It was grammatically correct this time, but the feelings Tracy McGrady
expressed a couple of weeks ago -- "the ship is sinking," he said of his
Toronto Raptors franchise -- evoked the same feeling from Micheal Ray
Richardson's infamous "the ship be sinking" retort of his team's chances in
the 1980s.
The Raptors tried to put a pretty bow on their team turmoil by righting
themselves, beating up on a couple of bad teams to qualify for the playoffs
last week and then pummeling the Knicks at home. But, make no mistake,
Toronto's chemistry is one beaker away from blowing up the lab.
|  | | Tracy McGrady has a ton of talent, and will likely be using it elsewhere next season. |
The Raptors will make the postseason for the first time, but their
future is still very uncertain. In fact, everyone's future, from coach Butch
Carter on down -- save for Vincent Lamar Carter's -- is still on eggshells.
Toronto's team meeting produced a lot of shouting -- a lot of it directed
McGrady's way, some Butch Carter's. Veterans are tired of McGrady's
shoot-at-any time mentality and Butch Carter's kid-glove treatment of Vince
Carter and McGrady. The kids are upset with the veterans' all-talk, no-board-work attitude. Everyone wants Dee Brown out of the rotation. (But he's back in.) And no promises at season's end.
I asked McGrady if a solid win over the woeful Hawks after the team
meeting made things all right.
"Nah," McGrady said. "The ship is still sinking. We ain't really done
anything."
These are not words that you want to hear from your 21-year-old
free-agent-to-be.
The vets wanted more from Vince Carter. Not deeds, words. They want him to be the vocal leader of the bunch as much, if not more, than the above-the-rim leader.
"Kevin (Willis) had a great point of view about Vince," Charles Oakley
said. "He has to realize that this is his team and it's not just about
scoring or getting the hype. You have to do all the little aspects of being
the man of a team."
"Well, when it got to me, I really didn't have much to say, 'cause
everything was really said," Carter reported. "I'm a great listener, and
what everybody said was probably what everybody was thinking, they just put
it out a different way. So it was really getting beat in the ground, we just
need to turn it around and so, I didn't really have much to say and I just
said, 'We need to check ourselves at the door, every day, from here on out.'"
McGrady said everyone got something off their chest during the
three-hour meeting. And he didn't take the criticism personally.
"I think a lot of guys were frustrated because of playing time," he
said. "That could be a factor. But I don't know. As long as we got that out
of the way ... I didn't feel singled out. Everyone spoke a little. I was one
of the guys that spoke up. I didn't want to have anything on my chest, and
we hold a meeting and nobody said anything. It was good for the team.
Everyone's coming out and really playing hard now."
If everyone does their part, as the Raptors did last week, there's no
problem. If Antonio Davis plays big and commands double-teams inside,
there's no problem. If Oakley rebounds and defends with purpose, and
throttles the next guy who tries to take Vinsanity out, there's no problem.
If Butch Carter stops picking unwinnable fights with the hockey-mad parent
company, there's no problem. Vince Carter screams at Davis to get inside and
take his guy to the rack, there's no problem. If McGrady defends and blocks
shots and runs the floor all the time, there's no problem.
Otherwise, there's a big problem.
"We're trying," McGrady said, "to pull the ship back up."
A Stern response
The Commish insists I've got it all wrong about this developmental
league. He reiterated in a conference call last week that the new league
will not emphasize or even have high schoolers and otherwise unprepared
teenagers on its teams' rosters.
"We're going to have the same single enterprise structure of the
separate entity in this league. Same as the WNBA," he said. Meaning that the
league will own all the teams, as opposed to eight or 10 individual owners.
And that means, in Stern's view, that the league can unilaterally implement
age limits on players without the consent of the players' union. If Stern
has his way, that means no players just out of high school.
