Time Well Spent, or Simply Spent?

Michael Jordan returned to basketball from a layoff that lasted more than a year, Monica Seles is returning to tennis after an absence almost twice as long and Magic Johnson is apparently serious about rejoining the NBA after four years in exile.

I’m thinking of taking a couple of years off.

A sabbatical is a lovely concept for someone who needs nine months off to pursue an academic goal or travel the world, but it is something relatively foreign to the business of professional sport. The great ones rarely knock off for a few years before picking up where they left off.

We do see a prizefighter every now and then who misses the bankroll he used to carry, only marginally smaller than the love handles that he carries around now. Simply by sheer luck and fate did George Foreman recapture his former glory, yet he is but a mock imitation of his former self, as are Larry Holmes and Roberto Duran. Mummies in trunks.

Jordan seemed different. It definitely brightened a day or two to see the Air man jamming for 55 points one amazing evening at Madison Square Garden, but we also had to endure the ugly spectacle of Michael clanking jumper after jumper off rims, Michael’s pocket being picked by an inferior player, Michael trudging off the court a loser in the early rounds of the playoffs.

As things turned out, Jordan’s major contribution to pro basketball last season was his decision to come back just in time to instigate a player revolt, resulting in a lockout that could destroy the following season.

Way to go, Mike. Let’s give everybody some time off.

Were we satisfied to have Jordan back in any way, shape or form? Yes, I must concede that we were. He was good for the game and still within shooting distance of his prime, although not even the world’s most magnificent athlete can abandon his routine for that much time and return good as new. Jordan was gone not much longer than he once had been after surgery. Then again, he was younger then.

Monica Seles, well, although her absence was hardly voluntary, she did not exactly snap back from her misfortune. A brittle and damaged psyche encumbered her far more than that gash made by a German fruitcake’s knife. Seles quit the pro tour and turned into a recluse. The bad guy won.

Happily, the time has come for a comeback. Unhappily, she might never again be the player she once was.

If the new Seles cannot play the way the old one was accustomed to playing, that is all right, because Seles is dragging no teammates down with her. She can take however much time she needs. Seles is still youthful, independent, self-supportive and obligated to no city or franchise to give people their season tickets’ worth.

Earvin Johnson’s situation is odd. Other than being a part-owner of the very team for which he would return to play, nothing else in his circumstance has really changed. Except that time’s a-wasting, meaning that if he is ever going to come back, it has to be soon.

The notion that Johnson would “disrupt” any team is a ludicrous one, because, first of all, he is the personification of teamwork and unselfishness, and second, he would strengthen the Lakers at a position that needs help, rather than disturb the Lakers at his previous position, which does not.

Placed in a delicate position, however, are Jerry Buss, Jerry West and Del Harris, the brain trust of the Lakers, who must weigh many factors.

Do they care whether anybody in the league complains? Or anybody on the Laker team? Do they take away playing time from someone young to accommodate someone 36? Or is Johnson a player anyone in his right mind would accommodate?

Above all else, the Lakers have to be diplomatic. West said that he was talking to Johnson about playing? What was he supposed to say? That they spoke and he told Johnson to take a hike?

On the other hand, it could be time to call Kareem.