Matt Steinmetz: Season, But No Inter-Conference Play

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>]

[Hot CoCo]

   Published on December 27, 1998                         
                                                         
   NBA: MATT STEINMETZ                                      

   Stern is too image-conscious to let season be canceled

   FACT: THERE WILL BE an NBA season this year.

   It's going to begin in late January or early February. It's going to
   be about 45 games long with teams playing only teams from their own
   conference, and when the playoffs begin, fans are going to be
   interested.

   Bottom line.

   Why? Because commissioner David Stern wouldn't have it any other way.

   Despite his fatalistic rhetoric -- nothing more than a transparent
   strategy -- the last thing he wants to do is cancel the season
   because it would jeopardize his lasting legacy as commissioner. What
   needs to be remembered about Stern is he is as image-conscious as
   Michael Jordan and just as competitive, though in a far more subtle
   and controlled way.

   Stern knows in many circles he is considered the most successful and
   competent commissioner any sport has ever known. It is a description
   that drives him; he's too shrewd to let it slip away.

   Regardless how history would judge the possible cancellation of the
   season, whether it goes down as primarily the responsibility of the
   players or owners, it will fall at the feet of Stern, the man who
   presided over it.

   There's no way he'll let that happen. He can talk all he wants about
   sacrificing this season for the long-term success of the league, but
   who can buy that? Stern isn't about to sabotage his presently
   untarnished reputation and wind up in the overfilled ash heap of
   nondescript pro sports commissioners.

   Instead, sometime in the next two weeks, Stern will stand at a
   podium, with union director Billy Hunter close by, and announce the
   owners and players have agreed to a new collective bargaining
   agreement.

   At that point the NBA public relations super-machine will start its
   fastbreak and in no time it will be business as usual. And guess
   what? Here comes Jordan back for one more year.

   After all, Stern wouldn't have it any other way.

   KING FOR MORE THAN A DAY: Kings forward Chris Webber said last
   weekend he's turning over a new leaf and he's prepared to play for
   Sacramento. But give him credit; he doesn't expect anyone to believe
   him.

   "I look at this as a fresh start for me, personally," Webber said.
   "This is a chance to prove to myself the type of things I can do and
   who I am as a person. I don't expect you all to believe me. I expect
   to prove myself. I am 25 years old. The way I look at it, who I am
   hasn't been defined yet. That's what I am looking forward to doing
   from this point on."

   Webber's reputation has taken a beating since his 1994 feud with
   then-Warriors coach Don Nelson. Their doomed relationship led to the
   6-foot-9 forward getting traded to Washington. Since then, Webber has
   had some legal run-ins, but he has managed to extricate himself from
   them.

   This past summer he was cleared of a drug possession charge and a
   complaint of sexual misconduct.

   "Right now I am a King," said Webber, who has yet to visit Sacramento
   or look for a place to live. "Don't take the fact that I haven't gone
   there or been introduced to their media as meaning I don't want to be
   there. When it's time for business, and that's where I'm at, I will
   be there."

   Webber, whose contract runs through 2001, was devastated by the trade
   that brought Mitch Richmond to the Wizards.

   "I reacted poorly, I admit," he said. "But time heals all wounds and
   there came a point where I had to be a man about it."

   ANOTHER VIEW: Hawks center backup Ivano Newbill, one of the class of
   NBA's middle- to lower-end players whose voice is seldom heard during
   the dispute, probably represents most of them. Newbill's take is
   simple: He wants the lockout to be over.

   "We should have been playing by the first of December," he said. "If
   it had been up to me they would have chosen 10 guys from each side,
   put them in a room with 10 cots, food and water and a toilet. Paper
   and pencils. No deodorant, no shaving gear, no telephone or TV, no
   calculators. Then I'd have locked the door, left them in there 'til
   they made a deal. Let them fight over the cots. I'd bet we'd get a
   deal."

   THE BONUS: Raptors forward Charles Oakley's biggest hobby is driving
   a car. He'll often get into one and drive for 12 to 15 hours a day,
   visiting friends all over the country. Said Oakley: "I just kind of
   go. I don't sit around after the season ends. When I'm traveling, I'm
   traveling. I don't wait for no one. When I'm gone, I'm gone. And when
   I come back, I come back." ... Trail Blazers center Kelvin Cato had a
   questionable reputation when he came into the league from Iowa State.
   Perhaps that reputation was wrong. If the season is canceled, Cato
   said he'll return to Iowa State to get his degree. He's also close to
   finishing work on a series of children's books that could be ready
   for publication next month. ... In an interview last week, free-agent
   guard Brent Barry indicated he wanted to come to a West Coast team
   and said the Warriors would be one of them.

   Edition: LD,  Section: B,  Page: 13


                         © 1998 Contra Costa Times