Chaz Franklin has worked and talked his way from Point Breeze to ‘the Dungeon’ to a WNBA job

Growing up in Point Breeze, Chaz Franklin could not have plotted this path. The dots would never have connected. Some didn’t exist. Those Nike sneaks from Dean Smith? That Finnish coach in Germany teaching him dribbling techniques? A chance encounter in a gym on G Street leading to more work in a parking garage they dubbed “the Dungeon?”

All these elements leading to this year being named director of player development for the WNBA’s Chicago Sky; one Philly connection leading to another, to this job.

So Franklin began working last offseason with Philly’s greatest current contribution to the WNBA, Kahleah Copper, because Chaz was always a big-time player himself?

» READ MORE: After being a WNBA breakout star last year, North Philly’s Kahleah Copper is ready for an encore

“I was one of the league leaders in the city of Philadelphia,” Franklin said of his own game, before he paused for a few beats.

“ ... In turnovers and missed shots. Dribble off your foot, throw it into the stands. I scored in the wrong basket twice. I was banned at one point from being the team in-bounder.”

Sounds like he should have found a new sport. Too stubborn, he said.

“I kept throwing it in-bounds,” Franklin said. “I was a risk taker, all or nothing. How I live my life, for 42 years.”

There was this man who lived around the corner, half a block away. Bill Williams was known around the city in basketball circles … Mr. Bill and Mr. Larry, Larry Waiters, founders of the Total Response and later the Positive Image League. Even dribbling the ball off his foot, this 10-year-old ball of energy got noticed, Chaz first joining the in-house league at 20th and Mifflin, “then forming the Point Breeze team to take on all comers.”

“I got sneaks from Dean Smith [to give out] for best report card,” Williams said, remembering one year running the Total Response league, before correcting himself, remembering that it was a 3.0 grade point average that got you the shoes. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Rasheed Wallace, a future North Carolina Tar Heel under Smith, played at the time in the Total Response League.)

“So the sneakers were a pair of Nikes popularized by Dan Majerle,” Franklin said. “They were my first pair of ‘basketball shoes’ and they were a size too small. I squeezed my foot into them anyway.” Church, school, those Nikes were on his feet, he said, “of course every basketball game humanly possible.”

Franklin played ball at Central High, still doing his thing.

“I led the conference in turnovers as a senior,” he said.

Yet, he walked on at Hampton, then transferred to an NAIA school, got on the court, got his degree, but couldn’t give up the game. He played overseas professionally for 15 years. Germany, the Czech Republic, Venezuela, Kuwait, Bosnia, Guatemala, Finland, Colombia, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Iceland. He was a 5-foot-10 point guard, so the hardest job to get was the first one. Being in South Philly was key there.

“Rashid Bey beat the snot out of me for a whole summer before I went overseas,” Franklin said, mentioning the former Neumann Goretti and St. Joseph’s star. “I got my first professional basketball offer for a whopping $500 a month, free lunch, and an apartment. I didn’t accept it immediately. Rashid Bey met me on the step at 23rd and Ellsworth.”

“Not enough money for me,” Franklin said.

“How many other offers do you have?” Bey said.

“None.”

“I think you want to take it.”

“I respected and loved him too much to talk back,” Franklin said, “so I just got on the plane and went.”

His playing style more or less became his coaching style.

“I represent South Philadelphia and Point Breeze in particular,” Franklin said. “We were always known as up-tempo, running, jumping, pressing. That was how I was taught the game.”

Mr. Bill and Mr. Larry and also Mr. Palermo, running a PAL program at the local gym — “running you into the ground … The importance of world-class conditioning.”

He learned more about pacing and spacing in Europe.

“My signature was ball-handling,” Franklin said. “Two balls at the same time, gaudy, catching people’s eye. People probably thought I learned to dribble that way in South Philly. But it wasn’t. It was a European guy.”

His coach in Germany, he said, also was the Finnish national team coach.

“Two practices a day,” Franklin said. “The first of the day was just skill development. I learned the value of dexterity.”

He stole where he could. Paul Westhead going up-tempo was an influence. Pressing tactics stayed with him from Mr. Bill.

His own transition to coaching was gradual, and still in progress. Franklin remembers being at a YMCA in South Philly, a seventh-grader coming up to him — Can you show me how you dribble like that?

“The nerve of this kid,” Franklin joked. “All right, I’ll show you one thing. Fifteen years later, I’m still showing people one thing. She ended up playing at Central Florida.”

» READ MORE: Philadelphia deserves a WNBA team. And the Sixers’ Josh Harris should help make that happen.

He remembers working out at Drexel one offseason when Samme Givens was playing there.

“Ashley Howard was on the staff,” Franklin said, relating how Howard told Givens he couldn’t work out with him that day, “but this is my friend Chaz, he’ll work with you. We turned him from a power forward to a wing player over the course of a summer.”

A pivotal chance encounter was with Keisha Hampton, another Philly-raised star, who played at DePaul and with the Chicago Sky, and is overseas, still.

“We meet at a Pro-Am game. She’s blown her knee out, twice. I’m old, short, bald, fat, I have tendinitis. Two beaten-down dogs watching the real players play, at FiDonce.”

