Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler can pity someone else these days. Perhaps a future teammate, Shareef Abdur-Rahim?
Curry and Chandler were known as losers for three years despite all sorts of extenuating circumstances on the Bulls. But nobody in the NBA, and no one this good, has lost like Portland’s Abdur-Rahim. He has been an All-Star and an Olympic gold-medal winner. But he has never been to the playoffs. The teams Abdur-Rahim has played for–Vancouver, Atlanta and Portland–are 213-481 in his eight seasons. That’s a winning percentage of .308. No one in the NBA has a poorer record.
Abdur-Rahim deserves better. He’s regarded as a hard worker and a good teammate. He’s an unrestricted free agent coming off a huge long-term contract that paid him $14 million this season. It seems as if he has finally had enough of the losing and losing teams.
“I’m frustrated, and I’m probably at my end with it,” he told Portland reporters last week. “My tolerance level is probably at its low point. At this point in my career, I really want to feel like I can win or have a chance to win for the next six, seven or eight years.”
Abdur-Rahim is one of the few true pros on the Portland team that is now 2-11 under interim coach Kevin Pritchard. The Blazers have gone back to playing more veterans since their insulting use of extras and rookies after the firing of Maurice Cheeks. But it’s still a franchise in disarray, and it’s unlikely Abdur-Rahim will re-sign. Not if he wants to be in the playoffs in this decade.
Enter the Bulls. They won’t have a No. 1 draft pick this season and won’t be under the salary cap. How do they get better? It’s likely there will be some kind of veteran’s exception of about $5 million in the new collective-bargaining agreement, as there is now. What a perfect marriage.
The Bulls have one true fourth-quarter scorer in Ben Gordon, and he’s only a rookie. They need a big shooting guard and a power forward who can score. The 6-foot-9-inch Abdur-Rahim averaged 20.1 points and 8.2 rebounds entering this season. Despite the chaos in Portland, he is averaging 20.8 since Cheeks was fired. He recently had 25 points and 13 rebounds against first-place Phoenix and a nice 22-point, 10-rebound audition when the Bulls were in Portland earlier this month.
And he’s only 28, having entered the league after one season at Cal.
The Bulls are a franchise headed in the direction Abdur-Rahim never has been. He’s not about to get a huge contract from a team under the salary cap; the hot free agents are shooting guards Ray Allen, Joe Johnson and Larry Hughes. The teams that are well under the salary cap figure to be losers. He could be one of those next-level pieces for a team like the Bulls.
As Curry said Saturday, smiling on the way to his first playoff: “Every now and then I take a look at the standings. You don’t want to put pressure on yourself, but you can’t help looking to see who’s where and who you might face in the playoffs. Especially for me going through so much [losing], it’s amazing to see the position we’re in.”
Memphis Blues
Despite their turnaround under coach Mike Fratello, the Memphis Grizzlies are in danger of falling out of the playoffs in the Western Conference.
The Grizzlies, who’ll play the Bulls on Monday night at the United Center, have been a great story. Fratello took over for Hubie Brown when the team was 5-11, and it’s 39-29 now. Fratello is making a lot of NBA owners regret not hiring him while he worked on TV.
“It’s not vindication; it’s more of a thankfulness,” he said. “Otherwise I’d still be stuck next to Marv [Albert].”
Fratello is proving again to be one of the game’s elite coaches no matter his personnel, having recently surpassed 600 career wins. He’s being talked about as a coach-of-the-year candidate along with George Karl, who is 21-5 since taking over in Denver. No one has ever been voted coach of the year for less than a full season.
The Grizzlies have been devastated by injuries to core players like Pau Gasol, Stromile Swift, Jason Williams, Bonzi Wells and James Posey. But Denver is coming fast and should pass them soon for seventh in the West, and Minnesota is on the move as well.
Gasol is back, but there are internal issues with Swift, an athletic power forward who was not re-signed last summer and will become an unrestricted free agent. Lately, there have been anonymous comments coming out of the team suggesting Swift may have been exaggerating the severity of his ankle injury, or that he’s soft, apparently to lessen his market value.
