Summer headlines are worth rereading

By Peter May, Globe Staff, 9/28/2003

There is basketball. It's actually going to start this week; imagine the NBA scheduling training camp up against the baseball playoffs. The official start of camp -- tomorrow -- will bring an end to one of the more interesting summers of late, and now might be a good time to revisit some of the top story lines. The stories are not ranked in any particular order, and the list is, of course, utterly subjective. We limited it to 10, although it easily could have been doubled. Not on the list: the return to the NBA of Olden Polynice.

1. Kobe, Kobe, Kobe: The arrest of Kobe Bryant on a sexual assault charge was, far and away, the story that crossed all lines. It is not really a basketball story, except that it involves a basketball player. It's a crime story with serious consequences. So far, the coverage has all been about Kobe. What are the Lakers going to do and what is the NBA going to do and what is Nike going to do? How about the alleged victim? What about her? As for Bryant, he plans on basketball business as usual when his real court dates don't get in the way. The Lakers are preparing for a mob scene at training camp, but, really, what can Kobe say? It will all come out in the trial and it's not going to be pretty.

2. Larry in Indiana (again): He always wanted to run his own team. But after losing out in Charlotte, and never connecting with the new owners in Boston, Larry Bird decided he'd go back home and run the Pacers. There are worse jobs, and Bird even got to bring in his own coach, Rick Carlisle, to replace Isiah Thomas. The Pacers aren't Larry's team yet. There still are a lot of holdovers, and the only meaningful departures were those of Brad Miller (to Sacramento) and Ron Mercer (to San Antonio). But Bird did bring in Kenny Anderson to help the point guard situation and wrangled Scot Pollard out of the Brad Miller transaction. He managed to re-sign franchise icon Reggie Miller for very reasonable numbers (although Reg will be 40 and making $6 million when the deal expires). And he endeared himself even more to hoop fans in Boston by hiring Kevin Mackey as his chief scout. But hiring Carlisle could be the biggest coup of all. He doesn't go there unless Bird is there to bring him in.

3. The Clippers actually spend some money: One of the real unknowns going into the summer was whether Donald Sterling, the famously frugal owner of the Clippers, would open up his wallet to let the moths breathe and to keep his free agents. Well, he did, sort of. In true Clipper fashion, Sterling allowed the majority of his free agents to go out into the market and get offers. In other words, he let the other guys do all the work. Then the Donald simply examined the offers and decided whether he'd match. He allowed Andre Miller to go to Denver. That trade never worked out, and Miller and the Clippers are better off parting ways. Sterling kept Elton Brand and Corey Maggette and allowed Lamar Odom to go to Miami. He didn't have a chance to match offers to Michael Olowokandi (Minnesota) or Eric Piatkowski (Houston). Sterling also went out and actually paid for a coach, too, hiring Mike Dunleavy. All in all, it made for a very peculiar summer. At times, the Clippers acted like a real NBA team.

4. The two-tiered training camp: This actually was decided in February, over All-Star Weekend. In return for having best-of-seven series in the first round, the league agreed to a staggered reporting date for future training camps. It makes no sense. But the union won't agree to anything without a giveback, and the league is pretty much the same way. But here are the players Jim O'Brien will have in camp tomorrow: Marcus Banks, Kendrick Perkins, Kedrick Brown, Brandon Hunter, Mark Blount, and Mike James, plus a few assorted camp bodies. Flip Saunders in Minnesota figures to have three players on board tomorrow that will actually make his final roster. Any player with more than three years of NBA experience cannot report until Thursday, with workouts beginning Friday. And that's not optional. The veterans cannot even be in the training camp site until Thursday. Also, two-a-days have been scaled back. In the past, coaches would always have that to fall back on if the lads weren't practicing or playing well enough. Not anymore. And it gets even worse next year. But the Pistons won't complain. Had the first-round series not been extended last spring, Detroit would have been out in the first round instead of making it to the conference finals.

5. The new-look Lakers: The sheen from the signings of Karl Malone and Gary Payton lasted just long enough until the Bryant case pushed everything and everyone aside. On paper, anyway, the Lakers look to be utterly devastating. Malone and Payton have both had long and distinguished careers marked by an inability to win a championship. Malone will be kind of like Ray Bourque, going to Colorado for one final chance. Payton is similar, though not as old. The big unknown is how those two will mesh with Phil Jackson's triangle offense and whether they will be willing to defer -- a lot -- to Shaquille O'Neal. The Big Atkins has apparently dropped the pounds and raised the desire after LA's loss to the Spurs in the playoffs. If he's committed and healthy, the Lakers can pretty much throw Luke Walton and boys out there and be awful tough to beat. Of course, this team looked a lot better before the Bryant situation surfaced. Veterans have a tendency to disregard such things, however, and even if Bryant can't go for a stretch, this is still a daunting team. And you know what? The Lakers also got some good players in the draft, too.

