Falk Can No Longer Take It to the Max

Things changed.

How was anyone to know a year ago, when David Falk promised Glen Rice and Maurice Taylor he’d get them maximum deals, since he was the Great and Mighty Oz?

A year ago, superagents were still turning teams over and shaking them like piggy banks. Maximum deals went like free mints to frail guys (Penny Hardaway, Terrell Brandon and Kerry Kittles); clueless ones (Antoine Walker); complementary ones (Tom Gugliotta); thorny ones (Nick Van Exel); and overweight, disappointing ones who happened to be friends of the local franchise player (Vin Baker).

However, even the greats suddenly found they could overreach themselves, as Falk did with Rod Strickland and the burned-out, teed-off Wizards. This obliged the Mighty Oz to prostrate himself in the press, attributing his client’s troubled career to too much junk food and promising Strickland would never go to McDonald’s again, no matter what Disney trinket they were giving away, all to get a contract half as big as the one Falk had demanded.

Contrast this to 1996, the summer of Shaquille O’Neal’s free-agent class, when this mad round of bidding started. Falk posted a price list for his clients (all eight figures or nine), announced a schedule when general managers could reach him in his boiler room and promised when the time came for his European vacation, he was leaving, period.

(True to his word, he was on the Continent when the Miami-Juwan Howard mess blew up, leaving Falk’s assistant, Curtis Polk, to untangle it. Howard wound up returning to the Wizards for $105 million, which turned out to be a reprieve for the Heat and a jail sentence for the Wizards.)

So much for the sellers’ market. It collapsed last week, when the trade deadline went and nobody bought anything.

With a luxury tax looming and cap space at a minimum, no one was paying for a sharpshooter like Rice or a prospect like Taylor. What teams wanted were players on one-year deals who could be renounced--and the Bulls and Magic had already cornered the market.

Now what?

Rice: This isn’t an easy call, since the Lakers are doing OK, but the fact remains, if they don’t win a title, he’s out of here.

Not that he, Falk, Phil Jackson or Jerry Buss will mind. Everyone concedes the Rice-Eddie Jones-Elden Campbell trade was a disaster, costing the Lakers size, depth, versatility and athleticism for a No. 3 option with salary demands they won’t meet.

Unless everything goes right, they’ll trade him this summer, when Falk will have to find someone who’ll pay the $14 million maximum (yeah, right) or cut his price. If it’s the latter, the Lakers will finally have some offers (as opposed to last week when everyone said, “No, thanks”) and a chance to begin repairing the damage.

Taylor: It’s not that he’s responsible for what happened here. He’s a talented young player who tried to stay professional in a hopeless situation.

Losing Taylor would also mean losing more like him, such as fellow free agent-to-be Derek Anderson, who last week moaned, “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

If the Clippers wanted to show they were, finally, serious, they should have given Taylor the $9 million maximum . . . even if he isn’t really worth it.

At 6 feet 9 and 250 pounds, he barely rebounds or defends. If he had gone to the Knicks, he would have struggled as a No. 3 or 4 option and the tabloids would have opened fire.

Falk being Falk, he’s vowing vengeance on the Clippers for not taking John Wallace and a No. 1 pick for Taylor, and on the Grizzlies for pulling out of a three-way deal minutes before the deadline.

Being Falk, he is always vowing vengeance on teams, writers, etc., assuming it won’t get back. In real life, nobody protects his confidentiality for that nanosecond he’s always talking about.

Once, being a superagent meant never having to say you’re sorry but Michael Jordan’s gone and now the Great and Mighty Oz is like anyone else, just with less humility.

Being Falk, he’s going to keep going for broke so, we could be looking at a fun summer, after all.

FACES AND FIGURES

Grisly transition: The Grizzlies pulled out of the deal with the Clippers and Knicks for two reasons: 1) it stunk for them and 2) it was made by General Manager Stu Jackson, who’ll soon be fired, with new owner Michael Heisley bringing in consultant/former Pacer coach/CNN gasbag/coach Dick Versace. Versace landed with the usual grace. Several years ago, featuring himself as a candidate to replace Mike Dunleavy in Milwaukee, he began attending games incognito, assuming dressing in black, wearing sunglasses and sitting behind the bench was a good disguise. Now, awaiting Heisley’s confirmation and his appointment, Versace has hired a shadow scouting department, including his agent, George Andrews, shocking the incumbent staff. Said personnel director Larry Riley, who showed up at the Cincinnati-Temple game to find another Grizzly “scout,” J.J. Anderson, an NBA short-timer who played for Versace at Bradley, there: “You do your job and be professional. You do everything you can to help the team and see where it goes. You know there is a new owner and it’s his position to decide what direction to take the team. But as they say, everyone is interim in the NBA.” Said Heisley, on his first mess: “The cynical reporter or anybody else can think what they want. I have made my statement very clear. When I take over the team I will make whatever personnel moves I’m going to make, OK?” On behalf of cynical reporters, welcome. You can never have too many comedy acts. . . . War of the Bulls (cont.): Eyebrows went up in Chicago, when Wizard president Jordan said he wanted to see more of “the kids”--not only No. 1 pick Richard Hamilton but second-echelon prospects Laron Profit and Gerard King. The Bulls fear Jordan will dump games and drop into the bottom three picks. If he does, the Wizards would exercise their No. 1 pick, which the Bulls just acquired, and Chicago, which is planning its major push this summer, won’t get it until next year. . . . Help wanted: Awakening to the fact the Celtics are going nowhere, the Boston Globe got Indiana Coach Larry Bird to say he was interested in buying out thrifty owner Paul Gaston. Bird not only said he “could get people together to buy the team in a day,” he ripped Gaston, whom he once served as a consultant, noting, “What kills me is that [Rick] Pitino is taking all the hits there. Yeah, he’s made some moves that didn’t work out. But the reason they’re in the state they’re in is because of the owner.” Gaston aides replied the owner isn’t interested. Check back in two or three years when Pitino is gone and fingering Gaston as the problem, and the Boston press really gets upset. . . . Appropriately enough, with the Raptors, Pistons and Bucks skidding, someone might make the Eastern playoffs with a losing record. Milwaukee has lost nine of 11, including successive home games against the Grizzlies, Wizards and Warriors (without Antawn Jamison or Larry Hughes). Said George Karl of his three stars after one loss: “Sam [Cassell], Ray [Allen] and Glenn [Robinson] were sieves. They didn’t stop anybody. They got their butts kicked on every possession except maybe 10. We try to do the pretty boy stuff too much.” . . . Detroit’s self-promoting Jerome (Junk Yard Dog) Williams, before a game against Karl Malone: “The mailman’s worst enemy is the dog. I will either get sprayed or he’ll get bit.” . . . You guessed it: Malone 33, Williams, 0. . . . New Jersey’s Jayson Williams, told he didn’t have enough strength in his right leg to return to practice: “It’s like taking the SAT test. You take the test and they tell you what you got. You think you aced it and the next thing you know, you’re Prop 48.”