The past three months have been a whirlwind that has tested Chris Silva’s faith, resilience and strength.
It has been a whirlwind that has kept the 23-year-old Heat rookie isolated in a Miami condo. A whirlwind that has kept him from playing the sport he loves. A whirlwind that has left him without the mentor he has leaned on almost daily for the past eight years.
The NBA season was suspended amid the COVID-19 pandemic on March 11 and team facilities across the league were closed to players and staff starting on March 20. Basketball has slowly returned to Silva’s life, as the Heat began allowing players to participate in voluntary individual workouts at AmericanAirlines Arena on May 13 and the NBA recently approved a 22-team restart plan that has the season tentatively set to resume on July 31.
But Silva is still trying to accept the fact that he will need to move forward without Tommy Sacks, who suffered a heart attack and died on May 11 at age 60. Sacks was the associate head coach for the boys’ basketball team at Roselle Catholic High in New Jersey, where Silva attended high school.
“He meant a lot,” an emotional Silva said of Sacks, who was married with four children. “He was like a father figure to me.”
When one of Sacks’ sons, Tommy II, called to deliver the bad news shortly after Sacks’ passing, Silva remembers the pain. He also remembers trying to gather himself for a virtual Heat team meeting an hour later. It wasn’t easy.
“It was kind of hard to keep a straight face and just pay attention to the meeting after I received the bad news literally an hour before the meeting,” Silva said. “It was just hard. … I did everything I could to gather myself to hide my emotions that day.”
The emotions were too real to hide.
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When a 15-year-old Silva left Gabon, Africa in 2012 to come to the United States with a dream of making it to the NBA, Sacks was the one who picked him up from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Silva, who knew little English at that time, greeted Sacks with four words: ‘Coach, I go NBA.”
With Silva’s parents and siblings remaining in Africa and only a few relatives in the United States, Sacks began looking after Silva.
“I basically grew up by myself,” said Silva, who had seen his parents and siblings only once since arriving to the United States before a surprise December reunion with his mother in Miami. “So he used to invite me to his house during the holidays to come and spend time with him and his family. I remember I used to say no all the time. But he insisted. When I started going there, the first time it was alright. The second time, I started to like doing it because it was kind of fun. It became like a ritual throughout high school.”
Another ritual throughout high school? Sacks was the one who picked Silva up in the morning to take him to school and the one to give him a ride home after basketball practice. If there was no basketball practice, Silva was usually going through a workout led by Sacks.
On senior night in high school with Silva’s relatives unable to attend, Sacks was the one who walked alongside Silva.
“When I first came, I wasn’t speaking English so me and him were in the gym just trying to figure out how to communicate with each other to get the workout done,” Silva recalls. “We used to spend hours in the gym to get a workout done because we couldn’t communicate. At times I was getting frustrated, I couldn’t tell him. At times I was happy, I couldn’t tell him either. With the years and time spent together, we started to get close to each other.”
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Silva’s home base quickly became Sacks’ house in New Jersey. During Silva’s four years at the University of South Carolina, summers and breaks were spent with the Sacks family.
Despite turning into one of the top players in the Southeastern Conference, 5 a.m. workouts still awaited Silva when he returned to New Jersey every summer. After summer workouts with Sacks, Silva remembers spending the rest of the day at the pool or in front of the television watching old basketball games.
“When you go to college, some people go away and just leave. But he was always there,” Silva said. “Every time people used to ask me where I’m from, instead of Africa, I used to say I’m from Jersey first. Because of him, I think Jersey is home. That was the main reason I called Jersey home because I knew every time when I wanted to go back to Jersey, I went to his house and it was like my house.
“It used to be a routine that I knew every summer I was going to go back to Jersey and wake up in the morning and work. Stuff like that, things you just think are going to keep going forever.”
Silva’s uncle and legal guardian, Miguel, lives in Boston. But there was just an understanding that most of Silva’s off time would be spent with his New Jersey family.
“He was like a father figure, but also like a basketball mentor,” Silva said of Sacks. “My uncle knows as much as he can, but he’s not really involved in basketball. He doesn’t really know how that works. He’s always there to provide support and stuff, but coach Tommy was the one who knew basketball and everything about my skill set and what I can do and dealing with all my issues and problems. Everything.”
