ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 16, 1996 TAG: 9607160061
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BILL LYON
SOURCE: BILL LYON
So the NBA finally has accomplished what the robber barons and the industrial profiteers and the oil cartels and the drug lords have been unable to do.
It has made money utterly meaningless.
We have arrived at the age of the $100 million athlete.
The madness knows no boundaries now. We have lost all perspective. We may know all about price, but we know nothing about value.
The Miami Heat will be spending $200 million for two players - Alonzo Mourning and Juwan Howard. While that amount in itself is insane, what compounds the stupidity is that neither one of those players is close to being the best at his position, and neither one has produced anything of consequence in the postseason. Howard has never even played in the postseason.
Mourning is, at best, only the fourth-best center in the league. Howard is not even among the top 10 players in the league. And between them, they have won exactly no NBA championships.
And despite spending all that money, the Heat still might be no better than the third- or fourth-best team in the East. So not only is this profligacy, it is mindless profligacy. It is spending without considering the immediate consequences and without any regard to the future.
But the tone has been set, and now the feeding frenzy for free agents is on, and mark this down as the summer that the NBA began to strangle itself.
Because now that some owners have capitulated, the rest will follow. And the salary structure will be distorted beyond all reason. The owners have ensured that the players will be forever uncoachable and also unmovable. Whomever they sign from now on, they're going to be stuck with for the length of the contract.
When John Calapari became the Nets' new coach a few weeks ago, he said he needed to be paid at least as much as the second-highest salaried player on his team in order to have any sort of clout. Well, his salary of $3 million is going to look like a relative pittance before this spree is finished.
The trickle-down effect applies here, too. And where will the trickle finally end up? Where it always does, of course. Down your throat. You'll be asked to pay the freight. As usual.
This past season, the New York Knicks charged a thousand dollars a game for those Spike Lee courtside seats at Madison Square Garden. In the past couple of days, the Knicks have acquired three players on whom they will have to spend a total of $150 million - Larry Johnson, whose Grandmama commercials have been more productive than his play; Chris Childs, a point guard with average credentials; and Allan Houston, a shooting guard who might or might not be ready to blossom.
So what will those courtside seats cost this coming season? Only slightly more than the watered-down soda and tepid hot dogs. Eventually, no one will be able to afford to go to a game beyond those with corporate tax write-offs.
We have no compass now. We have no means to find our way and no way to measure worth. We pay single players more than the value of entire franchises, and where is the sense in that? Especially when the players are of modest ability.
Only Michael Jordan seems a bargain - at $25 million for one season.
Gary Payton offered this interesting perspective: ``Ninety million or 80 million - what's the difference? You still can't spend it all.''
No, you can't, no matter how determined a shopper you might be. Payton, incidentally, decided to sign for exactly halfway between $80 million and $90 million.
But really now, can you envision what that much money must look like?
Money, in sports, serves the same purpose it does everywhere else. It's the way we keep score. Not a very good way, to be sure, but there is no evidence to suggest it is going to be changing any time soon.
Ego becomes pivotal. If Mourning signs for $105 million, then Shaquille O'Neal reasons he should hold out for more. His thinking is justified, though, like Mourning, he has yet to win even one championship. Nor has he shown much inclination to spend summers developing his game (see free throws attempted, free throws missed).
At the moment, O'Neal finds himself being wooed by the Orlando Magic, which wants to keep him, and by the Los Angeles Lakers. Each becomes increasingly desperate. Each raises its bid.
``It's like you have two girlfriends and you want to marry both of them,'' O'Neal said.
Eventually, he will have to decide, and all we know for certain is that the winner will end up doing something extraordinarily stupid.
Bill Lyon is a sports columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.|
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: O'Neal (headshot) color.by CNB