Shawnelle Scott hoped an NBA team would be on the other end of the line when he picked up the phone Sept. 11 in his home in Brooklyn.
Instead a friend told him to turn on the television.

Along with most Americans, Scott spent the next several days staring at the screen, finding it hard to believe what he was watching. Only a few miles away, terrorists had carried out the worst attack on America in history by flying jetliners into the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

"I'm a New Yorker, and I'm not the same after that," said Scott, who signed a nonguaranteed contract with the Denver Nuggets on Saturday. "I can't believe that humanity could be like that, regardless of how much you disagree with anybody."