Also, highly regarded assistant Eric Musselman is likely to leave after the season to coach Orlando or Minnesota, where he worked for his late father, Bill. Owner Michael Heisley, who lives in west suburban St. Charles, is said to be anxious to sell the team.
“People have overlooked us sometimes because they think last season was a fluke,” forward Brian Cardinal said. They don’t anymore, and it could be a tough finish for the Grizzlies.
It’s how you finish
The measure for playoff success among many is how a team does in its last 20 games. “In the NBA, you play 60 to be in position for the last 20,” Minnesota coach Kevin McHale said. “The teams that usually do well in the playoffs, they go 16-5, 15-4 [in the home stretch].”
The Bulls are 5-1 in their last six with 14 left, and it shouldn’t take them long to say goodbye to Washington. The Wizards had to put 7-footer Peter John Ramos on the bench between Kwame Brown and Brendan Haywood to restrain them after they went at one another following their removal from a game last week. The Wizards have lost 17 of 27, and Larry Hughes is questioning coach Eddie Jordan for going to more of an inside-outside offense.
Mild, mild West
The West may suddenly be wide open with San Antonio’s Tim Duncan apparently out for the rest of the regular season with a seriously sprained ankle. There is talk he could miss the first round or be limited, because it’s the same ankle that cost him some games earlier this season. Said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich: “I don’t think Miami is going too far without [Shaquille O’Neal]. We’re not going to go too far without Timmy. I don’t think Phoenix is going to go far without [Steve] Nash. When you lose those guys, it’s a big hit as far as what your final goal is.”
The Spurs lost in the first round after their 1999 championship when Duncan was hurt late in the season. Manu Ginobili, whom Brent Barry calls “El Contusion” for all his diving floor burns, is back from a groin injury but lacking his explosive first step.
To be Frank . . .
Lakers management isn’t too happy with interim coach Frank Hamblen, not only because the Lakers aren’t likely to make the playoffs but also because Hamblen has admitted it.
“Right now it isn’t realistic,” Hamblen said. “This franchise has had a lot of success for a long time, and they’re redoing it. Sometimes you have to pay the piper, and we’re going to have to pay the piper for a while. That’s the way it is.”
Hamblen probably will be gone after this season. The Lakers’ assistants had clauses in their contracts reducing them to one-year deals if Rudy Tomjanovich left.
Cleveland fallout
Fired coach Paul Silas took some shots at Cavaliers general manager Jim Paxson on the way out, saying: “The fact of the matter is Jim Paxson has had five coaches in five years here. And I could go on and on about some of the things he has done or has not done.” The rumor in Cleveland is former Bull Sam Vincent, a friend of new owner Dan Gilbert from Michigan State, will replace Paxson. Vincent now works as a Cavs scout in Africa, where he coaches a national team.
The new coach probably won’t get to coach Jeff McInnis, who has taken to wearing his practice jersey backward, as he did in his waning days with the Clippers, as a sort of farewell message.
Gilbert, who likes to hang with the guys, flew staff and several players to Austin on the team jet when the team was in Dallas last week for Michigan State’s appearance in the Austin regional.
The coaching fraternity always falls in line when one is fired. Doc Rivers said he was so mad “I’m no longer buying any Usher albums.” The R&B artist is part of the Cavs’ new ownership group.
Around the league
Sentimental Houston coach Jeff Van Gundy on his brother Stan, the Miami coach: “If I see one more story about us, I’m going to puke. Me and my brother. Me and my mom. Who cares? Really, I’m sick of it. It’s not a novelty anymore. You guys just won’t let it go. It’s painful to read those stories: `And when Jeff was 3 . . . ‘” . . . New Dallas coach Avery Johnson pulled Dirk Nowitzki out of a game last week because he botched a defensive assignment. . . . Phoenix’s Amare Stoudemire on why the pick-and-roll with Nash works so well: “My dunking percentage is almost 100 percent.”
