Only One Thing Can Quiet Critics

Chris Webber must be exhausted from playing all this defense.

In the last week alone, Webber has: (a) stated that the reason he didn’t factor more heavily in last year’s playoff sweep by the Lakers, despite averaging 26 points and 13 rebounds, was a severe ankle injury he denied having at the time; (b) patiently fended off national reporter after national reporter wondering why he doesn’t post up and take over games in this year’s Western Conference finals, explaining that he is doing exactly what the Kings’ system desires of him; and (c) actually caused his coach to rise to something approaching anger, which is so rare an occurrence as to be shocking.

It happened the other day at the Kings’ practice facility, when I asked Rick Adelman whether the Kings’ system--that is, Adelman’s system--does, despite its emphasis on versatility, allow room for a guy like Webber to demand the ball down the stretch.

“Yeah,” Adelman said. “Yeah, it does. But all that criticism is really unwarranted.

“I don’t understand. I mean, just because some announcer on TV or somebody else thinks that this is the way this guy should play--why? Who are these people? Why should their opinions matter?”

Considering Sacramento’s 61-21 regular-season record and furthest postseason advance in the franchise’s California history, it’s a fair question.

So is this: Is there anything in the world standing between Chris Webber and the elite status he craves?

And if that something is an NBA championship, as Webber repeatedly has said that it is, does the power forward really go to bed each night confident he can obtain it without at least once taking over his team?

They’re all conjoined, these questions. They matter as much tonight, with the Kings facing the Lakers in Game 3 at Staples Center, as they did a year ago or two years before that.

And the fact that they’ve been answered the way they have, not only by Webber but by people around him who have as much stake in the outcome as does he, underscores the only real consistent truth about Webber as a basketball player: Whatever you think you know about him, you’re wrong by at least half.

It still seems unimaginable that Webber could look at even so talented a roster as Sacramento’s and not conclude that he needs to be the central figure on the floor--that he doesn’t feel at least a touch of concession every time he launches an 18-footer from the perimeter, the Lakers happily allowing him to fire away rather than having to deal with him in the lane.

Chris Webber? A fine player, on one of the top shelves in the NBA, but a player who isn’t even being urged by his own team to dominate this series--and who won’t take that initiative on his own, no matter how maddening some of us find it.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of veterans,” Webber said, “and they’ve told me, ‘They’re not gonna remember any of this if you win.’”

All of which is utterly secondary. Because the question here, as it has been squarely for three years now, is about the winning.