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| ALSO SEE Niners wait to cut Phillips, work out Hostetler
Hawks suspend Rider for Tuesday's game vs. Hornets
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NBA East: Hawks have a problem | | | ||
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Tuesday, November 16
Phillips' play made him expendable
Special to ESPN.com
Item: San Francisco running back Lawrence Phillips yells at his position coach during a practice, laughs when his head coach tries to talk to him about it, and refuses to take part in some drills. Phillips is suspended pending his full release by the 49ers, who affirm that he will never play for them again.
Item: Atlanta Hawks guard Isaiah Rider misses the start of training camp, demands that the Hawks either make him "the man" or "get me out of here," then fails to show for a practice. Atlanta suspends Rider for one game, with the full expectation that he will rejoin the team immediately and resume being the focal point of its offense. From the handling of these two cases, we can conclude that there is a substantial difference in the way that Phillips and Rider, both career problem children, are currently perceived. Indeed, this is true, and the central difference is this: Lawrence Phillips stinks. Elsewhere on the Dot.Com, you can read brother Ray Ratto's take on the Phillips situation. Ray argues that Phillips undoubtedly will get a shot with some other NFL team, and there's every reason to fear that's true. But the larger truth here is that Phillips' real crime with the 49ers wasn't being a disruptive idiot -- they knew that about Phillips going in -- but in being pointless as a player. His sheer mediocrity on the field unquestionably hastened the team's impatience with his, er, lesser qualities as a roster member. Phillips may indeed land somewhere else in the league, but it won't be as an important component of any offense -- and in the NFL, a lack of athletic value is the only misdeed that people cannot truly forgive. Isaiah Rider, meanwhile, is many things, some of them unprintable on a family web site. But he remains an absolutely vital player, assuming he suits up. For that reason, and that reason alone, he'll be forgiven and forgiven and forgiven -- right up to the moment that he no longer can carry a team with a single brilliant offensive burst. "We knew his history extremely well," said Atlanta general manager Pete Babcock, who acquired Rider from Portland in the Steve Smith trade. "This isn't a surprise. (But) We're disappointed." Translated: Sure, he's a nut. But as long as he can drain that 22-footer, he's our nut. For want of a better term, we'll call this the Howe-ing of American sport. It is an axiom based upon the case study of former Major League pitcher Steve Howe, who took (and failed) so many drug tests over the years that when he walked into the doping-control area, the administrators all shouted out, "Norm!" Howe was a deeply tormented man who, for all the lure of big-time baseball, simply could not keep himself clean. But instead of drawing a firm line, major-league team after major-league team gave him fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh chances. Baseball, with its happy amnesia concerning Howe's obvious problems, became an unwitting enabler in the man's dreadful personal collapse. Why? Well, for the most apparent reason in the world: Steve Howe could pitch. Howe could pitch, and Michael Irvin can play football, and Rider is a great basketball talent, and Darryl Strawberry -- well, heck, is America not the land of second chances? Don't we believe that, after a man has done his penance, it would be just plain wrong to deny him a fair return to his chosen field? That's exactly what we believe, so long as (1) The person in question is an athlete, (2) The athlete is a really good one, and (3) It's our team he's returning to. I don't know what Isaiah Rider will have to do to wear out his welcome, but I'd bet the ranch that it'd have something to do with losing the touch on his long-range jumper. As Lawrence Phillips found out, the point at which they no longer can tolerate your behavior usually coincides with the point at which cutting you loose doesn't really affect them in the slightest. There are any number of ways you can go wrong in this world. There is exactly one way to go wrong in professional sports, and that is to become unsurpassing at them.Mark Kreidler is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, which has a web site at http://www.sacbee.com/.
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