JUST BECAUSE one NBA team overpays a player, that doesn’t mean a relatively comparable player from another team is entitled to a cloned contract. Yet that’s the perverse position plagiaristic agents espouse. In fact, it’s what many of them do best.
Then again, sometimes lack of originality and inflexibility during such negotiations can be excused. Sometimes, er, often, it’s not the agents’ fault they’re demanding mad money, but the fault of the team for infecting the bargaining table with overpriced newcomers.
That’s why there’s nothing confusing about Andrei Kirilenko’s resolve to out-leverage Jazz/car dealership owner Larry Miller, whose summer flings with counterfeit Olympian Carlos Boozer and Pistons part-timer Mehmet Okur have transformed him from fiscally responsible to a certified spendthrift, far exceeding the Blue Book value on both guys.
That’s why the 6-9 forward, whose sheet music is as versatile and harmonious as it gets, is convinced he’s worth every bit as much as the Grizzlies bestowed on counterpart (minus the All-Star cluster) Pau Gasol and appreciably more than Boozer ($68 million for six) and Okur ($50M for six) wrung from the Jazz.
That’s why, in spite of the bald-faced fact Kirilenko never will be mistaken for a go-to guy, Marc Fleisher refuses to accept a penny less for his client than the $86M Gasol will pocket over the next six seasons, thanks to the dubious generosity of Michael Heisley.
Undeterred by the luxury tax – on the way out, it appears, in the next collective bargaining agreement – clearly the Grizzlies owner wants to win a championship at all cost. Gasol, a gawky 7-foot contortionist around the hoop, making him a complex cover, is the richest exhibit of that end, despite being commonly perceived as a fuzzy franchise player, deficient defensive rebounder and an easy mark when his man turns and faces or begins backing him down.
You know Gasol must be “some kind of pig” on offense for Hubie Brown to endure such shortcomings without questioning his manhood. On the flip side, I suspect, Brown would take back half of everything he’s ever said about Darrell Walker for the opportunity to coach Kirilenko, a tougher, more inexorable version of Hubie’s favorite Grizzly, James Posey.
All of which, of course, is irrelevant to the case in point: Gasol’s defects may get accentuated and exploited (when not starring for Spain), yet he proved to be no bargain at the bargaining table, nonetheless.
Kirilenko’s only chance to execute a spectacular score of his own before the Oct. 31 extension deadline is if Miller downs a dose of reality; the surest and shortest route to seeding tension, if not all out dissension, is to make a financial fuss over recruits at the expense (so to speak) of established veterans. Having polluted the atmosphere, Miller now needs to treat his quasi-leading man on the same loaded scale as the two incoming glorified role players were weighed.
Otherwise Miller is asking for disorder in his court. And Kirilenko must play out this season at his current salary ($1.67M), become a restricted free agent come July 1, and hope the Cavaliers figure out how to get far enough under the cap to make the Jazz (over)pay for bagging Boozer.
This just in: Boozer’s wife swears Kirilenko will never leave the Jazz.
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Phil Jackson has spewed so much venom toward Kobe Bryant, the Eagle County DA called to ask Kobe if he wanted to press charges, reports column castigator Frank Drucker.
Jackson stopped short of placing Kobe in a drug-crazed orgy with Tatum O’Neal, though sources swear Dan Rather is feverishly looking into that.
According to Big Chief Triangle, the whole episode forced him to see a therapist, a shock for anyone in Hollywood, I grant you.
Among the vitriol, Jackson professed he became so frustrated with the petulant prodigy that he told Mitch Kupchak as far back as January that “I won’t coach this team next year if he is still here. He won’t listen to anyone. I’ve had it with this kid.”
Of course, had Jackson really wanted to discuss his displeasure about Kobe, he should have gone right to the one man who handles all Lakers personnel matters: Kobe.
This never would have happened had Jackson taken the Nets job way back when. Who knows, he might have turned into this generation’s Bill Blair.
The league immediately endorsed copies of the book for its “Read To Achieve” program.
Caught some of the third presidential debate. As if there wasn’t already enough hot air in the desert. Personally, when I want the straight skinny in Arizona, there’s only one solid citizen’s word I always respect: Richard Dumas.
As the league’s two-game (Rockets/Kings) exhibition in China embarked, David Stern was asked if it was a bit intimidating to visit a country of a billion people. “Not really,” he said. “We have Shawn Kemp and Calvin Murphy hard at work trying to bridge that gap.”
Dikembe Mutombo certainly has come a long way. During his first trip to China, his roommate was Marco Polo, and the Great Wall was nothing more than a rickshaw speed bump.