It’s About Rebuilding, Not Reloading

Now, hop-scotching the league for playoff updates, let’s go to Chicago. . . .

Chicago? Come in, Chicago.

Oops, we forgot. The lights are out. The crowds have gone home. Old habits may die hard but not as hard as the Bulls’ dynasty, which is as stiff as the breeze off Lake Michigan in January.

These days, the Bulls are into that famous rebuilding project they’ve been looking forward to for so long. Despite Coach Tim Floyd’s impressive debut, going 13-47 with a roster one Bulls official picked to go 0-50 in an inter-office pool, it won’t be easy.

The assumptions owner Jerry Reinsdorf and General Manager Jerry Krause made years ago, which led them to daydream publicly about tearing their club apart for a whirlwind rebuilding effort, were either wrong or have become inoperative.

Once they thought they’d like to have their team broken up by the summer of 1998, when Kevin Garnett was expected to hit the market. Garnett was from Chicago, or at least had gone to high school there for a year, so why wouldn’t he want to come?

Garnett figured out a reason, re-signing in Minnesota for $126 million. Then he went on ESPN’s “Up Close” and said he’d never have gone to Chicago, “with the stuff Scottie [Pippen] has been going through. . . . They’re really high-profile players and I feel they’ve been mistreated sometimes.”

Nor are players, even superstars, keen to jump into a black hole. On top of that, the rules changed, rewarding players for staying put.

Next thing you knew, every kid the Bulls could have hoped to rebuild around, like Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Kobe Bryant and Ray Allen, had re-upped with his old team or, in the case of Antonio McDyess and Stephon Marbury, chosen another one.

Nor does anyone seem to consider the Bulls much of an alternative.

Said Detroit’s Grant Hill, who’ll be a free agent in 2000: “Chicago? That’s the last place I would want to go to.”

Said McDyess’ agent, James Bryant, before his client went to Denver: “Houston and Chicago are out of the picture. Tony has analyzed the situation carefully and he’s most at home with those two options: Phoenix is going to stay a winner and Denver is going to be a winner.”

Said the Pistons’ Jerry Stackhouse: “I didn’t need to be the guy who followed Michael [Jordan] on a team that had won six championships. . . . There is a lot of uncertainty with that team. They had the dollars and the ability to get it done, but some things are a whole lot more important than money.”

The only free agent the Bulls landed was Brent Barry, who had been turned loose by Miami. The Bulls gave him $27 million, after which Barry continued on his three-year slide.

So much for fast turnarounds.

“The plan was put in front of us to be a lot of money under the cap this year,” says Floyd, “though Jerry [Krause] never said to me, ‘We are going to do this really quickly.’

“Sure, a lot of players re-signed with their teams. Am I disappointed some of those guys might not be here? Sure. So it’s going to be a process.

“It may take a year or two longer than I’d hoped. But Jerry never gave me a timetable and said, ‘It will happen in year two, year three.’

“I just hope Jerry Reinsdorf didn’t say year two or year three.”

Or years four, five or six? Springtime came again in 16 NBA cities, but in Chicago they’re settling down for a very long winter’s nap.

FACES AND FIGURES

OK, everyone who thought Miami’s Alonzo Mourning could outscore New York’s Patrick Ewing, 71-40, and the Knicks could grab a 2-1 lead over the Heat, raise your hands. If nothing else, the upstart Knicks proved that Tim Hardaway is at least as valuable to Miami as most-valuable-player candidate Mourning. Mourning played well, but Hardaway missed 26 of 32 shots in the first three games. Then Hardaway put together a second-half run in Game 4, and the Heat evened the series. . . . Trailing, 2-1, Miami Coach Pat Riley started calling the Heat “a building team.” Said Riley: “We’ve got a lot of good parts. If we can land some type of franchise player, I’m sure we would be interested.” . . . Mind control: Heat and Carnival Cruise Line owner Mickey Arison, sitting at courtside in Miami for the Game 1 wipeout to the Knicks before a non-sellout crowd, was asked if this was his worst day in basketball. “You’ll have to ask Pat,” he said. . . . At one point in Game 1, the Knick reserves outscored the Heat reserves, 33-2, and at one point in Game 3, it was 40-8. The Knick subs were led by Latrell Sprewell and Marcus Camby, both acquired by since-fired general manager Ernie Grunfeld. On New York talk radio, Knick fans began plotting a run to the Eastern Conference finals, since all they would have had to deal with was the Atlanta-Detroit winner, and calling talk shows to urge Madison Square Garden president Dave Checketts to bring back Grunfeld next season.