“He didn’t tell any lies,” Hampton said. “That’s how it happened. We definitely met randomly at FiDonce.”

Sitting near her at the Juniata basketball facility, Franklin knew the person Hampton was talking with about a game.

“It’s Chaz,” Hampton said. “He’s charismatic, he jumps in.”

After trading injury tales, the talk eventually turned to conditioning. Worth it trying to get themselves together? “Let’s just try one more time,” Franklin said to her.

“We started meeting at St. Joe’s track first,” Hampton said, describing workouts that Olympic track stars probably would respect. “He is a worker. It’s like, it’s hard, but it’s not [with Franklin there] … the craziest thing was running stories in a garage.”

“Every morning, this parking garage at 30th and Market,” Franklin said. “We called it ‘the Dungeon.’ A stairway that smells like pee. We’re crazy for being in there.”

“We’d do some defensive slides in the garage,” Hampton said. “We’d just use what we had around us and make it happen.”

To both their minds, it paid off.

“She comes back off her knee injury, better than ever, wins the championship in Spain, wins another in France,” Franklin said. “I go back to Iceland, win player of the year. Together ever since.”

Hampton and Copper hosted a camp together. Franklin showed up to help a couple of years ago because of his work with Hampton.

“He had drills ready, was just attacking it, bringing energy,” Copper said.

Copper approached him. Can you train me? Can you help me? Let me think about it, he told her. Joking. WNBA finals MVP in 2021, yeah, he could find the time. They started out at Girard College, also got into Temple’s women’s practice gym.

“We do it quietly, no Instagram,” Franklin said. “We go over her game. I’m more like a detail-oriented person. ‘Hey, you came to me at 9.6. I think I can get you to 9.8. You already are who you are.’ "

“OK, let’s dance,” Chaz remembers Copper telling him.

“This offseason, we literally spent every day together,” Copper said. “My game was growing.”

“She’s one of the most skilled players in the WNBA,” Franklin said. “But people had her as an energy player because she’s North Philly tough.”

Copper has worked with her share of skill-development coaches by now. How is Franklin different?

“That’s the thing,” Copper said. “He never looked for anything in return. I’ve had trainers, they just try to get over on you. I’m going to help people who don’t have their hands out all the time.”

He could match her energy, Copper said, that was key. The Philly connection was instantaneous.

“We understand the struggle and the beauty of it all,” Copper said.

But he’s South Philly, while she’s North Philly.

“I still take him as if he’s my own,” Copper said.

“She’s one of the most hard-working, committed athletes I’ve come across,” Franklin said. “Not in the aggressive Kobe Bryant way. She loves to have fun … she never wants to be there supposedly, and yet she’s there every day. She’s a very unique athlete in that way.”

The workouts had certain givens. Music had to be on – “If we don’t have a speaker, we’re not working out,” Franklin said. “It’s always Afrobeats. It’s always at concert level [volume].”

Another given …

“She never has her hair tied, ever,” Franklin said. “I kept 14 hair ties in my pocket, two in my bag.”

“He has no hair, that’s the thing,” Copper said, pleading guilty.

One more given.

“He always has gum,” she said.

Have they gotten to 9.8 yet? (Copper is averaging 17.3 points a game, and this season has made 40.5% of her three-pointers.)

“She’s at 9.78,” Franklin said. “We’ve still got time.”

His big takeaway on Copper: “She doesn’t just like to win. If it was just winning, she wouldn’t play. She likes to beat you bad.”

Also: “She has this tough North Philadelphia exterior. On the inside, my nickname for her is Bambi. She’s the sweetest serial winner I know.”

So, the move to working full time with the Sky this season, how did that come about? Both mention how the Sky staff had come to Philly, saw Copper’s progress. There was this breakfast after a workout at Green Eggs Cafe, 28th and Girard. The Sky coaches spent some time with Franklin, the talks continuing at a Sixers game. They needed a development coach.

Copper wanted to make sure her teammates didn’t see Franklin simply there as her personal coach.

“Selfishly, I could have been like, nah, we’re going to continue the way it is,” Copper said. “When he first got here, I wanted him to be able to connect with everyone. I wanted him to get to know this WNBA experience. The relationship we have, I wanted him to have with everyone, so they’d say, ‘No, I want to work with Chaz.’”

» READ MORE: The WNBA’s Philly connections: Kahleah Copper, Natasha Cloud, and some you may not know

“What happens, I’m a South Philly guy – I’m a talker, I’m a joker, I’m a hugger,” Franklin said. “That’s who we are. I believe the key to player development, coaching in general – you have to have genuine interest. Mr. Bill Williams could cuss me out from Finley [Recreation Center in Mount Airy] back to South Philly, but he also put shoes on my feet when I had holes in my shoes.”

“He was on the poor side,” Williams said.

“I wore the same plaid linen shorts every single practice,” Franklin said of his 10-year-old self.

What could Copper see Franklin doing a decade from now? Being around the game, she said, using his knowledge. If not … “I definitely see motivational speaker,” Copper said. “I think he has a story to share.”

“What’s so good about him,” Williams said. “He took the long route.”