6. The end of an era in Utah: John Stockton finally retired. Malone finally stopped crying wolf and left to seek a championship. In their wake is, quite possibly, one of the worst NBA teams in years. We know one thing: The Jazz's streak of never participating in the lottery is about to end. But it was quite a run with Malone and Stockton all those years. All-Star Game MVPs. Two trips to the NBA Finals. Two MVPs for Malone (although one of them was fraudulent; Michael Jordan should have won it). The Jazz did their homework and planned accordingly for the departure of the vaunted duo. What they did not anticipate was having all this money and no one wanting to take it. Utah figured it could at least start the rebuilding on the fly with a couple of decent free agents. All it has snared to date is Keon Clark, and he was basically a salary dump by the Kings. There's still a chance they'll get some fringe guy (Raja Bell, for instance) but there's no difference-maker out there who will come to Utah. The Jazz are merely the latest team to face the new-age NBA music: Most players won't go to bad teams, regardless of the money.

7. Michael Jordan's Lost Summer: The reigning icon of the NBA finally, mercifully, retired from playing. The rest of the Washington Wizards would have staged a mutiny had he not. And then things got a little difficult for MJ. He was expecting to return to his position as the Wizards' president of basketball operations. But owner Abe Pollin must have looked at the team and MJ's moves and said to himself, "Why do I need this?" So he basically did what few people have been able to do to MJ: He told him to take a hike. And Jordan was suddenly jobless. But then he surfaced as a potential buyer of the Milwaukee Bucks, a purchase that most figured would reestablish Jordan as one of the NBA's movers and shakers. But at the last minute, Bucks owner Herb Kohl decided to keep the team. Jordan then kept the Charlotte Bobcats -- that's an expansion team, by the way -- waiting all summer to hear whether he'd come to work for them. Jordan said no. Maybe he was told he'd actually have to live and work in the city. So the 2003-04 season starts without one Jordan in Washington, but with another, Eddie, who actually can make a difference as the new Wizards coach. We know this: Most of his players are much happier.

8. Vin Baker rehabilitated?: This has the potential to be one of the real feel-good stories of the season. The Celtics got nothing out of Baker last year -- except a commitment to stop drinking and get himself back in shape through workouts and therapy. He apparently has done that, as he candidly revealed to Shira Springer in a lengthy interview earlier this month. We'll soon find out. The new Celtics owners deserve kudos for forcing Baker to address his alcoholism. Why the owners in Seattle never did that -- and they knew about it, make no mistake -- is mystifying. But they didn't, and Baker regressed into the pathetic figure he was last season. There's no denying Baker's new physical look; that picture in the Globe spoke a thousand words. The unknown is Baker's fragile psyche. Has that part of him been similarly reconstructed? If it has, the Celtics might actually be in a position to get something, which is huge because Baker is on the books for three years and $44 million. But he also turns 32 in November and has a lot of miles on the wheels.

9. Larry in Detroit: Larry Brown can coach. We all know that. From an instructional standpoint, there's probably no one better. But he also can agitate and aggravate, as we saw, all too often, in Philadelphia. And he says some truly mind-boggling things, one of the latest being that Thomas would have gotten the Detroit job had Indiana fired him sooner. In other words, you get the whole package with Brown. In Detroit, he inherits a team that overachieved spectacularly under Carlisle. But it's also a team with enough good young players that there still is a lot of room for improvement and growth. It'd be hard to find a better first pro coach for Darko Milicic. And that's where Brown comes into play. He up and left the Sixers to get this job, and the Pistons axed a 50-win coach to get Brown. So they deserve each other. But his track record is one of success. The Pistons have been division champs the last two years and got to the conference finals last year. That is where Brown has to start.

10. The Timberwolves reload: Call it what you will, a desperate move to get out of the first round or an obvious move to persuade Kevin Garnett to stick around past this season. Either way, the Timberwolves didn't sit idly by and watch the West get better. On paper, they have a significantly upgraded team. But, as with the Lakers, some of the new additions (Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell) are players who have a history of wanting the ball. And while Garnett has never been accused of that, it could lead to some contentious moments. But Kevin McHale noted that he'd rather have guys who want the ball, and that won't be a problem. The Wolves also have Michael Olowokandi in the middle and Ervin Johnson as a backup and are said to be looking at Jason Collier as well. In fact, only four players are on the active roster from last year's team, which won 51 games: Troy Hudson, Garnett, Gary Trent, and Wally Szczerbiak. Saunders might be one NBA head coach who wishes for a lot more practice time.