"The WNBA has a rule in practice, has made the business decision,
that it will only have those (players) whose college classes have
graduated," Stern said. "It's our inclination as an organization to make
some decisions that won't have us employing high school graduates as the
majority of our players. Any employer has the ability to decide what the
qualifications should be for employment ... it's one company making its own
business decisions. We don't even think there's an issue to be raised."
The league thinks there are around 1,600 players who go abroad every year --
after college or being cut from NBA training camps -- to play basketball. That
group will comprise the bulk of the players in the new league.
"We're looking to get the next Mario Elie to not play in Portugal or
Ireland," Stern said. "We'd like to have him have a place in the U.S., where
he'd be looked at."
Around The League
Not exactly a show of force from Stephon Marbury when I asked him if
he'd intervene with management to save Don Casey from a seemingly certain
cashiering at the end of the season. "I don't have nothing to do with that,"
he said. "That's all on them guys. The owners, they definitely know exactly
what they're doing, because they wouldn't never have gotten into this field
if they didn't. I'm sure they're going to do the best thing for this team. I
think that's the most important thing for them to do ... I think coach Casey
wants that, too."
Okay ... Dikembe Mutombo says that he'll go to management at season's end
and ask for a say-so before the brass makes any moves this offseason.
Mutombo is still miffed that he wasn't consulted before Isaiah Rider was
brought in.
If Ron Mercer expects a big payday this offseason from the
Magic, he has to show he's worth the ducats this week. Entering Monday's showdown with the Bucks, Ray Allen had averaged 29 a game in three outings
against Orlando. The Magic play the Raptors and Messrs. McGrady and Carter on Wednesday. "Don't think that hasn't come up this week," a Magic Man said of Mercer's audition.
Nothing much to speak of from the Nike
Desert Classic last week after a dozen or so of the top players pulled out.
Indiana's A.J. Guyton was named MVP, but "he didn't even play that good," one
personnel man says. "Well, he was okay, let me say that. But just okay at
best."
Speaking of Indiana, Beantown media is trying to talk themselves into Larry
Bird returning if Rick Pitino indeed takes a powder after this season. But
as long as Paul Gaston is signing the checks up there, Bird won't ever
entertain the idea of coming back. Bird has to decide whether to move into
the Pacers' front office after this season to run the show or retire to his
family in Naples, Fla. "I like it here and I have an opportunity to stay
here," Bird said when I brought up the Boston Scenario last week. "And we're
just going to wait until after the season to see how everything unfolds."
Meanwhile, Bird continues to be perplexed by his on-again, off-again
team. He gave them light practice time earlier this month and they responded
by almost losing at home to the Nets and Cavaliers. "They tend to get soft
when they win a couple of games," he said. "They start feeling good about
themselves and they don't work as hard." Chief among Bird's works in
progress is Jalen Rose, who almost became the first player in a decade other
than Reggie Miller to lead the team in scoring. "Jalen is so talented," Bird
said. "I mean, there is no question about it. He's got skills that he hasn't
even tapped yet. But it's up to him to get the rest of it out of him. That's
by hard work and practice on a consistent basis. Jalen is up and down in
practice. He don't come to work every day. But he's better than he used to
be, and that's why he's had more success."
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Keep in mind, Bird says all this with a smile on his face.
"I mean, if he plays at this level next year, he'll probably be on the
All-Star team," Bird continued. "But does he want to be a great player? Does
he want to be on the All-Star team on a consistent basis? And I think Jalen
does. It's just to get him motivated and get him thinking (in) the right
direction, to come to work every day. He's been better this year, but he
still has a ways to go."
Being the straight-up kid he is, Rose has no problem with what Bird
says.
"Larry wants for me what I want from me," Rose said. "He wants me to
become my full potential and we feel like I have the potential to become a
superstar. In order to do that, you gotta bring it every day, and I don't
mind the pressure coming from Larry Bird. He was one of the greatest players
of all-time, and he knows what it takes to be great. It's different
listening to somebody that doesn't know what it takes to be great as opposed
to listening to Larry Legend. So if that's what he says, then that's what I
need to do."
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