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		ALSO SEE Ainge resigns as Suns coach; Skiles takes over Barkley released from hospital two days after surgery Aldridge: Odom talks, plays like veteran

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NFL

Sunday, December 19
Ainge's sudden life change for real

By David Aldridge
Special to ESPN.com

Jerry Colangelo was watching his Phoenix Suns play in Dallas last Saturday night, when something troubled him. He picked up the phone and called his son, Bryan, the team's president.

"I had sensed a change in his persona," Jerry Colangelo told me Tuesday morning. "Saturday night, when we lost in Dallas, I said 'Bryan, I'm looking at Danny, his facial expression and his body language. And if I didn't know any better, I'd say he's throwing it in.' "

Danny Ainge
Ainge stepped down to devote more time to his wife and six children.

Jerry Colangelo turned out to be prophetic, of course. But being a professional cynic, of course, I figured there had to be more to Ainge's sudden resignation than just a desire to be with his family. Certainly, he had these pangs before. Surely, he wanted to spend time with his six kids during the summer, when he could have resigned.

Naturally, all the rumblings that Ainge and assistant coach Scott Skiles didn't really care for one another were the true nexus of Ainge's decision to walk away. Obviously, Colangelo's public criticism of the team when it was .500 three weeks ago was a shot across Ainge's bow, a warning that the Stormin' Mormon was in big trouble.

All of that is possible.

But is it likely?

There's one thing that doesn't make any sense.

If Jerry Colangelo wanted to fire Ainge, why would Ainge walk, and forfeit the $5 million that was due him over the next two-plus years? Why wouldn't he force Colangelo to write that big severance check?

"Danny thinks the game should be played a certain way," a Suns insider hypothesized. Meaning, even though the Suns ripped off seven straight wins before an inexplicable collapse in Big D, they weren't playing the kind of passionate (occasionally dirty), selfless game that Ainge learned in Boston and tried to bring to Portland and Phoenix. (Remember how frustrated Ainge got with the fraternization of the Blazers with the Bulls during the '92 Finals?)

Meaning, perhaps, that Ainge knew his team was doing the best it could, and still wasn't going to be good enough over the long haul to deal with the Spurs and Lakers and Blazers and, maybe, Kings. And with that as a backdrop, maybe it was easier for Ainge to hear the call of his family. Maybe he was more ready to listen to his own heart.

"During the summer, Danny told me, 'We've got a really good team, and if we don't win, it's my fault,'" Colangelo said. "I was trying to give the guys a little bit of a message (with his public criticism). The guys, not Danny. And I think it worked a little bit. I wanted to see more effort."

Sometimes, life is messy. Sometimes, there aren't easy answers. If you think there's a smoking gun involved in Danny Ainge's sudden life change, I think you're wrong.

Goodbye, Sir Charles
My NBA died last Wednesday in Philadelphia, when Charles Barkley blew out his knee and left the floor for the last time.

This is not to say there aren't young, exciting superstars in the league. There are. Kevin Garnett. Allen Iverson. Tim Duncan. Shaq. Kobe.

And this is not to say there aren't any number of old pros still kicking around. There are. Stockton. Malone. Robinson. Richmond. Ewing.

But Barkley was the last of that '80s group that truly got it. He understood better than anybody that you could have a profane conversation with a writer one day and that it wouldn't be held against you the next night. He understood that a reporter with a full notebook was a happy one. Ask him a question, you got an answer. It might not be well thought out. It might not be the same answer you'd get the next night. But you'd get one. None of this hiding out in the trainer's room.

So when Barkley limped into an interview room at the FleetCenter for what would be our Sunday Conversation last Friday, he wasn't the only melancholy one.

"Can't drink after midnight," he said, clutching a longneck. Surgery was the next morning, in Houston. "Gotta get it all in."

He was on the bench for his team's game with the Celtics, but he really wasn't there emotionally.

"It's been a hard day, because I know they're leaving me, and I'm not going to see them for a long time," he started. "Normally, when you sit out a game, (you say) 'well, I'm going to be back. Soon.' But now, you think about it all day and during the game. I'm like, 'I'm not going to be back soon.' And that's hard ... I know I'm not going to play anymore. And you have to compound that, when you have to say goodbye to your teammates."

We talked about a lot of things. His toughest opponent. (He hasn't wavered in 10 years on this. Kevin McHale.) His favorite teammates. Politics. (He doesn't hold out much hope for the Reform Party.) Race. Sex. Scottie. ("I've never said a bad word about Scottie," Barkley said. "Scottie said something bad about me.") The usual dinner plate of BarkleySpeak.

He's come around a bit on the role model debate.

"I think athletes are role models," he told me. "But it all comes back to your parents. And until people understand that and accept that, we're always going to have problems. I wish every little kid could make it in a professional sport, but that's unrealistic. But I want kids to listen to their parents. In the commercial, I challenged the parents to be better role models and better parents. I think for me personally, it's a big deal to be a father.

