Bogues Still Calling His Own Shots

The Muggsy Bogues saga in Charlotte ended sadly, as expected. Bogues, the league’s smallest player (5 feet 3), who had played for the Hornets since their birth in 1988, was traded, with Tony Delk, to the Golden State Warriors (for B.J. Armstrong) after he declined the Hornets’ suggestion that he retire because of a degenerative knee condition.

Bogues says Charlotte will always be his home but that he has severed all ties with the organization. He says he wants no part of having his number retired, something that seemed a foregone conclusion a few months ago.

“I don’t think he would have wanted it to end this way,” said Dell Curry, also an original Hornet. “I don’t know how I feel. That was the one guy [owner] George Shinn said would be a Hornet forever.”

Bogues, who played with the late Reggie Lewis and Reggie Williams and David Wingate on one of the greatest high school teams ever (Dunbar High in Baltimore), played four years at Wake Forest before the Bullets made him their No. 1 draft choice (12th overall) in 1987.

The Hornets claimed him off the Bullet expansion list in 1988. Bogues became the Hornets’ all-time leader in steals and assists, and the fans’ favorite.

But Bogues missed all but six games in 1995-96 because of knee problems. Though he played in 65 last season, Coach Dave Cowens never knew from game to game whether Bogues would be able to play. The Hornets made signing Celtic free agent point guard David Wesley their off-season priority. In the exhibition season, Bogues complained he wasn’t being given a fair shot at practicing or playing.

In late June, a week before Wesley signed, Cowens said Bogues’ knees should force him to retire. That after an MRI showed significant damage to Bogues’ left knee. But Bogues, defying Cowens’ advice, asked to be traded and said he had played his last game for the Hornets.

But at the insistence of his agent, David Falk, an August meeting was called, after which Shinn announced Bogues, 32, would finish his career as a Hornet, then retire to a lifetime position with the franchise.

That was before Bogues balked at the team’s request to have a preseason MRI and filed two grievances against his team with the players association.

On the scale of human misery, what happened to Bogues isn’t close to callous. But time heals most wounds, and one hopes that after he retires and the bitterness ebbs, the Hornets will retire his number and let him become a goodwill ambassador.

Defying his many doubters is part of what allowed Bogues, who is averaging 5.6 points and 3.8 assists, not merely to survive, but to thrive in the NBA. Now it’s prolonging his career. Few with such competitive spirit go gently into that good night. To do so would be wholly inconsistent with what made them thrive in the first place.

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The Rockets (6-5) are off to an uninspired start, and everybody is cranky. After a one-point loss to the Portland Trail Blazers in which he scored 26 points in the first 3 1/2 quarters but got only one shot in the last seven minutes, Hakeem Olajuwon criticized Coach Rudy Tomjanovich for not getting him involved at nitty-gritty time. Teammate Charles Barkley, proving that it takes one to know one, called Olajuwon “a big baby.” Barkley also told Olajuwon to “keep his mouth shut,” after Olajuwon complained publicly. You can guess how happy Hakeem was to hear Sir Charles lay down the law.

Then came the 76ers game, in which the then-winless 76ers won by 14, shot 62 percent and outscored the Rockets, 32-14 in the fourth quarter. “A damn schoolyard game,” Mario Elie said. “If we keep going like this, the Lakers are going to come in here and kick our butts.” Which they did Nov. 14, 113-110.

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Wonder if P.J. Carlesimo longs for the Trail Blazers, where his biggest problem was Isaiah Rider’s chronic lateness. Fired there, the former Seton Hall coach finds himself richer but 1-10 at Golden State, where Donyell Marshall is his starting small forward, Joe Smith can’t wait to become a free agent and get out of town, and Latrell Sprewell would prefer that P.J. be paroled to Alcatraz.

Sprewell is the Warriors’ only All-Star, but P.J. recently kicked him out of practice twice in three days. P.J. didn’t think Sprewell was practicing hard. Then the coach benched Sprewell for the final 20 minutes of the Warriors’ blowout loss to the Lakers. Apparently Sprewell was laughing in the huddle. When Carlesimo told him to get serious and Sprewell didn’t, the coach replaced him with Brian Shaw. Sprewell told Carlesimo what he thought of him in words not suitable for a family newspaper, and when Carlesimo tried to talk to him about it the next day at practice, Sprewell walked away. Other than that, they’re getting along great.

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The New York Knicks played 10 men in their victory over the injury-riddled Atlanta Hawks (Steve Smith and Alan Henderson didn’t play) Thursday. Buck Williams, 37, wasn’t one of them. Coach Jeff Van Gundy is using a nine-man rotation, and Williams, once one of the league’s best rebounders, isn’t in it.

“I’ve talked to Buck, and both of us agree it’s not fair,” Van Gundy said. “He’s a Hall of Fame player, but I just don’t think we can play 10 consistently.”

Williams said: “Minutes were something I took for granted. I always averaged at least 20 minutes a game. Now this is a different situation. I feel I should be playing. But it’s a coach’s nightmare to deal with a deep, talented basketball team.”

The Knicks’ biggest problem, if you don’t count age and ego, is Allan Houston’s wrist, which was operated on in July. Houston sleeps with the wrist in a cast, bent as far forward as possible. That’s supposed to help the wrist regain its full range of motion. “He’s ahead of schedule,” Van Gundy said, “but that doesn’t mean he’s 100 percent.”

Larry Johnson is healthy, he just doesn’t play like it most of the time. Things got so bad for LJ that he apologized to his teammates after playing so poorly (five points in 33 minutes) when the Knicks lost at Sacramento. He’s averaging 12.9 points and 4.6 rebounds and shooting 45.1 percent.