When Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness : Manning Turned Down Far Richer Deals to Get a Shot at the NBA Title

In his corner office with the panoramic view of downtown, Jerry Colangelo, president of the Phoenix Suns, tries out a recruiting speech worthy of a college coach: We have a crackerjack organization, wonderful players, supportive fans, small-town lifestyle, sunshine 330 days a year, etc.

Unfortunately, he’s not talking to a high school kid but a six-year NBA professional making $3.5 million a year.

Colangelo has salary-cap problems and would have to throw one of his players overboard to make any offer at all. Then it would be only--he can hardly believe he’s saying this out loud--$1 million.

Let’s make a list, he says sensibly. Whenever the sheer weight of logic crushes you, make a list.

One this side of the ledger, he says, we will put our pluses: the players, fans, organization, facility, weather, lifestyle, etc.

On the other side, there is only one thing: money.

Other teams are offering Manning $25 million. Colangelo figures he has a shot, but he has been an NBA executive a long time, which means he has seen players sneer at better offers and throw millions of dollars back in his face as if it were Monopoly money. This is the first time he has ever found himself trying to persuade a player to trade $24 million for a bunch of intangibles.

They talk all afternoon.

Finally, Colangelo says they have to talk to reporters, who know the player is in town.

To Colangelo’s amazement, the player turns to his agent and, as the Sun president remembers it, says, “Well, this is where I want to be.”

And that’s how Danny Manning joined the Suns.

Closing the deal, Colangelo suggested that Manning’s agent call Atlanta to tell Stan Kasten, the Hawks’ president. According to Colangelo, Kasten sputtered that Manning couldn’t do that, the Suns didn’t even have a slot!

Then they called the Lakers, whom Manning was to visit, and said they weren’t coming.

Manning said later he had made up his mind before he even got to Colangelo’s office, when he was standing in the empty America West Arena, thinking, he remembers, “I could come to work here every day!”

They don’t make them like that any more.

*

For 5 1/2 seasons in Los Angeles, Manning was the Clipper who never smiled or frowned or said much of anything.

He and his agent, Ron Grinker, were turned off early, trying to negotiate a rookie contract, which was finally accomplished only after David Stern, the NBA commissioner, took over for the Clippers.

Grinker and Manning vowed Manning would serve out his time and leave, thereby inaugurating a new chapter in Clipper history--the million-dollar refugee phase.

Charles Smith, the franchise’s other young star, beat Manning to his own plan, signing a token-raise, one-year qualifying offer after his rookie deal was up--in the NBA, a player becomes a free agent after his second contract expires--and forcing a trade.

The Manning era was shot through with acrimony. The Clippers grumbled behind the scenes about Grinker, who did his grumbling about them publicly. Manning suffered a knee injury and developed slowly. In the meantime, Grinker said team owner Donald T. Sterling questioned Manning’s ability, telling the agent that perhaps Manning had merely been a good college player.

Manning and the Clippers took off under Larry Brown in the spring of 1992, but a season later the player and the hard-driving coach were again at odds, as they had been at Kansas.

But after the Clippers’ last playoff appearance--a Game 5 loss at Houston in 1993--an emotional Manning surprised everyone by saying he would consider re-signing. The sides were soon close to agreement on a five-year, $25-million deal, but negotiations broke down again. Manning signed his own one-year qualifying offer and was finally packed off to Atlanta for Dominique Wilkins, another free-agent-to-be whom the Clippers also let leave.

If futility had an image, this was it. For their time and trouble, the Clippers got nothing. Six years later, they are starting over.

Nobody won. Manning challenged the Clippers to prove they wanted to win. They thought he was high-handed.

“It was hard,” Manning says. “Every day in the off-season, you work out with the thoughts of competing for a championship, wanting to get better. . . .

“We were always talented. There was never a doubt about talent on the team. It was just a matter of us staying together long enough. . . . We went through so many hardships but we didn’t get to enjoy the good times together that we should have because of the hardships we went through. And I think that was very unfortunate for all of us.”

Months later, Manning passed up another $25-million offer from the Hawks for a better one in Phoenix: $1 million now, the chance to play on a championship contender, the rest of the $24 million later--assuming his surgically repaired knee doesn’t fail in the meantime.

Manning doesn’t discuss it, but the insurance he carries probably doesn’t cover a pre-existing condition.

The risk he is running is what makes this special.

“Danny has been very diligent with his money, to a point of knowing that money is not what it’s all about,” Grinker says. “In spite of players getting $40 million, $50 million and maybe $100 million, I see Danny smiling a lot more now than I’ve ever seen him since leaving Kansas.

“And that’s nice. It’s refreshing. It’s wholesome.”

The Suns are swimming in wholesome. After Manning’s announcement, they got Wayman Tisdale, a free agent departing Sacramento, to turn down a $2.4-million offer from the Clippers--for $850,000 in Phoenix.

Tisdale had averaged 56 losses for his five full seasons as a King and wanted to see how the other half lived.

“Oh, yeah,” Tisdale says. “You learn to appreciate a lot more of the things that are real and what’s real is winning in this game.

“I mean, you can say, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m getting paid.’ But when you go home and really sit down, any player who has pride, he’s not happy. And that was my whole thing and I’m sure it was Danny’s thing. . . .

“(When the Suns called) I said, ‘When do you want me in town?’ Once I got here, saw the atmosphere, saw the reality, the good people who are here, it was pretty easy.”

*

Can it work?

Superstar jams in the NBA often turn into ego wars of the kind fought by the West-Baylor-Chamberlain Lakers, but this situation looks more promising.

For one thing, everyone knows who is first in Phoenix.

“We don’t have any superstars,” Charles Barkley says, “except me. . . .

“I don’t worry about it. I just do my thing and hope they can catch up.”

In the second place, Manning is there at Barkley’s invitation. The two talked last season and Barkley told Manning he ought to come to Phoenix.

They seem made for each other on a basketball court. Barkley is a 6-foot-5 power forward who can rebound but has trouble guarding taller players. Manning is a 6-10 small forward who can guard taller players.

Barkley expects to lead. Manning expects to complement.

“I’m not trying to knock Danny Manning, but Charles is a superstar,” guard Danny Ainge says. “I think there’s only a handful of them in the league.”

When Barkley retires--he again is vowing this is the year--Manning will become “the man.” It might take him a while to grow into it, as it did at Kansas, with the Clippers and the Hawks, but he has the ability, if not the disposition. It is where he has always been headed, although it has taken some time to get there.

“I don’t worry about on the court,” Manning says. “Because when I get on the court, I’m versatile enough, I’m unselfish enough, I’m going to get along with my teammates and I’m going to hopefully make them better. That’s what I like to do when I step out on the court.

“I don’t worry about the basketball. Basketball’s the easiest part to me. The hard part’s trying to get all these damn (moving) boxes out of my house. They’re everywhere. That’s the hard stuff.”

DANNY MANNING’S NBA STATISTICS

Sea. Team Fin* G FG% FT% Reb Pts 93-94 Atlanta 1st 26 47% 65% 6.5 15.7 93-94 Clippers 7th 42 49% 67% 7.0 23.7 92-93 Clippers 4th 79 51% 80% 6.6 22.8 91-92 Clippers 5th 82 54% 73% 6.9 19.3 90-91 Clippers 6th 73 52% 72% 5.8 15.9 89-90 Clippers 6th 71 53% 74% 5.9 16.3 88-89 Clippers 7th 26 49% 77% 6.6 16.7 Career 399 52% 74% 6.4 18.9

* Team finish in division.