If the NBA is going to have a successful 2008 Olympic team, it’s going to need Rasheed Wallace.
Even I can’t believe I wrote that.
But I believe it, and I recall vividly my first talk with Wallace. I was president of the basketball writers’ association at the time and Wallace either wasn’t talking to reporters or cursing them. Once, in one of the great playoff moments, the NBA forced Wallace to talk to reporters after several fines and Wallace answered every question, “Both teams played hard.” The NBA fined Wallace again and in the spirit of the moment had T-shirts printed for reporters reading, “Both teams played hard.”
Yes, it’s a wacky league office too.
So I went to Wallace to explain why it was important for the NBA and his fellow players for Wallace to speak to reporters. Wallace removed his omnipresent headphones briefly, stared down at me and said, “I don’t give a [darn] about anyone but me and my family.”
Actually, we’ve seen that Wallace does give a darn about his teammates. He has proven to be an excellent and reliable teammate on a terrific Pistons team that just finished its season series with the Spurs with a second straight blowout win.
That’s right. If that’s this season’s Finals, turn off your TV now. And Detroit gets its best perimeter defender, Lindsey Hunter, back this week from injury.
The notion of Wallace as an Olympian would have seemed absurd even a year ago, but it comes to mind with the sudden rush of NBA players to play for the 2008 team in Beijing that includes participation in the world championships in Japan this summer. Former Suns owner Jerry Colangelo has been running around the country like a “Dancing with the Stars” recruiter, and the response has been positive. (It doesn’t look good for Seattle’s Rashard Lewis, who when asked about Colangelo didn’t know who he was and said quizzically: “Michelangelo?”)
Allen Iverson said he wants another chance; so do Paul Pierce, Baron Davis and Carmelo Anthony. Let’s say this: If any of them are on the team, it means the selection process still is flawed and is about marketing and selling stars rather than building a winning team.
“[Iverson] made it very clear that he wants to be part of it,” Colangelo said. “He’d consider it an honor if he was selected. He feels there is something to prove. He wants to win a gold medal.”
There has been a boomlet of publicity lately that Iverson is a changed, respected, responsible man. Perhaps. There’s no evidence he’s chasing the hoodlum life he once pursued. But make no mistake, Iverson was the problem with the 2004 team in Athens, in part because of who he is and what he has become. He’s the pied piper of hip-hop defiance. It’s Iverson whom the kids want to emulate for his lifelong battle with authority, convention and the establishment. It’s Iverson who led the late brigade for the first exhibition game, who wore all the funky headgear and outfits to state dinners that had coach Larry Brown even trying to get him sent home. The others, like Anthony, followed. Like kids on the playground, it wasn’t cool to not be like Allen.
Once, kids copied Michael Jordan, who started every NBA fashion trend in his era from off-the-court dress suits to shaved head and baggy shorts. Now, more than anyone, it’s Iverson. And to put him on this Olympic team with a group of young players, especially with a college coach in Mike Krzyzewski, will lead to another basketball embarrassment.
Though Pierce got most of the blame–it wasn’t unjustified for his ugly, selfish American act in the 2002 World Games sixth-place finish under George Karl–it was Golden State’s Davis who was perhaps the most disruptive on the team. USA Basketball executives were furious at Davis, so it was amusing to hear him add his name to the list last week as he seems about to put another coach on the unemployment line. There was an amusing confrontation last week when San Jose Mercury News columnist Tim Kawakami reported a screaming assault on him by Davis, that Kawakami is writing garbage about the Warriors and has tried to ruin him since he played at UCLA. Yep, we want that guy in a USA jersey.
That brings us to Anthony, who is here with the Nuggets to play the Bulls on Monday. Anthony is putting up quite a scoring season–he’s not working on defense quite yet–and hit his second game-winning shot in a row last week. It was the fifth of his NBA career, an interesting contrast with LeBron James, who missed one in the Cavs’ loss to the Lakers last week. James never has made a game-winning shot in high school (probably because his team won by big margins) or the NBA. James was unusually defensive about it, saying, “I’ve made plays like that before, I’ve made shots in key situations. I’m not trying to get to Kobe Bryant’s level. I’m trying to be the best player I can be.”
Anthony is a remarkable offensive talent, and has had a career full of embarrassments already from refusing to enter games as a rookie to that drug-glorifying DVD he made in Baltimore last year. His play has been impressive this season for the injury-plagued Nuggets as he inches up among the league’s scoring leaders. But he was a major problem on the 2004 team from his trash-talking and childish behavior in practices to wearing his pants like a handyman with a heavy tool belt, much to the chagrin of USA Basketball officials.
