| Friday, March 17
By David Aldridge Special to ESPN.com |
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| | Sean Elliott returned to the Spurs this week, and the crowd loved it. | Noel Elliott, who seems at first glance to be a humble sort, put his
contribution to his brother Sean in simple perspective last Tuesday.
"I'm just the brother that donated a kidney," Noel Elliott said.
Perhaps it's just that simple. But Noel Elliott's sacrifice allowed Sean
Elliott to step back on the basketball court this week, to a thundering,
goose-bump-inducing ovation at the Alamodome. It was one of the best moments
in the NBA in a long, long time.
It simply does not matter what Sean Elliott does the rest of this
season, whether he contributes next to nothing to the Spurs' defense of
their championship. No one wanted him to come back seven months after his
kidney transplant. Not his teammates. Not his coach. He had his ring and he
would have had the rest of his money. He did this on his own, pestering and
pleading, being the first in the weight room and the practice floor, because
he wanted to play again.
"I've met a lot of people across the country who're going through the
same thing I am," Sean Elliott said Tuesday. "It gives a lot of those people
a lot of encouragement. They can't be so afraid when they see me go out and
play NBA basketball. They know they'll be able to resume their lives. And
not just those people. But other people that are facing ordinary problems.
You can always bounce back."
The game was a little fast for him, and he was too fast trying to catch
up. But that's just a timing issue. His instincts were good. His presence
opened up space for Avery Johnson on the pick and roll. But again, none of
that matters.
Elliott was self-deprecating as he approached his return ("the guys have
a pool to see when I'll collapse," he said at shootaround). But the moment
was overwhelming. And the Spurs, for the first time this season, had the
same lineup that won the championship in Madison Square Garden on the floor.
They were made whole. So was Elliott. He played on a team with a living
distraction in its midst -- Dennis Rodman, in 1994. Every day, questions about
Dennis. It got old. So too, Elliott suspected, were questions his teammates
had to answer about him. Now, he's back, to give whatever he can to the
teammates that believed in him.
"I'm just going to go out and play hard," he said. "I think, after going
through what I went through, and to come back, if I don't give 100 percent
every night, I'm going to be extremely disappointed in myself."
He flew his family and his doctors into San Antonio Tuesday to share the
moment. So many reporters wanted to talk to Noel Elliott before the game
that he had to have his own press conference. And someone asked him during
that conference what he made out of all this.
"The biggest thought," Noel Elliott said, "is, 'all this over a kidney?'"
As a matter of fact, yes.
Don't cry for Hersey
He is a veteran shooting guard. He has been on a Finals team. He has
yet to win a ring. He is playing in obscurity in Chicago, nearing the end of
his career.
How come no one is crying for Hersey Hawkins?
How come John Starks gets gullible writers all misty-eyed with his
desire to play for a contender, but no one makes a case for Hawkins -- who was
on a much better team in Seattle than Starks was at Golden State when he was
traded to Chicago. How come Starks goes through the union and the unending
process -- which now won't end until next Tuesday, at the earliest -- to be
freed from his Bulls contract, but no lawyer makes a call on the Hawk's
behalf?
Because Hersey Hawkins doesn't let them.
"They pay me to play basketball," Hawkins said last week. "I'm not
quitting."
Hawkins plays every night for a simply horrifying Bulls team. And,
unless he retires (unlikely, since there's $4.6 million on line for 2000-01)
or is traded, he'll do it again next season. That means he'll end an
honorable, 13-year career without a ring.
"There have been lots of great players in this league who haven't won a
championship," Hawkins said. "You have to suck it up and play ... I understand
how (Starks) feels. and I hope things work out for him. But that has not
been a center of topic for us. We have not discussed him and what the heck
is going on. That's the unique thing about this team. It honestly hasn't
been a distraction."
Hawkins, like Bulls coach Tim Floyd, thought Starks could have been a
great help for a young team in desperate need of leadership.
"I think he could really contribute to this team," Hawkins said. "He's
not going to win a lot of games, but he's going to get shots. He's going to
get minutes. And that's going to help him wherever he goes next year."
There was a lot of trade speculation around Hawkins before the
deadline. A lot of teams in search of a hired gun off the bench could have
used him. But nobody wants a contract that doesn't end after this season.
The likelihood is that Hawkins won't get hardware. What will he do then?
"Go out gracefully, I guess," he said. "I don't know what's going to
transpire over the summer, but I've had fun being back in Chicago, being
home. The losing is tough to deal with. But it's basketball. I have a great
living. And if I don't win a championship, life goes on."
Jordan impact is felt -- no matter where he is
Let me try to be clear on this.
