Former Central High School standout Dre Mathieu has played in many places, from Kentucky to Arizona to Minnesota--and then finally in place he'd never heard of, Estonia.


 Of all the basketball courts in all the towns in all the world, Jalen Steele had to walk into that one in Estonia. And, brother, was Dre Mathieu glad he did.

Mathieu and Steele have been on Knoxville basketball courts together as long as they can remember. Never in their wildest dreams would they have envisioned the reunion they had this spring.

Mathieu is the Central High point guard whose hoops journey took him to Morehead State, an Arizona junior college and then the Big Ten with Minnesota.

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Steele was the state Class 2A Player of the Year at Fulton High School. He played three years at Mississippi State and finished on Lincoln Memorial's NCAA Division II national runner-up team.

Their paths crossed this spring on a court squeezed between the Baltic Sea and Russia.

After being cut from the NBA D-League in February, Mathieu landed a gig in Estonia.

"I had never heard of Estonia,'' Mathieu said Wednesday night at the Pilot Rocky Top League. "I'm looking up the animals, plants, seeing if they've got any poisonous spiders.''


Game action from the Pilot Rocky Top League basketball.

So far, no poisonous spiders, but plenty of rowdy basketball fans.

"Drums beating, fans screaming the whole game, horns,'' Mathieu said. "The guys play extremely hard. They defend. They take pride in the fundamentals.''

Mathieu was the only American on his team, Valga. Seeing the Americans on the opposing teams was a treat. The night Steele showed up was the highlight.

Steele signed with a team in Latvia, Estonia's neighbor. The countries are small and the teams play each other.

"Man,'' Steele said Wednesday night, "it was crazy seeing each other on the other side of the court in a different country. We've been friends, playing on the same teams since we were 8, 9 years old. Brothers, basically.

"We kept it professional and played hard. It's pretty amazing how we've come from little to now and still playing.''

The Rocky Top League is a brief diversion. Both Mathieu and Steele hope to go back to their European clubs in September.

Mathieu's NBA dream is still alive, but at 5-foot-9 – 175 centimeters in Estonia – it's a long shot. He played for two D-League teams before getting cut and would relish another shot.

"It's a dog-eat-dog league,'' he said. "Some of the greatest players in the world and everybody's 'that close' to the NBA.

"But if I'm in Europe, I'm perfectly fine with that. I won't be as down (about not making the NBA) as I was when I was a kid.

"My mom and I talked about this. Just going to the Big Ten was something nobody from this area has ever done. And graduating. She told me, 'You don't have to prove anything to anybody; you did the unthinkable.'''

Wherever he's been, Mathieu keeps Lonsdale, his neighborhood, in his heart.

"I'm trying to show people Lonsdale's not all bad,'' he said. "I know you see a lot of bad on the news, but there are some good things coming out of there. We're working on it.''

Even in Estonia.