Amityville native Terry Roberts feels blessed to again chase NBA dream after being shot last February
Terry Roberts of the Long Island Nets before a game against the Motor City Cruise at Nassau Coliseum on Jan 25, 2024. Credit: LI Nets/Jen Voce-Nelson
LAS VEGAS — Outside of the few lottery picks and glamorous names playing in the Summer League, there is a sense of desperation. At the Thomas and Mack Center, which currently is the center of the NBA universe, players hope to catch the eye of their franchise or show off for another team as they try to grab a precious spot in the league.
So at the RBA Showcase workout taking place Monday morning at a gym about six miles of desert away from the Las Vegas Strip, that desperation clicks up a few notches. Scouts from almost every NBA team, G League team and overseas team are looking at 18 players set up in workouts to try to keep their dream alive.
And perhaps no one better symbolized this fight for a place in the game than Amityville native Terry Roberts, who was part of the first workout at 9 a.m.
Roberts worked his way up and down the court as the scouts sipped coffee and ate the complimentary bagels along the sideline of the Impact Gym in an office complex.
The 6-3 Roberts starred at Bradley University and then the University of Georgia before earning a spot with the Long Island Nets last season. He was working his way up the ladder, scoring 15 points and grabbing 10 rebounds in 28 minutes in a win over the Mexico City Capitanes at Nassau Coliseum in late February, when he took a ride to Philadelphia with a teammate to celebrate. But stepping outside the door of a club, he found himself in the middle of a gunfight and was struck in the chest by a bullet that left him bleeding on the sidewalk.
So getting back into the league is the goal, but just getting on the floor months later already was a victory for Roberts.
“It made me look at life as anything can happen to anybody at any time,” he said after the workout was over. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional basketball player. You could be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s what happened to me. Just being able to walk out of there alive is the biggest blessing I could ask for.
Terry Roberts of Copiague High School drives against Brentwood in the Gary Charles Hoop Classic at Adelphi Unversity on Jan. 8, 2017. Credit: James Escher
“I look at everything different — even life. Just looking at life and looking at everything differently. Seeing all of that, being able to understand, I have a work ethic to it. It keeps me going, keeps me pushing.”
That night in Philadelphia, there were no assurances that Roberts would survive, much less get back on the court this soon.
“I was thinking glad to be alive,” he said of that night. “That was the most important thing. Just being able to move my body, being able to walk. That was very big for me. I just looked at life differently after that situation. It definitely made me sit back and thank God for allowing me to be here right now, to be able to work out in front of all these scouts.
“I’m always going to tell myself I’m going to be OK just because I have a strong mindset. During the incident, I was telling myself I’m OK, just keeping myself calm. I wasn’t really panicking. Just stayed calm, waiting for the paramedics to arrive. I was in the hospital for like four, five days. It wasn’t long. They said I was healing fast. Just left everything up to God.”
He was on a ventilator in the hospital before recovering, being able to return home to Amityville and beginning to take his path back to basketball.
“I’ve been working out since I was in the hospital with my brain, telling myself I’m going to get back to where I was, I’m going to be better,” he said. “And I really believe it. When I was able to get out and actually put the work in, I was really putting the work in because I believe I can be better than I was.
“I had a little break for a little bit. I want to say about a month and a half where I couldn’t do anything. Once that month and a half went away, I went straight to physical therapy and got right. I work out in my neighborhood with a trainer, Dalique Mingo. He got me right. I did a lot of strength and conditioning, too, did a lot of things. Instead of driving my car to a workout, I’d ride my bike to a workout. [I would] do little things like that, just to help myself slowly get back.
“I definitely thought I was making strides in the right direction,” he said of his days before the shooting. “The day the incident happened, I had a double-double, I played the most minutes I played with the Nets that year. So I definitely saw it trending up. Everything happens for a reason.”
“I think it’s incredible to see him here today.,” said his agent, Roslyn native BJ Bass. “To think about what he went through and it was really a short time ago, a lot of people here were very impressed with him. To think that, it’s like this weekend, we saw how close it can be, and now he’s here. It’s an incredible thing. But he’s got NBA potential and is continuing to grow. But the fact that he’s here with us today and he played so well, that’s the most important thing.”
The road to the NBA is long and filled with obstacles for nearly every player gathered in Las Vegas this week, but maybe no one has faced a harder path than Roberts.
This workout included a few names. Jarrett Culver was the No. 6 overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, but after a few seasons, he is still trying to rise above the G League. Some players here already have been signed to overseas deals (including Norvel Pelle, who once had a 10-day contract with the Knicks).
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
