Paul will just looove playing alongside Spreeeeeee!

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

      Caveat emptor

      Marty Burns, SI.com






      Antoine Walker to the Knicks?

      Scottie Pippen to the Bulls?

      Andre Miller to the Nuggets?

      Those are just a few of the rumors published Monday in local newspapers
around NBA cities. Will any of them happen? Probably not, but you should get
used to hearing such wild speculation.

                  ADVERTISEMENT


      Beginning Tuesday, the league's free-agent-signing period officially
begins. That means Gregg Popovich can take Jason Kidd on a Riverwalk tour;
Kiki Vandeweghe can show Gilbert Arenas the Rocky Mountains; and Phil Jackson
can swap Harley stories with Karl Malone.

      It also means your favorite NBA team can fire up the bulldozers. Because
there's about to be a whole lot of manure shoveled in front of fans.

      With players unable to sign contracts until July 16, teams have two
weeks of free advertising to show their season-ticket holders how committed
they are to winning. While some of the dog-and-pony shows will be legit --
Kidd to the Spurs, Arenas to the Nuggets and Malone to the Lakers are all
possibilities -- most of the stuff you'll read or hear about in coming days is
public relations hooey.

      In essence, it works like this: Team A is capped out and doesn't want to
pay the luxury tax but wants its fans to think it's serious about competing
for an NBA title (the better for selling season tickets). Team A tells local
reporter it has great interest in a particular player (even though the player
will cost too much). Local reporter writes about it, usually citing anonymous
sources. Team A sits back and laughs (and maybe even invites the player in for
a visit, complete with TV cameras) while its fan base gets its hopes up.

      Meanwhile, Team A has just helped drive up the price tag on the
competition. It's a win-win situation for Team A, which two weeks later can
shrug its shoulders and tell its fans that the player cost too much money or
wanted to sign elsewhere. "But, hey, at least we tried!"

      Take the Bulls' so-called interest in Pippen. It might be true that
Chicago GM John Paxson likes Pippen and thinks he could bring much-needed
veteran leadership to his young team. But are the notoriously spendthrift
Bulls really going to outbid the Lakers or some other team for his services?

      More likely the Bulls instead end up with Ira Newble or some other
lower-cost alternative.

      Not that signing Newble would be a bad move. Newble, a younger,
defensive-oriented shooting guard, might be a better fit than a soon-to-be
38-year-old Pippen with balky knees. We're just saying that Newble isn't going
to excite the masses like the idea of bringing back Pippen, so Chicago plays
the PR game.

      The same phenomenon happens around draft time.

      Two weeks ago, reports surfaced that the Bulls were interested in
acquiring Michael Finley from the Mavs for Marcus Fizer, Eddie Robinson and
the No.7 pick.

      Yeah, right.

      The Mavs, a whisker away from the NBA Finals last year, are going to
break up the Big Three for a draft pick and two unproven players?

      You don't need Ernest Hemingway's B.S. detector to know that one was a
reach.

      "More wishful thinking than anything," Finley's agent, Henry Thomas,
told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

      The Windy City isn't the only place where the hot air flows, however.
New York has become a center for bogus trade reports in recent years, with
Latrell Sprewell seemingly headed to a different team each week. The latest
rumors have him headed to Boston for Walker.

      Does new GM Danny Ainge really want Sprewell, another shooting guard,
alongside Paul Pierce?

      Or are the Knicks trying to jack up the price tag on Spree, floating
more high-profile rumors so that other teams might be inclined to sweeten a
future deal?

      We're not saying these teams or executives are doing anything illegal or
unethical. Only that NBA fans should be highly wary of rumors about free-agent
signings or blockbuster trades this time of year. Keep in mind, the only big
trade that happened after last week's draft (the Sam Cassell-for-Joe Smith
deal) wasn't foreseen on the rumor mill.


Thanks,

Steve
sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx

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