The Bulls have had rivalries over the years, with the Knicks, the Miami Heat, the Cleveland Cavaliers. But none like the one with the Detroit Pistons. And why not? These cities mirror one another: lousy weather and horrible sports teams, which lately has included their NBA franchises. The curiosity is that the Pistons, whom the Bulls play Friday, are planning to try to take the same road to competitiveness that has failed for the Bulls.
Superstar Grant Hill left as a free agent, a bunch of coaches left and the Pistons traded their best rebounder from last season and perhaps most popular player, Jerome Williams. He was dealt at the trading deadline for players in the last year of their contracts to get additional salary-cap space to chase major free agents, like former University of Michigan star Chris Webber.
So even after beating Orlando at home Sunday, the Pistons are 15 games under .500 with about $17 million in salary-cap space, one true star in Jerry Stackhouse, a bunch of role players, perhaps five picks in this draft and lousy weather. Plus, Joe Smith will be a free agent and reportedly began leaning toward returning to the Timberwolves after his former teammates greeted him like a long-lost friend when the teams played last week. The greeting was so effusive that the NBA even had to warn Kevin Garnett about tampering.
The Pistons’ plan sounds familiar to the one followed last season on the west side of Lake Michigan, where a team from a cold-weather climate with bad sports teams got well under the salary cap with one star player and a horrible record. And then the Bulls watched all the dream free agents wave as they signed elsewhere. If the Pistons succeed, what will it say about the Bulls?
“My expectations have not changed,” said Pistons President Joe Dumars. “I expect to see this team get better. But if a player isn’t there I feel deserves the money, I am not going to spend it.”
Easier said than done, as the Bulls discovered.
Kukoc report: Has Toni Kukoc finally found a home? Kukoc has averaged 23.5 points and six rebounds the last two games for the Hawks since being part of the Dikembe Mutombo-Theo Ratliff trade, and Hawks coach Lon Kruger has told his players they have to adjust to playing for Kukoc, and that he’ll run the offense. The Hawks, whom the Bulls play Saturday in Atlanta, also have told teams that have inquired about Kukoc they’ll be keeping him after this season.
Atlanta also wants to keep Nazr Mohammed, the 6-foot-10-inch forward also acquired in the trade. The product of Chicago’s Kenwood High averaged 4.1 points in about eight minutes a game with the 76ers. But he has averaged 11.8 points and eight rebounds in six games with Atlanta and has impressed the coaching staff with his aggressiveness.
“This is a chance for me, and I’m looking forward to it.” said Mohammed, the last pick in the first round in the 1998 draft. It has been an especially long season for the likable Mohammed, who said, “I liked the guys in Philadelphia, but I also wanted to play. I worked extremely hard last summer, and I had to grow up a lot.”
That was because he experienced a lifetime of shocking events in only a few short weeks. Mohammed’s father, Tahiru, 55, was murdered in Chicago. A 35-year-old Chicagoan who was working with Tahiru in a store he bought last year is accused of killing him with a baseball bat in a financial dispute.
“My father was a strong man with a strong will. I thought he would outlive me,” Mohammed said earlier this season. “When it happens that way, sometimes it’s hard to believe. I can’t erase his number from my cell phone. It’s like I think he’ll call one day. I feel like I’ve grown, like it was my toughest summer. My father would always say that when you think things are tough, something tougher comes along.”
Tahiru’s death came just weeks after Mohammed and childhood buddy Antoine Walker were hanging out early one morning back home on the South Side.
“Three guys came up [in cars],” Mohammed related. “One in the front, two behind. All had guns. They said to give them everything we had, cash and jewelry. We did.” Mohammed gave up a watch worth about $8,000 and an estimated $200 in cash. Walker gave up a watch valued at about $55,000.
And earlier this season, when the 76ers were in Chicago, Mohammed’s mother traveled from Ghana to see him play for the first time as a pro, and he got into the game for only a few seconds.
“It has been hard,” Mohammed said. “Losing my father last summer was tough enough. Every year you want to play more and more. You get more and more confidence that you can play in this league. I worked pretty hard last summer, as hard as I’ve worked since college, believing I’d get more of an opportunity. But we started off so great, everyone was playing so well, coach [Larry Brown] is supposed to win games, and that’s what he was doing.”
Remember him? On Tuesday, the Bulls get to see Robert “Tractor” Traylor, the biggest bust of the 1999 draft. The Bucks traded up to pick him ahead of Jason Williams, Larry Hughes, Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce and Bonzi Wells. Since being traded to Cleveland, where he averages about six points and 300 pounds, Traylor hasn’t been able to get his weight down or game off the bench.
“What we’ve been looking for all along is a consistency in his effort and his dedication, not only in practice and games, but everything else too,” said General Manager Jim Paxson said. “He’s probably heard the same speech a lot over the last three years since coming into the league. You can’t go up and down the floor three or four times and be tired. He hardly has any post moves. He has to utilize his strength and quickness.”
Behind the scenes: So what was that Larry Brown-Pat Riley tiff about last week when the Heat coach suggested the Sixers’ coach was disloyal by trading Ratliff when he was hurt and Brown countered that he was playing Charlotte and saw half of Riley’s team there? It seems last year Riley was trying to trade for Larry Hughes and the deal fell apart over media reports that Riley blamed on Brown. As for Brown’s trade of Ratliff, two years ago in the conference semifinals against Indiana, Ratliff sat out the last game with an injury that Brown privately questioned. Since then, he has quietly doubted Ratliff’s abilities to be counted upon in big games. Brown didn’t call Ratliff after the deal. That was left to President Pat Croce and actor Bill Cosby, a franchise favorite.
Trouble ahead: Rod Strickland is expected to sign with Portland. That could be a disaster for the Trail Blazers because they’re already overloaded with players and have two small, ballhandling guards in Damon Stoudamire and Greg Anthony.
Around the league: Did Sunday mark the last big game in a Seattle uniform for Gary Payton? The SuperSonics lost to eighth-place Minnesota to fall 5 1/2 games back and lose the tiebreaker, though Payton had a career-high 44 points. Said Payton, who seems resigned to being traded: “If we don’t make the playoffs, we make changes. If it happens, it happens.” . . . Sacramento’s Jason Williams may not be ready for the XFL, but he wears a woven bracelet that reads “I hate you.” Williams, who is one of the NBA’s most uncooperative players, says he wants everyone to hate him because “there are a lot of fake people around here.” . . . Greg Ostertag on his new truce with Utah coach Jerry Sloan: “I just asked him, `Get off my back a little bit and things will change.’ He agreed to get off me a little.”
Toronto’s Antonio Davis, a free agent after the season, also has a home in Orlando, which he said would be a perfect place for him even though the Magic has no salary-cap room. That set off alarms in the league office, which long suspected the Magic had a prearranged deal to get Hill. But Toronto’s deal of Mark Jackson probably assured Davis’ departure because Davis helped persuade the Raptors to sign his former teammate.
And they say Phil Jackson isn’t doing anything to quell the Shaq-Kobe feud in Los Angeles. Recently, the Lakers’ coach explained:
“People who allow karmic things or inspirational things to happen are usually better served by it instead of trying to mastermind and plan things. It’s just a matter of being patient and not jumping the gun, so to speak. I don’t want to put my index finger–the gun–to either one of these young men. I still want them both to be determined and tremendously confident in what their ability is.”
Now if that doesn’t clear things up . . .
