enough emails from people struggling in their addiction that have thanked me for it. So the book is a blessing.”

Herren sees the documentary film as the next step in his continuing battle with drug addiction.

Hock’s biggest surprise while shooting the documentary — partially filmed in Fresno — was how willing Herren was to open up about the darkest moments in his life, including waking up on a street in Modesto next to two homeless men after a long drug binge.

“A big part of Chris’ life today is sharing his story of despair and redemption with other people. And what we found when we started filming was that we were able to go to very, very dark places and this kind of therapeutic environment that we found that was really fascinating and really energetic,” Hock says. “So we’re able to tell a very positive present-tense story by going to some very dark places in the past which we were not expecting to be able to do the way it turned out.”

These days, Herren spends his time talking to youth groups and running a sports camp in Rhode Island.

He considers his three years of sobriety a miracle, considering how far he’d fallen. That’s why he can look back at the darkness that once enveloped his life.

“The beauty of this film for me is I can go back to those moments,” Herren says.

“I can walk back to where I woke up on a side street in Modesto, after being locked up, and woke up by two homeless men. I can go back there and look at that spot and know that that’s a moment that turned my life around and embrace it. The beauty of doing this documentary is that I can go back to those dark moments and shed some light on them and see some peace in them.”

TV and movie critic Rick Bentley can be reached at rbentley@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6355. Read his blog at fresnobeehive.com.

Antoine Walker could be bringing the shimmy overseas, as a report from a Polish newspaper indicated that the former Boston Celtics star and three-time NBA All-Star has received job offers from three teams in the Tauron Basket Liga (TBL), otherwise known as the Polish Basketball League.

Zadłużony na blisko 13 milionów dolarów były gwiazdor NBA, Antoine Walker szuka pracy w Polsce. Według nieoficjalnych informacji, do których udało nam się dotrzeć, kilka klubów Tauron Basket Ligi otrzymało oferty kontraktowe z nazwiskiem Walkera. Jedną z drużyn, w którym może najbliższe miesiące spędzić skrzydłowy, jest odbudowywany przez Przemysława Koelnera Śląsk Wrocław. (via Sport.pl)

I’m assuming that all of you can read that, but for those who are behind, I’ll use my super Polish translating skills (otherwise known as Google Translate) to translate. The gist of the paragraph is that Walker, with a debt of $13 million, is looking for work and has received a few contract offers from TBL teams.

Walker played 12 seasons in the NBA and over seven seasons with the Celtics, finishing with 15,647 career points and 6,891 rebounds in 893 games. In his career, Walker averaged 17.5 points and 7.7 rebounds.

Walker, who hasn’t played in the NBA since the 2007-08 season, attempted a comeback last season and played in the NBA D-League with the Idaho Stampede (check out my story after one game where I was able to talk with Walker). In 43 games with Idaho, Walker averaged 16 points and 6.3 rebounds.

For more Boston Celtics coverage, visit our team page and blog, CelticsBlog.

Jonathan Coleman lived in a variety of places as a child, including Allentown, but no matter where he lived, one thing was a constant — Coleman was a fan of the Boston Celtics.

That makes him an ironic choice to co-author a book with Los Angeles Lakers legend Jerry West.

“In my first conversation with Jerry when we were setting up our first meeting for this book, I told him ‘I grew up a Celtics fan and this may present some problems for me’ — and there was a pause on the other end of the line,” Coleman said.

“And then Jerry said ‘Don’t worry, Jonathan, you’ll get over it.’ Those were famous last words because if there’s one thing I learned from all the time I spent with Jerry in doing this book and that’s that Jerry has never, and I mean, never, recovered from losing six NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics. You talk to other people and they all agree that he’s never been able to get over it.”

The book co-authored by Coleman and West called “West By West: My Charmed, Tormented Life” offers many more insights into the complex life of “Mr. Clutch,” the 14-time NBA all-star who became so synonymous with the league that the official NBA logo features a silhouette of West.

He is an Olympic gold medalist who went on to become one of the greatest players in NBA history. Then he followed his playing career by becoming a successful executive who helped to build six championship teams with the Lakers.

If there’s anyone we thought had a happy, cheery, idyllic life, it would be West.

But the new book, which has already been featured with an interview on HBO’s “Real Sports,” paints a life that has been anything but idyllic.

Coleman, who says growing up in the Lehigh Valley has shaped his life, was a great choice to write the book. And it’s not because he loved to play pickup games at Muhlenberg College while a student at Allen High School in the late 1960s, or that he loved spending winter Saturday nights at Rockne Hall watching the Allentown Jets.

Coleman was a good choice because he has a natural curiosity about people and what makes them tick, and why they do the things they do.

He is an acclaimed author who has had such best sellers as “At Mother’s Request,” “Exit the Rainmaker,” and “Long Way Go: Black and White.” It was that book on race relations that was of interest to West, who always felt more comfortable with black teammates than white because they gave him a sense of validation, according to Coleman.

When Coleman remembered watching West as a teenage Celtics fan, he saw a great player who was “a picture of intensity, focus and concentration.”

“I was interested in that,” Coleman said. “I wanted to know what he was thinking. I wanted to peel back the onion and talk to as many people as possible.”

As it turned out, West poured himself into basketball and became the great player he was, in part, as an escape from an unsettling childhood dominated by an overbearing, hard-to-please father who would beat West with regularity.

