Suns and Brothers

Markieff seemed to lack hustle and concentration with the Suns, Angel Morris said of her older, by seven minutes, twin. And Markieff also seemed to grow despondent after Marcus, who played little in Houston, was demoted to the N.B.A.’s Development League.       

“They said ’Kieff hit a rookie wall,’ Angel Morris said. “I don’t think it was a rookie wall. I just think that when they sent Marcus to the D-League, he was so depressed that ’Kieff felt the same depression.”       

Marcus, she said, “didn’t want to be bothered, didn’t want to talk on the phone, was just in another world.”       

Such apprehension sounded familiar to Tom Van Arsdale, the former Sun. He said he lacked motivation and frequently cried after being separated from his twin, Dick, when the two left Indiana for the N.B.A. in 1965.       

“I had some depression,” Tom said in a phone interview. He described his state of mind to The Arizona Republic as a “mini-nervous breakdown.”       

During his rookie training camp with the Detroit Pistons, Tom said he left the team and enrolled in law school at Indiana. He changed his mind several days later when Dick, then with the Knicks, called and admonished: “What are you doing? Get back to Detroit.”   

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