Toronto Sun: Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas

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

One of the funniest books I ever read.
Ray

  [Toronto Sun: Sports]

  Thursday, October 22, 1998               

  Fear and loathing in Las Vegas                  
                                                   
             By CRAIG DANIELS                      
    Everything you wanted to know about           
  the average NBA player is personified             
  in the choice of locale for the                  
  union's most crucial meeting, now            
  under way in -- where else? -- Las             
  Vegas.                                          
                                                 
  Or, as one player agent, who yesterday         
  was trying to decide whether to go to         
  Vegas, put it: "Can somebody please             
  explain to me why this meeting is not          
  in New York?"
                                               
  Well, no they can't. And that's the            
  problem.                                         
                                                 
  But no doubt, attendance will be                 
  decent. What player is going to miss           
  an opportunity to discuss labour              
  issues over a little blackjack?                
                                               
  By the way, this is called being             
  focused on the issues. And if that              
  sounds overly cynical it's also                   
  exactly why the players are about to              
  cave.                                          
                                                 
  Look, union executive director Billy              
  Hunter is a talented, committed                 
  individual but one who is in the                 
  process of doing the impossible,                 
  namely, knitting 400 weak links into a            
  chain.                                             

  Lower-salaried players believe they've           
  been sold out by by their higher-paid
  brethren, and they're probably right.            
                                                  
  WHAT WAS EWING DOING?                         
                                                 
  What was the union thinking when it           
  proposed a tax on salaries that would          
  have had an impact on precisely two             
  contracts, and kicked in for contracts        
  above $18 million, which is, ta da,
  just what union president Patrick
  Ewing happens to make? And speaking of
  Ewing, wasn't he the guy propped into
  office by agent David Falk, whose
  client list includes the league's
  biggest-ticket players?

  As ex-Raptor Shawn Respert put it:
  "Our problem is it seems the minority
  is speaking for the majority."

  Dozens of other players are just plain
  bored and just want to play. Those who
  actually think about such things worry
  about injuring themselves during
  pickup games and having no contract
  and no insurance. Atlanta free agent
  Christian Laettner, he of the torn
  Achilles tendon, is their poster
  child.

  Dozens more are terrified by the
  prospect of no paycheques for an
  entire month, and rest assured what
  remains of November's schedule will be
  cancelled.

  And behind it all, the player agents,
  terrified over the prospect of their
  own pay packets being trimmed, are
  prepared to push their clients into
  playing the only card the players have
  left -- a nuclear weapon called
  decertification, which is a little
  like setting fire to your city shortly
  before abandoning it to an advancing
  army. The idea is, basically, if we
  can't live there, neither can they.

  Although this should not exactly come
  as a surprise, there are the legions
  of players who haven't a clue what the
  issues are despite efforts by the
  union to inform. Most players haven't
  had to think about anything more
  complicated than which suit to take on
  a road trip since they were teenagers,
  and by the time they reach the NBA,
  buying a bauble at the jewelry store
  falls into the category of a major
  life epiphany.

  "I don't know as much as I should
  know, to be honest with you," said
  Allen Iverson, the Philadelphia 76ers
  free-agent guard who, God help the
  league, is becoming one of the game's
  premier players.

  Former Raptor Damon Stoudamire, who
  admits he, too, needs to bone up in a
  hurry before he gets to Vegas, summed
  up it rather too truthfully for The
  Toronto Sun's Bill Harris the other
  day:

  "A lot of guys feel out of the loop.
  (The union has) sent us bunches of
  documents, but really, guys need
  things spelled out for them."

  To understand the quandary you need go
  no further than the Raptors locker
  room. The last time they had a union
  rep who actually cared what the issues
  were and could articulate them, Ed
  Pinckney was wearing a Toronto
  uniform.

  The current player rep is Dee Brown,
  who got the job by default. That means
  no one else was interested.

  And while we're talking about Brown,
  it might be worth asking why he was in
  Toronto yesterday instead of Vegas,
  unless he, too, is beyond caring about
  the confusion around him.

  And then there is the union strategy,
  which is as fundamentally flawed as it
  is possible to be. How do you have a
  hope of talking the league into
  spending more on salaries when you
  wrote into the last agreement the
  league's right to reopen if costs
  began to outstrip revenue?

  The best the union can hope for is to
  give the league what it wants, let it
  get fat and moneyed, and then go to
  war at a later date. Let's hope that,
  by then, the players actually might
  have a clue what they're fighting for.

  With any luck, by then, it won't take
  slot machines to convince them.


                Copyright © 1998, Canoe Limited Partnership.