VENICE, ITALY — The least likely member of the Toronto Raptors to be standing among the plentiful and overzealous pigeons in Piazza San Marco may be Juan Dixon.
The shooting guard from Baltimore is one of the team's most stylish and fastidious dressers, yet there he was posing for a picture with his equally well-turned-out wife, Robyn, laughing and being laughed at as the birds flapped and hopped and flew around looking for something to eat.
Dixon had company. Raptors teammate Kris Humphries bought some seed and found himself fighting for position with perhaps a dozen of the big birds. Toronto newcomer Jason Kapono got a similar result without the feed. Leading him to wonder, "Do I smell like food or something?"
Not all the Raptors took part.
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- Toronto Raptors
- Andrea Bargnani
- Chris Bosh
- Juan Dixon
- T.J. Ford
- Jorge Garbajosa
- Kris Humphries
- Jason Kapono
- Rasho Nesterovic
"Not me, man, them birds are dirty," Chris Bosh sniffed. But that didn't stop him from howling with delight as he watched his teammates make like everyday tourists in the ancient city, only way taller.
"This is something totally different," said Dixon, who, like many of his American teammates, had never been to Europe. "Coming to Italy and seeing Venice with my wife, it's something I never expected."
It's not as if the Raptors are seeing all the sights during their two-week European training camp. Yesterday was the first day the team didn't have an evening practice, so most of the squad took advantage of a side trip to Venice and a team dinner that night.
It's almost routine to consider professional athletes as perhaps falling short when it comes to life experiences others take for granted, or at least might wish to have.
But as you canvass the various Raptors about places they've been and things they've done, it becomes clear: For the most part, they haven't had time to do much outside basketball because they've been too busy travelling, just not on vacation.
"I've been travelling since I was in third grade, but it was always with basketball," said T.J. Ford, who played on barnstorming Amateur Athletic Union teams that toured nearly every weekend from March to October. "I had to sacrifice a lot of things, so now when I have the opportunity to be [home in Houston] and relax in the summer, I'm there."
It's not so different for some of the player's families. Several of the Raptors brought their wives or girlfriends on the trip. Humphries took along his parents for their first European vacation.
Humphries was another summer-circuit basketball vagabond and his sister was an elite swimmer.
"A lot of our time in the summer was taken trying to get our kids to competitions," Debra Humphries said. "They both competed at high level, so we were all over the place. This [European trip] is great."
Not surprisingly the only no-shows for the team outing were from the Raptors' European contingent: Rasho Nesterovic of Slovenia, Andrea Bargnani of Italy and Jorge Garbajosa of Spain.
They've already been everywhere.
"We travelled a lot when we were younger," said Nesterovic, whose hometown of Ljubljana is about a 90-minute drive from Treviso, Italy, where the Raptors have been training. "Mostly in Italy. I was in Verona, Padua, Florence. Most of the time there would be a tour or something. And I travelled with my parents also.
"Americans like to stay home, but if you want to learn something, you can learn things by travelling more than you can learn in books. You can learn about cultures, lifestyles."
Bosh has enjoyed the opportunity to see something different and learn something new, but he says he doesn't regret missing things as he turned his laser focus on making the jump to the NBA after only one season of college basketball.
"I have friends [from college] who went to live in Puerto Rico for the summer or Mexico as part of their major in college, that's cool," Bosh said. "But I've never felt like I was missing out. I always saw places I never saw playing basketball — like now, I'm in Italy. So I've been blessed with opportunities.
Of course with his $60-million (U.S.) contract extension kicking in this season, Bosh, 23, will have plenty of chances to travel at his leisure when time provides.
That likely won't provide him with some of the memories Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell shared about his first trip to Europe after signing his first professional contract to play in Montpellier, France.
"When I came over, it was different," said Mitchell, who played three seasons in Europe in the mid-1980s. "When I came over, I got off the plane, they gave me 400 francs, the keys to a car, pointed me to the gym and told me practice was tomorrow, 9 o'clock."