It’s his relationship with his father, a relationship that West revealed got so bad that West said he would have killed him had he beaten him one more time, that left West incomplete as a person. It caused him to blame himself when the Lakers came up short in the NBA playoffs, even if other players and coaches were just as responsible.

“Why did he always blame himself, well, the conclusion we came to near the end of the book is that Jerry was always asking ‘What more could I have done to win my father’s love and approval,’ and that’s behind so much of it,” Coleman said. “That has been what has been so upsetting [to] people who have started to read the book.

“More than anything, people admire Jerry’s courage in opening up about his battle with depression, but the stuff about his father has been difficult for people to read. But it is meant to be a unremittingly honest book. It is not a salacious book in any way. Even when Jerry talks about his infidelity with his first wife, no names are mentioned. Jerry admits that I should not have been doing this.”

Coleman said he has never been around a person who was more self-critical, more likely to beat himself up over something, than West.

“It’s difficult in some ways to see the degree to which Jerry is willing to take a swipe at himself,” Coleman said. “It comes from him being this tormented perfectionist. Perfectionists have moments of feeling OK, calm, satisfied, but it never lasts. I will say, though, that I believe Jerry did this book hoping he’d feel cleansed.”

Coleman said West, who this year joined the executive board of the Golden State Warriors, is pleased with the book.

“He’s read it more times than I have, and I have read it over a lot,” Coleman said. “It took a lot of him, a lot out of both of us, to write this book. But I think he believes this book is his legacy, even as he’s beginning a new chapter now with the Golden State Warriors.”

As much as a book that deals with so many difficult personal issues can be enjoyable, this one is, providing the story of someone we thought we knew, but really didn’t.

kgroller@mcall.com

610-820-6740

A number of the NBA’s best players are in the process of finalizing a two-week exhibition tour across three continents, and Boston Celtics stars Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo are expected to participate, according to an ESPN report.

Kevin Garnett is reportedly contemplating whether to join the tour, as well.

The final details are still being worked out, but the exhibition tour would reportedly begin Oct. 30 and end Nov. 9, taking place during the two weeks which were supposed to hold the first NBA regular season games . The tour would consist of six games in Puerto Rico, London, Macau, and Australia, all organized by Atlanta business mogul Calvin Darden.

Rondo, Pierce, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Derrick Rose, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Amare Stoudemire, Chris Bosh, Blake Griffin, Russell Westbrook, Carlos Boozer, and Kevin Love are all expected to participate. Garnett and Kevin Durant could also join the tour.

Wade, Bosh, Griffin, Rondo and Pierce have reportedly signed contracts already, and the rest of the arrangements, including insurance requirements, could be completed over the next few days.

The players would be paid for the tour, with salaries expected to range from six figures to $1 million. Some of the tour’s proceeds would go to charity.

If the tour does take place, it would be the biggest lockout event ever played by NBA players. But talks have not been finalized and there is a chance the whole trip could fall apart.

For more Celtics coverage, visit our team page, or our blog CelticsBlog. 

Crunch Time

The Gloucester Daily Times

Tue Oct 18, 2011, 11:23 PM EDT

During his illustrious playing career, Jerry West was often thought of as a hard-luck case. Celebrated, sure, but always a bridesmaid as his Los Angeles Lakers routinely fell short in the NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics. Fans at the time, mindful of his frustration, often allowed what was categorized as “moodiness” from West. Why wouldn’t he be, after coming so close but failing to get a ring year after year?

It turns out that “moodiness” doesn’t quite cover it. West revealed to HBO this week that he was suffering with depression throughout his NBA career as a player, coach, and executive. And the genesis behind his condition is terrifying.

From the Associated Press:

West says his West Virginia childhood was devoid of love and filled with anger as a result of his abusive father, who left him feeling tormented and worthless.

“I would go to bed feeling like I didn’t even want to live,” West says in a segment airing Tuesday on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.”

“I’ve been so low sometimes and when everyone else would be so high because I didn’t like myself.”

In the HBO interview, West describes his father beating him with a belt, saying, “It was brutal.”

He says he never knew what would set his father off. It wasn’t until his father hit his sister that West found the courage to stand up to the man that had abused him. At 12, West kept a shotgun under his bed and threatened to use it on his father if the abuse didn’t end.

That edge continued on from childhood and into his NBA career. West may have had a starting role in the NBA’s all-time backcourt until Michael Jordan came along, but his drive never let up, even into his time as a coach and then Laker executive. Never easy with his nerves, West famously was too mentally exhausted to watch the Laker dynasty he constructed win its first NBA title in 2000, preferring to spend the deciding Game 6 in a movie theatre watching the film “Gladiator.”

Since leaving the Lakers later that summer following clashes with then-head coach Phil Jackson, West helped put together a winner as Memphis Grizzlies GM before retiring from day-to-day operations to become an adviser for the Golden State Warriors. According to the HBO interview, West has declined therapy but does take medication for his illness.

The Hall of Famer’s book, “West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life,” is in stores on Wednesday.

Related: Boston Celtics, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies

Rajon Rondo is not a human being. We have strong evidence to believe that he is a basketball-mastering robot or something like that. It’s the only explanation after this insane alley-oop. Watch for yourself.

For more Boston Celtics coverage, visit our team page and blog, CelticsBlog.