This "controversy" in Washington about whether Michael Jordan should be
in attendance at MCI Center for Wizards games is the stupidest, most moronic
non-story since Monica Lewinsky's autobiography.
Otherwise intelligent people in the nation's capital, like my friend
Tony (the Rainmaker) Kornheiser, are foaming at the mouth when they look up
into owner Abe Pollin's box and ... and ... don't see MJ! What
are we to do? Doesn't he care? We need to worship at the hem
of his (very expensive) garment. Pleeeze, Mr. Jordan! Let us gaze upon you
and worship in your Michaelness!
Oh, grow up.
This notion that, somehow, Jordan is shirking his responsibilities if
he's not front and center, like Nero, at every Wizards home game is a
canard. He's not a greeter at a casino; he's a general manager (or president
of basketball operations, whatever the title is). He wears a suit and tie.
He has as much impact on the game as the other suits and ties.
Is Jim Paxson at every Cavaliers' game? Don't know? That's right, you
don't. You don't know if any GM is at his team's game because
99 percent of them are as obscure as Louie Anderson's StairMaster. At this
time of year, most GMs and personnel guys aren't anywhere near their teams,
anyway -- they're out at the college conference and NCAA tournaments,
scouting.
Here's where Jordan can impact the Wizards. At practice. And by all
accounts, he's been a regular there. When Jordan puts on sweats and calls
out the heartless and gutless on the roster, he has an impact. When he
challenges Rod Strickland at the top of the key and gets more than the
minimal amount of sweat out of the Wiz's mercurial point guard, he has an
impact. When he stops to teach rookie Richard Hamilton how to use his hands
and arms to maximum defensive advantage, he has an impact. When he gathers
the team in a circle and talks to them, he has an impact.
And when he gets on the phone and trades half of them to the Clippers,
he'll have an impact.
Some will note that Jordan should sit next to Pollin while the team
suffers to take some of the heat off, to show that he's in it for the long
haul, to provide hope. There is, perhaps, some value to that -- although I
would humbly point out that nobody made Pollin buy a basketball team and
become a public person, and that as owner of the team, he has to take the
heat as long as he's taking the profits.
What this is really about, as it often is with Jordan, is celebrity.
People want to see Jordan because they know who he is and they like him. In
our current culture, they'd be perfectly happy sitting in front of a
television set and watching his bald head 24 hours a day. The typical Wiz
crowd is notably bereft of sizzle. MJ is sizzle.
I knocked Jordan a couple of months ago because I thought he should have been in town to fire Gar Heard, face to face. (And if the Warriors
hadn't reneged on their agreement to let Rod Higgins out of his contract,
Jordan would have been.) But that's a Big Thing. Being around to watch the
Wizards and Nets isn't.
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Around The League
If the Pistons are indeed serious about Bill Laimbeer coming to coach
them, it's not as strange a notion as you may think. "Bill and Isiah coached
us," a former member of the Bad Boys says. "They told us where to go. Bill
is smart and he's going to get in your face. Who's going to deny him?"
Tim
Hardaway remains upset that NBC's Bob Costas suggested, however innocently,
that the Olympic selection committee might consider replacing him with Vince
Carter because of his assorted injuries. "I heard about it, and I was kinda
mad," Hardaway said. "When the right time comes, if I see him again, and I'm
quite sure I'll see him again, I'll tell him about it. That was wrong of him
to say stuff like that." And Hardaway doesn't care about criticism of his
playing all summer instead of resting up his body. "I'm a gym rat," he says.
"I like to go out there and play and I'm going to have fun going out there
and playing. M_____ f___ what people think. And you can quote me on
that."
Add Heard: Mavericks added him this week to their growing list of
assistant coaches. And that makes me think that Isiah Thomas is going to be
involved with their team. When he was in Toronto, Thomas always talked about
having a coaching staff similar to those in football, with eight or nine
assistants working with the players individually.
Who does Phil Jackson think is as important to the Lakers'
title chances as anyone? Robert Horry. It is Horry, and not Bryant, that
Jackson envisions as the ball-hawker that Scottie Pippen was when the Bulls
used him to harass point guards from Magic Johnson to Mark Jackson.
"The
first practice I had, I challenged them all in various ways, from Kobe and
his maturing to Shaq and his weight, free throws, whatever," Jax said. "I
got to Robert and I said 'Robert, you're going to be the difference between
us being a really great team, a championship team, and just a good team.
Because if you play up to your capabilities, we can be a really good team,
because you have so many things to offer.' Rob kind of shied away from that
responsibility. That's kind of his personality, to back away from it. And
yet he started to embrace it more and more as the season went on, and be a
part of it."
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