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Friday, August 19, 2005
Sayson: The Sprewell-Cassell vocal ensemble
By Homer Sayson
Second Overtime
CHICAGO – Upon entering last season’s training camp, Latrell Sprewell was in the tail end of a five-year contract worth $61.9 million. His final paycheck for that 2004-05 campaign was a stratospheric $14,625,000, the kind of cash that majority of us earthlings will never see, even if we had 10 lifetimes.
For some reason, however, the $14.6 million wasn’t fat enough for Spree’s wallet. He complained, demanded an extension and uttered the now-immortal words: “I need to feed my children.”
Spree’s voice of discontent found a sympathetic ear in teammate Sam Cassell, who foolishly joined the chorus and also demanded an extension despite having a live and fairly wealthy deal that paid him $6.25 million annually.
Naturally, Spree and Sam immediately became the NBA’s poster boys for greed. And justifiably so, both were vilified by the media and condemned by the fans who have long been disenchanted by the skyrocketing salaries of pro athletes.
And the poor Timberwolves never recovered from the embarrassing distraction. They had a tempestuous 82 games, and after clawing all the way to the West Conference finals the year before, Kevin Garnett and company managed only a 44-38 slate, which was not enough for a playoffs berth.
When the losses piled up in February, Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders lost his job, dismissed from a position he has held for over nine years. Hired in 1995, Saunders had a 411-326 win-loss slate in Minnesota. He was the second longest tenured coach in the NBA behind Jerry Sloan of the Utah Jazz.
Following his team’s ugly demise, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor did not hide his contempt towards Sprewell and Cassell, labeling their acquisitions as “an expensive and failed experiment.”
Taylor’s words pretty much sealed the two misfits’ fate in Minnesota. And so last week, Cassell was shipped to the Los Angeles Clippers, the armpit of the NBA.
Letting go of Cassell was easy. Even without his contract demands, he had become expendable, a 6-foot-3, 185-pound guard had simply become damaged goods at 35. He was ravished by a plethora of injuries, missing 33 games last season while nursing sore ribs, bad ankles, banged-up knees, etc.
LIABILITY. Sam normed a respectable 13.5 points and 5.5 assists per game. He also shot 46.4 percent from the field, but he became a liability on defense as he evidently could no longer chase the younger guards he was facing night in and night out.
With Sam banished from a franchise that had embraced him like a son just two seasons ago, Sprewell is next. The 6-5, 195lb guard is a free agent, but the Wolves possess not even the slightest desire to keep him. If anything, they can’t wait for him to leave.
The 34-year-old Spree normed career lows of 12.8 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists last season. He has demonstrably lost a step or two, but he’s still good on both ends of the floor. And that’s why he will likely find himself in a better situation than Cassell, his comrade in complaints.
Word in the grapevine is that Spree could end up in Detroit, where he gets reunited with Saunders, Larry Brown’s successor. I hope not. Becoming a Piston is such an easy way out for a malcontent, who selfishly sabotaged the championship aspirations of a legitimate title contender.
In a perfect world, Spree should wind up in outposts like Atlanta, New Orleans or Toronto, where he deserves to suffer the agony of consistent losing. But if Spree got paid $14.6 million for no more than nine months of work and still have the audacity to complain, I guess the NBA is the wrong place to find utopia.
PHENOMS. Here’s a Q from Elmer de Ocampo (meh@nitro.com.ph): “In your opinion, who among the NBA players who skipped college made the biggest impact? I know it’s unfair to compare players, especially those belonging to different eras, like Kwame Brown. How impressive was he in high school?”
Kobe and T-Mac made quite a stir jumping from high school to pros, but both do not approach the impact LeBron James has made. LeBron is more media-savvy, better marketed and is mature beyond his years.
As for the 6-11, 245lb Brown, he went to high school at the Glenn Academy in Brunswick, Georgia from 1997-2000. Named as the state’s best high-school player in his senior year, Brown played in 102 games and led his team to an 81-21 record.
In his four years at Glenn Academy, Brown amassed a grand total of 1,578 points, 1,235 rebounds and 603 blocks. Those stats made Brown the No.1 draft pick in the 2001 NBA draft, and when the Wizards selected him, he became the first-ever high schooler to be taken No.1 overall.
(homsay@hotmail.com)
(August 19, 2005 issue)
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