This League Is Full of Basket Cases

A key figure close to one of the principals calls our coverage of the Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant, uh, situation a “smear campaign.”

And you wonder how something like that could happen?

Personally, I do have some regrets about all the space I’ve devoted to Shaq and Kobe, since their disagreement has kept me from getting to all the other embarrassments around the league.

Hence, this compendium:

* Lakers--Why is it everyone around here seems to care more about Shaq and Kobe’s relationship than Shaq and Kobe do?

Last week started with more of the same (Kobe said some guys were out of shape . . . Shaq said it didn’t matter as much as some guys playing smarter . . . Robert Horry said the problem was more Kobe, since he’s the one with the ball . . . Phil Jackson said Shaq was on a crash conditioning program, having apparently neglected that over the summer.)

Not only is this standoff unseemly, going on B-O-R-I-N-G, it’s a problem for the league too, since they’re the stars of its glamour team.

Of course, it’s early, although not as early as it was when this first surfaced . . . 10 weeks ago.

“The Lakers, if they stick together--and they will--will be a better team for this,” Orlando Magic Coach Doc Rivers said. “They’ll fight through the problem, then be back kicking everyone’s butt.”

What he really means is, “This is too good to be true, isn’t it?”

* Phoenix--Once Jason Kidd and Penny Hardaway were Backcourt 2000. Now, after Hardaway brandished a pistol at his girlfriend and Kidd acknowledged hitting his wife, they’re being called Back in Court 2001.

Sun owner Jerry Colangelo, long active in domestic abuse programs, was so dismayed, he said he sometimes wondered what he’s doing in sports. Coming from a man who built an empire around the Suns and Diamondbacks, while reinventing downtown Phoenix, this was a sobering admission.

* Denver--Modern therapeutic technique: creative mutiny.

The Nuggets dropped a hint to Coach Dan Issel that they didn’t like his screaming by boycotting practice. In a previously missing display of togetherness, veterans drove around the parking lot, enforcing solidarity.

Since, they’ve caught fire. Of course, the moment things go wrong, they’re likely to drop another hint on Danny boy’s head.

* Washington--MJ the co-owner: It’s not like MJ the player.

Not that Michael Jordan or anyone else could have turned the Wizards around . . . but what made him think he could get away with being the absentee president of a 70-loss team?

Off the court, Jordan always insisted on doing things on his terms. What he has to learn is, this doesn’t count as “off the court.”

Of course, if he can’t go to a team, maybe they can find one closer to home for him.

When not golfing in the Caribbean, he lives in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune reports Jordan’s friends are speculating he might buy the Bulls in three or four years, when Jerry Reinsdorf might be embarrassed enough (see below) to sell them.

“I take this [Wizard] job very serious, contrary to what some people think,” Jordan told the Washington Post in a non-denial denial--by telephone from Chicago.

“I haven’t given up. I will honor the five-year commitment I made to this franchise. Hopefully, after five years, I and the organization can say it was a wise commitment and then we’ll see if they want to keep me around longer.”

Meanwhile, the Wizards seem to have given up. Rod Strickland is on another season-long pout. Tyrone Nesby argued with Coach Leonard Hamilton, who ordered him to leave the bench. Nesby refused, obliging an assistant coach to call arena security to come get him.

* Chicago--So much for that rebuilding project Reinsdorf and General Manager Jerry “Players don’t win titles, organizations do” Krause were so eager to start on.

These days, basketball isn’t even the problem as much as rebutting charges that they’re anti-cornrow or anti-headband, or in other words, anti-NBA player.

The latest came from one of their players, Ron Artest, who said Coach Tim Floyd, the diplomatic Bull who had heretofore been out of the line of fire, told him headbands were for “soft players.” Artest said he wanted to wear one in sympathy with headband-wearing, rarely playing rookies Marcus Fizer and Jamal Crawford.

The Bulls are on a 12-win pace. That would give them 42 in three seasons since Jordan retired.

* Minnesota--”Timberwolves” become synonymous with “cheat” when Hanging Commissioner David Stern fined them

$3.5 million, suspended owner Glen Taylor, furloughed General Manager Kevin McHale and took their draft picks through 2004 for making a secret deal with Joe Smith.

The Timberwolves certainly deserved to be disciplined but, in a similar case, the NFL fined Carmen Policy $400,000--although his violations actually tilted competitive balance by prolonging the San Francisco 49er dynasty.

* Seattle--Gary Payton and Vin Baker led an uprising that ousted Coach Paul Westphal and brought in their favorite, Nate McMillan. Then they went right back to their high jinks.

McMillan, no pushover, benched Baker and suspended Payton for arguing with teammate Ruben Patterson on the floor (again).

Gary says he’s just gotta be (shudder) Gary.

* Boston--After draining all hope and

$22 million from the Celtics, Rick Pitino fled, whereupon such old NCAA cohorts as Billy Packer got set to welcome him back as . . . get this . . . a victim of the NBA.

NBA teams have, indeed, sold out to their players, but then so have the colleges. Pitino is and should be a hot prospect for anyone who has a vacancy, or, like Pete Dalis, is contemplating one.

Nevertheless, the NBA didn’t fail Pitino. It was the other way around.

* Vancouver--The new regime of owner Michael Heisley and President Dick Versace is making the old John McCaw-Stu Jackson days look better.

McCaw and Jackson were overmatched but at least kept it to themselves. Three months into his first season, Heisley can’t stop talking about his financial losses and the motor-mouthed Versace has shopped everyone, even Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Mike Bibby.

What it looks like is, they’re stripping down the franchise to move it. The players want out too. Nor would the town mind much, either.

* Dallas--This is actually a bright spot, but with the resurgent Mavericks comes Mark Cuban, who thinks he was brought in to reinvent the NBA, as he did the Internet. (Actually, the Internet could use him back these days.)

Stern has given up trying to control him by ordinary means and now fines him $100,000 or more whenever he steps over the line, even if it’s as minor as sitting on the baseline among his players.

This is actually mild, compared to what the other owners would like to do, which is revoke Cuban’s franchise.

* Portland--Trail Blazer players, choking on their depth, which limits minutes, shots, etc., were muttering so ominously, Mike Dunleavy called a meeting to head it off.

They went on a 13-1 run but then lost at home to the Sacramento Kings while resident alien Rasheed Wallace snarled at Dunleavy for never backing him up with the referees (which would, of course, take all Dunleavy’s time) and scored 58 in a loss at Cleveland.

So Dunleavy may not be home free yet.

* Utah--The eccentric Olden Polynice outdid himself, getting arrested for flashing a fake badge and impersonating a police officer, after following a Salt Lake City man, who, he claimed, had cut him off in traffic.

* New York--Once considered Top Commish, Stern now finds he’s in the kind of helpless phase that befell NFL great Pete Rozelle, when prosperity begets only greed and infighting.

Now, even when Stern’s right, he’s wrong.

He just went back to union head Billy Hunter with a plan to discourage teens from declaring for the draft. This, in theory, should appeal to members of the union, who don’t need more competition.

Nevertheless, Hunter turned him down. The union’s posture seems to be: You beat us in ’95 when we tried to decertify and in ’99 with the lockout, so whatever you want now, we don’t.

“Because this would be good for the NBA, I thought this would be an easy one,” Stern said. “But I don’t think they’ll go for anything because they just aren’t willing to do it.”

Of course, things are tough all around these days, as any promoter can tell you. Stern should consider a new marketing phrase: “The NBA: At least, we won’t kill you.”