It’s a Sorry Situation

The punishment, apparently, will not be the only thing that fits the crime.

So too will the excuse.

Eight days after symbolizing all that is wrong with today’s immature athlete by choking his coach before returning 15 minutes later to fight him again, Latrell Sprewell has finally offered a hint at motivation.

He is going to blame it on the other guy.

He is going to ask the NBA next month to lift his one-year suspension because the fight was all the fault of P.J. Carlesimo.

What a surprise.

Sprewell said all the right things early in his nationally televised news conference, apologizing to Golden State’s Carlesimo and the fans, vowing to do a better job controlling his temper.

But as he spoke, six Golden State players who were on the court during the fight stood behind him in a show of support.

At the end of his statement, he nodded to those teammates and said, “They really know what happened. They understand my position, my side.”

And after the statement, agent Arn Tellem, who shamefully hinted that the issue was racial on national TV last weekend, exchanged that wormy apple for another.

He agreed that what Sprewell did was wrong. But then, he added: “One fundamental issue needs to be addressed. Are there any limits on what a coach can do? . . . What can a player do when a coach goes beyond the boundaries of giving him respect?”

Translated, he is going to argue before an arbitrator that Sprewell was goaded into assaulting his boss.

As if that makes it all right.

Barring a punch or racial slur--neither of which Carlesimo used--a civilized person would think not.

It is hoped that Tellem, who works in Los Angeles, has an office full of terribly happy employees.

By the time it ended, viewers of this daytime drama must have wondered whether they were actually watching Jerry Springer.

In the middle chair of a long table sat the nation’s most talked-about thug, looking lost and very much like a man who has just lost nearly $25 million after his contract was nullified.

Close to him sat the nation’s most talked-about thug attorney.

“A rush to judgment,” Johnnie Cochran said, and where have we heard that before?

Sprewell’s camp also argued that he had no chance to give his side of the story before the NBA issued its unprecedented suspension.

The NBA countered by saying Sprewell was one of 23 people interviewed about the incident, and that none of these lawyers asked to make any additional statement at the time.

If Sprewell’s people are right, if he was denied due process by a league eager to quiet a restless public, then they have the opening they need.

They will promptly charge through it brandishing stories of the loudmouth coach.

He berated Sprewell past his breaking point, they will say. He ignored Sprewell’s warnings of, “Don’t come up on me.”

“On the streets, when somebody says that, you respect it,” a colleague warned me the other day. “You don’t come up on that person.”

Fine. But since when has society moved to the streets?

Supplying the league with those stories, one assumes, will be those teammates who stood behind Sprewell on Tuesday.

The only non-Warrior was Laker Robert Horry, who played with Sprewell in college. He will presumably supply him with a towel. As Horry has proved, it is much safer to throw than a punch.

“Someone has to watch out for his rights,” Cochran said of Sprewell. “That’s the way it works in an ordered society.”

Also in an ordered society, if a man dislikes his boss, he gets a new job. If Sprewell indeed couldn’t get a new job because the Warriors couldn’t or wouldn’t trade him, then he learns to cope until they do.

Every day in this country, thousands of workers walk out their front door to ugly jobs and unfriendly bosses. Yet thousands cope. To excuse Sprewell for doing otherwise is an insult to every one of them.

Did Carlesimo yell at him during practice eight days ago? If it was anything like Carlesimo’s previous three years of NBA coaching, yes.

But do you hit him for it?

Do you allow your 9-year-old to hit his Pop Warner coach? Your teenager to hit his science teacher? Your collegian to hit his summer-job boss?

Hearing Latrell Sprewell’s mournful voice while watching him stare at his hands Tuesday left no doubt that he is truly sorry.

But listening to his words, and those of his advisors, left no doubt that he still doesn’t get it.