ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 29, 1996 TAG: 9608290053
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Jack Bogaczyk
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Monty Hall has not replaced David Stern as NBA commissioner. It just seems that way.
With a new collective bargaining agreement and salaries that somehow fit under a salary cap that figures to make a few players really big-headed, the NBA has spent a summer playing musical uniforms.
Dell Curry and Bimbo Coles shared the podium Wednesday night for the opening of the Roanoke Valley Sports Club's 1996-97 year and the former Virginia Tech stars did so in the minority.
They're two NBA players who weren't traded, released, re-signed or renounced this summer. Since July 1, 201 NBA players have been involved in transactions.
Where the league is going - besides to the bank - is anyone's guess. However, this random changing of teams, even by the game's biggest names like Shaquille O'Neal and Charles Barkley, resembles where major league baseball began on the road to its ruin.
It wasn't that long ago that the NBA was climbing to pro sports' rafters on the charisma of rookies Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, then Michael Jordan and a dignified doctor of dunking and statesmanship, Julius Erving.
We knew the players and the teams. Now, trying to figure out who's where is going to take more than Marv Albert's crack staff. Albert calls games for the New York Knicks, who really will be ``new'' next season.
There always has been some off-season movement in the NBA, but it's never been this crazy, and we're not just talking about Shaq's seven-year, $121 million deal with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Curry will be starting his ninth season with Charlotte, his third NBA club in 11 years. His longevity with the Hornets is exceeded among active players (with the same club) by less than 10 of his peers - Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Karl Malone, John Stockton and Patrick Ewing among them.
Coles was moved last season by Miami to Golden State in the deal for Tim Hardaway. He's been told by the Warriors he's going nowhere, but the Warriors also have B.J. Armstrong and newly signed Mark Price as point guards.
``They say you won't be traded,'' Coles said, ``but in the NBA, you learn a lot of times they do what they say they won't do.''
Curry, Muggsy Bogues, George Zidek are the only current Hornets who began last season in Charlotte. Half of the 12-man roster this season will be new since April, along with coach Dave Cowens. Curry finds great irony there.
``For years, I was the guy that always was going to be traded,'' Curry said. ``I was in every deal.''
The new labor deal and a $24.3 million salary cap for 1996-97 have brought change to more than 58 percent of the players in the league, including Roanoke's George Lynch, dealt from the Lakers to Vancouver so Los Angeles could put Shaq in the post in Hollywood.
``I don't know what's going to happen when people come to the end of their contracts,'' Curry said. ``In the NFL, a lot of guys get cut because of their salaries. The only difference is that in the NBA, contracts are guaranteed.
``The way it's going, you're going to have two guys making $10 million a year and the other 10 guys on the team making the minimum ($270,000 this season). That's where it's headed. I think what you're going to see is teams trying to sign guys before they can get to free agency, to keep them.''
Coles said he doesn't expect a repeat of this summer's player movement in the near future. ``A little movement is good for the league,'' he said. ``Every year, it can't be good.''
For game program sales, it is.
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines KEYWORDS: BASKETBALLby CNB