All the magazines are waiting breathlessly to see when one of the young players becomes the next you-know-who. The most impressive has been Allen Iverson, who averaged 29 points as Philadelphia upset third-seeded Orlando, and seems on the verge of being forgiven for wearing cornrows and not being respectful enough to Jordan. . . . And whatever happened to your little puppet friend?: Meanwhile, Penny Hardaway lost it again, complaining that Coach Chuck Daly wasn’t getting him enough shots and making him guard Iverson. “Shouldn’t I focus on the scoring for our team instead of trying to defend Iverson?” Hardaway asked plaintively after the Game 3 blowout to the 76ers. “At one point, I took over on him and I missed two bad shots because I was too tired from it.” . . . Funny, I can’t ever remember Jordan ever saying anything like that. . . . The good news for Hardaway was, he got 17 shots in Game 4. The bad news was, he only made three as Iverson outscored him, 37-17. . . . Daly reportedly told Magic management at midseason that Hardaway had to go or he would. Management is also up to here with Hardaway, who’ll be shopped in the off-season to see if they can get something on a sign-and-trade, whether Daly comes back or not.

Behind the failed talks between Jordan and Charlotte owner George Shinn: Jordan said in a statement Shinn offered him control over the basketball operation but not the business side, and also turned down Jordan’s offer to buy him out. Insiders think Jordan offered less than the $80 million asking price for half the franchise--reckoning his presence should be worth something. Said Peter Vecsey on TNT: “Mike wants to be comped.” . . . The Hornets re-signed Coach Paul Silas, who led their late-season surge, giving him his first real shot since he bombed in the early ‘80s with Donald Sterling’s San Diego Clippers. However, Silas’ troubles are just starting. Anthony Mason, who was out all season, will be back and wants a new contract. Derrick Coleman, who has a $40-million deal, and was 40 pounds overweight, will be back. . . . Suggestion: Give them to anyone who’ll take them, save yourself years of aggravation. . . . Del Harris says he’s not following the Lakers closely: “I try to distance myself from it. I liked them [the Laker players] and I think they liked me. People ask me if I want to coach again and I say, ‘Well, I didn’t quit.’ ”

Coach Larry Bird started railing again about how soft the Pacers were, after the Bucks took them into overtime in Game 2. Meanwhile, center Rik Smits, whose sore feet hurt again, had 22 points and 16 rebounds in the three-game series. . . . Hint for Bird: Did it ever occur to you that maybe your guys just aren’t that great? . . . Pistons and Hawks are right on schedule. It took four games before anyone broke 90. Atlanta’s Dikembe Mutombo closed the eye of Detroit’s Lindsey Hunter with an elbow and dented Christian Laettner’s cheek with another one. After the Hawks went up, 2-0, all the Pistons got mad at Bison Dele, whom Mutombo had outscored, 45-7. The series is going five games--but NBC, which is televising two games today, let the Hawks and Pistons go to cable. . . . Vlade Divac? At the moment of his greatest personal anguish, with his homeland Yugoslavia being bombed, Sacramento’s Divac is playing the finest basketball of his 10-year career, making clutch shots and putting up big numbers. But for John Stockton’s last-second jump shot in the thrilling Game 4, Divac would have already led the Kings into the second round.