Silva credits Sacks with helping him become “one of the fastest players from my high school to become eligible to play in college,” which is a big reason Silva believes he might not have reached the NBA without Sacks’ guidance.
“He took care of everything like a parent should do,” Silva said. “He wasn’t only my coach. I remember my sophomore year when I got here, checking on my grades and stuff and making sure I’m eligible to go to college and getting mad if I got bad grades. Forcing me to go talk to the teachers and stay after school to get my grades right. A whole bunch of stuff. He took me through the whole journey from not knowing how the school system works in the United States to becoming eligible to play in college.”
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Even with Silva’s busy NBA schedule during the past year, Sacks remained as a constant and reliable voice in his life. Through it all — the predraft process, summer work, the NBA season — the two still found time to share special moments Silva will remember forever.
Like draft night last June, which Silva spent at Sacks’ house. Just hours after Silva went undrafted, Sacks found him in tears at around 2 a.m.
“He just walked in my room out of nowhere, and without even knowing he started crying with me and asking me what was going on,” Silva remembers. “I told him, ‘I just received a call from Miami to play in the summer league.’ And we started crying and hugging each other. That was a special moment that I had with him.”
There was also the one NBA game Sacks was able to attend this season to watch Silva play. Sacks and his family made the quick trip from New Jersey to watch the Heat face the Brooklyn Nets on Dec. 1 at the Barclays Center.
Before the pandemic hit, Sacks and Miguel were planning a trip to Miami to watch Silva and the Heat in the playoffs. Silva averaged 2.9 points and 2.7 rebounds in 41 games before the season was suspended
“A lot of people in the league have family support and friend support and stuff like that,” Silva said of Sacks. “He was that for me.”
Now, Silva is left with that void and an unfulfilled summer plan he had formulated to thank the Sacks family for their support and hospitality over the years.
“I was planning on going back to Jersey to bring the whole family to dinner,” said Silva, who had his two-way contract replaced with a three-year standard contract in January after impressing the Heat early in the season. “With everybody together, they finally could see that I’m in the league and I’m finally able to pay for dinner. Because all the summers and stuff, we always used to go to family dinners where everybody came. I used to feel bad because most of the time they were doing that dinner because of me. Either I was leaving for college or the summer was going to be over, stuff like that. I wanted to return the favor to bring them to dinner and pay for dinner.”
With COVID-19 fears preventing Silva from traveling to New Jersey to mourn Sacks’ death, he’s left with his own thoughts more than a thousand miles away in Miami.
“It doesn’t feel real to me. It’s just like a bad dream,” Silva said. “It hit me the first day. But after days have gone by, I just question whether it’s even true. I go back and read messages because we had just talked to each other.”
Over the past few weeks, Silva has paid tribute to Sacks on social media. On Instagram, Silva wrote: “You earned my trust and you made me part of your family and you became part of mine! It took me couple days to get my head a bit straight to make this post because I am not a social media guy but this comes from the (heart). I am missing you terribly coach Tom … forever in my heart.”
One day, Silva will have to return to New Jersey. Most of his personal belongings are stored in Sacks’ house, and Silva even had the portable basketball hoop Jimmy Butler sent to Heat players and coaches directed there.
But Silva isn’t sure what that trip will be like. As he searches for strength, he’s left wondering what New Jersey is without Sacks’ presence.
“He was kind of the bridge with people I didn’t know,” Silva said. “Because I’m really a quiet guy with people I don’t know. He was the bridge between me and the family. … I mean, I got my stuff over there and I guess I want to go back. I just have been questioning myself about how it’s going to look. Is it going to be weird because he used to be the one to pick me up at the airport and bring me to the house? His family is my family now, but I don’t know.”
Then suddenly, Silva’s tone changed from unsure to unwavering.
“The whole thing is they can count on my for anything,” he said. “I will always be there. I know he wouldn’t like for me to act like a stranger now because all this time me and him and his family have all been part of a family. I can’t be a stranger. I’m going to go back.”
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