The next Olympic team could do without all of them, especially because there are enough excellent perimeter and wing players. James and Bryant already have been guaranteed spots, and Dwyane Wade should be added. Maybe Gilbert Arenas gets a spot, too, though scoring won’t be a problem. Finding facilitators and defenders will be a problem, which is why Chauncey Billups would be a good choice and the Bulls’ Kirk Hinrich remains high on the list of possibilities.
The problem is big men. Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Shaquille O’Neal and Jermaine O’Neal are not expected to play. This is not 1992, or even 1996, anymore, when a team of All-Stars was enough. Now the United States needs a team, particularly in international basketball. With a pure zone, a team needs a big man who can defend and also step outside and hit a jumper and force the defense to guard him. Several of the NBA’s better big men, like Ben Wallace, Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh, are not great outside shooters. Elton Brand has improved but is only 6-8. Chris Webber can’t move well enough anymore, and Marcus Camby is awfully fragile. Zach Randolph?
Yes, America needs Rasheed Wallace. Ball and me don’t like, as ‘Sheed might say.
Trade talk
This is frustration and desperation time around the NBA. The Wizards benched Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood (you could get him if you would like a low-post center who doesn’t score in the low post and doesn’t defend the low post well) and the Mavs benched their $60 million center, Erick Dampier. . . . Everyone is looking for big men, but guards are more likely to be dealt as the trading deadline approaches. Atlanta’s Tony Delk, Denver’s Earl Watson and Voshon Lenard, Washington’s Chucky Atkins, New Jersey’s Jeff McInnis and Phoenix’s Jim Jackson are expected to find new homes. Reports out of Minneapolis suggest center Michael Olowokandi could be traded this week as the Timberwolves have continued to pursue Ron Artest. Paul Pierce’s name continues to come up everywhere. You had to love this Kevin Garnett comment last week about the teammate he calls “World,” Wally Szczerbiak: “I told World a couple things he was doing that was preventing him from scoring. I got him to calm down, to wait for me on screens. He actually accepted the advice.”
Double dribbles
Toronto’s Mike James will be an interesting free agent this summer. He won a rare player-of-the-week award for a Toronto player. Houston’s Rafer Alston, for whom James was traded, returned to Toronto last week and blasted the organization for always being unprepared. This after he was late to the arena because he missed the team bus. . . . Sam Cassell said he has been trying unsuccessfully for two weeks to contact former teammate Latrell Sprewell. . . . So Jerry Krause did get that 1999 draft right, considering that Steve Francis has been suspended by the Magic for refusing to re-enter a game (yes, he’s also available in trade despite what the Magic says), Baron Davis is up to his usual tricks and Lamar Odom is drifting around in his own basketball world. As for trading Brand for Tyson Chandler, well, sometimes you need to quit while you’re ahead. . . . The Pacers’ Anthony Johnson offered some insight to the Artest sweepstakes: “I think a lot of people are being politically correct. He’s like Halloween every day, just full of surprises.”
CBA update
Chris Daleo, who started his coaching career at Kishwaukee Junior College in Malta and was coach at Barat College in Lake Forest and now coaches Rockford of the CBA, leads the East All-Stars on Tuesday in Boise, Idaho. His players will include Illinois’ Roger Powell, leading Rockford in scoring, and former Farragut High School star Ronnie Fields, who won the CBA slam-dunk contest in 1997. Randy Holcomb, who didn’t get a second 10-day contract from the Bulls, is on the team with Roy Tarpley–yes, that one–not playing because of an injury.
Final shots
There will be a so-called “select” team of young NBA players expected to practice against the 2008 Olympic team. Current Indianapolis high-schooler Greg Oden, the likely 2007 No. 1 draft pick, already has talked with Colangelo about playing. . . . Eddy Curry is back on Wednesday when the Knicks, 2006’s hottest NBA team and now just barely behind the sagging Bulls, are in Chicago. And getting pushed for the NBA Sixth Man Award is former Bull Jamal Crawford, averaging 20 points off the bench the last 10 games. . . . In his latest dog-ate-my-homework excuse, Zach Randolph said he was late for a shootaround yet again because, “The power went out at my house and I couldn’t open my [electric] gate. I had to open it manually, and I broke the gate. Coach understood.” He was benched.
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sasmith@tribune.com
