The Final Word on the Evil Ones

[Josh Ozersky <josh_ozersky@yahoo.com>]

In the end, Shaq's smiling face stands out
JANUARY 7, 1999 

by MARK HEISLER <Picture> Los Angeles Times
<Picture: Shaquille O'Neal emerged as a suprising force pushing for
compromise in the NBA labor mess.>ROBERT SEALE/TSN 
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Shaquille O'Neal emerged as a suprising force pushing for compromise
in the NBA labor mess.

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NEW YORK -- A funny thing happened on the way into the abyss. . . . 

It is a little hard to describe the past six months in a few words --
a Lawyers' Posture-a-thon? The Propaganda Olympics? -- but thank
heaven, it is over. 

The amazing thing is, it was worth it. 

The price was high -- how is the NBA going to sell the first two
months to fans who just discovered how dispensable November and
December are? -- but the league had a dysfunctional, star-toadying,
small-market-crushing deal and now it is much better. 

Of course, this deal was sitting there, waiting for the various
barristers to stop messing with each other long enough to concede the
obvious. They did so, only at the last moment, with the aid of Los
Angeles Lakers star Shaquille O'Neal and his agent, Leonard Armato. 

In numbers, Shaq lost out Wednesday but in stature, he grew another
foot or seven. 

Next summer's free agency now means nothing to him, since he is
already over the new cap. Generosity might be easier after you bank
your first $100 million but, alone among the superstars, O'Neal gave
himself up, freeing Armato, who appreciated the league's role in
making Shaq (and Leonard) all the money, to play mediator. 

Which Armato did, suffering the poisoned arrows of the combatants'
paranoia, getting tabbed as a "mole" by fellow agents, failing in
every attempt until he got the sides together one last time, late
Tuesday. 

"What people don't really understand about me, if I had $120,000 or if
I had $120 million, I'm still going to be the same Shaquille O'Neal,
on and off the court," said O'Neal later in a hotel suite. 

"I'm truly blessed to be playing a sport that I love and I would
never, ever complain about money. I'm playing for the team of my
dreams. I've got Jerry West. If Jerry West said, 'Our team's going
bankrupt this year, we can't pay you,' I'd still play. . . . 

"The deal is good for the mass and I just want to play ball, I think
it could have been dealt with a long time ago. I want to thank David
Falk and I want to thank Leonard Armato -- the problem and the fixer." 

It took so long to arrive at the obvious conclusion because Falk waged
a guerrilla campaign on behalf of the $100 million club, with union
counsel Jeffrey Kessler and Arn Tellem, Kobe Bryant's agent, capturing
the union's negotiating committee and paralyzing the new director,
Billy Hunter. 

Tellem is bright, tenacious and an ideologue who would have liked to
push the fight another day to call Stern's bluff, but when it was
over, he was here, congratulating Stern, carping about the terms to be
sure, but willing to accept the deal. 

Kessler, another hard-edged sharpie, delighted in playing
cobra-and-mongoose with his personal nemesis, Stern, and that had even
union loyalists calling for his benching from the negotiating team.
But at the end, Kessler was in the NBA offices with Hunter and Stern,
cutting the final deal. 

Meanwhile, Falk was nowhere to be seen. . . . 

His clients, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo, the
Georgetown Chorus, dominated the negotiating committee, but Tuesday,
with the league and union close on paper but far apart emotionally,
there was an attempt to put Hunter and Stern together -- but this time
without Ewing, who had sat in on almost all other high-level talks. 

There was a similar resistance movement growing among the members at
large, who were to vote Wednesday. Sure of themselves, since they had
run the other meetings, the Falkies expected to handle this one too,
or as Ewing said of his constituents beforehand: 

"We're going to put it to the test, but we're going to make sure they
stand by their negotiating committee." 

Now, however, there were not only dissenters but leaders to rally
around: Shaq, Hakeem Olajuwon, another Armato client; and the
outspoken, independent Jayson Williams, whose running stand-up comedy
makes him a local folk hero. 

O'Neal, a dove who had bided his time in silence for two months, was
done biding his time. 

As he told a friend at home, "I'm going back there and knock out Ewing
and Mourning." 

It did not come to that -- the deal was made before the players met so
all they had to do was ratify it and start the celebration -- but it
might have. Well, not the knocking out, but the confrontation. 

"I came here to play basketball," said Orlando's Nick Anderson. "I
came here to voice my opinion about playing basketball. I was going to
say I was ready to play and I've been ready for a long time. And many
more than a majority felt that way. If there were 210 guys up there,
I'd say at least 200 felt that way. It was a landslide. . . . 

"If guys came up here today and weren't voting for a deal, it would
have been hell. It would have been an earthquake on the 25th floor." 

The players endorsed the deal 179-5. The negotiating committee went
for it 19-0. 

Let's not do this again this century, huh? 





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