"Obviously, I've had a strained relationship with my father my whole life. And that, more than anything, changed my perception of me and my daughter. I know that I did not want to have the type of relationship that me and my father had. But I wanted to be a great father. And I think I will become a great father. I think I'm a good father now. But I realize that once basketball is over, that will give me the opportunity to be a great father."

He disclosed that he brokered a meeting 10 years ago between himself, commissioner David Stern and referee Mike Mathis to try and end the feud between himself and the official that went on another decade. With no successful resolution. "I think it's important for people to realize that in sports, whether it's baseball or basketball, the two most prevalent sports, there are some officials that hold grudges," he said. "And that's not fair ... when (Mathis) went to jail (as one of the officials involved in the referee's income tax evasion scandal), I called him. I said 'Listen, even though we've had our problems, and I'm not a big fan of yours, I don't want anybody to go to jail.' It disappointed me that he never let the grudge go."

(I tried to reach Mathis for comment on this. Unsuccessfully.)

Barkley said he'll rehab by himself, without his wife, Maureen, or his daughter, Christiana, in town.

"I've had major injuries before, and it's a miserable time," he said. "It's so tedious. The only thing that's funny is that you think you're a big, strong guy. I remember when I tore my rotator. You think you're a big, strong guy, and the first day, you can only lift one pound. And the next day, you can only lift two pounds. And you think, 'I have to do this for three or four hours a day?' And it's just a miserable time, and I don't want anybody else miserable around me."

It was fitting that his last public appearance, for a while, was in Boston. There were the usual video tributes to Barkley's career, and there were, no joke, hundreds of Celtics fans who walked up to him during the game just to tell him how much his play was appreciated. That's why Barkley flew to Boston and put off his surgery two days.

"I realize that Bill Russell is 10 times as good a player as I'll ever be, and I know that I make more in one year than he made in his entire career," Barkley said. "But I know I have an obligation to him. I have an obligation to Oscar Robertson, John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Dr. J., Moses. I have an obligation to those guys to take the spirit of the game forward."

I have so many favorite Barkley memories. But two stand out. One was in Barcelona, during the 1992 Olympics. The Dream Team was in full flower, and its members were at the height of their powers. Every night, thousands of locals and tourists walked down a boulevard in downtown known as "Las Ramblas." You saw anything and everything on the Ramblas. Yuppies and bums; actors and addicts.

And, most nights, Charles Barkley. No entourage. No bodyguard. Keep in mind, the rest of the team was sequestered at a local hotel, with armed guards out front to keep the non-stars from coming in. And there, amidst the masses, walked Barkley. Chasing the night, looking for fun.

The other memory came a year later, late in the Phoenix night. The Suns had just lost the NBA Finals to the Bulls in heartbreaking fashion, blowing a four-point lead in the last 45 seconds. No one was more crestfallen than Barkley, who wanted so badly to win the championship that would finally silence his critics. But the Bulls wouldn't allow it.

After filing our late stories, a few of us (then) sportswriters gathered at a restaurant for a late dinner, when who should pull up but Barkley. He couldn't go home, he said. He was still reliving the game's final moments. He sat with us for a few minutes, and while we started the visit trying to cheer him up, by the time he got up and left a few minutes later, he had us in stitches. Most of what he said I cannot repeat in a family online column.

Which was the great Barkley Contradiction. If you weren't there, and you just read his words in print, you'd likely come to a much different conclusion about his malevolence than if you were standing two inches from him. He was funniest at his most profane. If you weren't there when he taunted Manute Bol about hunting dinner with a spear, you wouldn't find it nearly as funny as I did, who was there.

He was the damn life of the party. I told him this after we finished talking, and I say it now.

Thank you, Charles.

It's been one hell of a ride.

Where will he go?
Despite the Nuggets' (for them) decent start, Ron Mercer hardly sounds like a guy who's planning to stick around and be part of the team's future.

	ALDRIDGE'S RANKINGS
	THE TOP 10 1. L.A. Lakers 2. Miami 3. Portland 4. San Antonio 5. Utah 6. Sacramento 7. Indiana 8. Seattle 9. Phoenix 10. Charlotte THE BOTTOM FIVE 25. New Jersey 26. Washington 27. Vancouver 28. Golden State 29. Chicago

Mercer thought he had a contract extension worked out with Denver before he was traded from the Celtics, but Dan Issel didn't see it that way. So Mercer is playing out his final season, leading the Nuggets in scoring -- and putting out one heck of a résumé for prospective buyers next summer.

"I wished I could answer it at the beginning of the season. I wish I could answer it now," Mercer said about his future. "I want to do a lot more winning. I want to look at one of the veteran teams that's used to winning."

Teammates know the situation is tenuous. "He doesn't say much, but we know it's on his mind," Nick Van Exel said.

It's not that Mercer is unhappy in Denver. He loves playing with Van Exel. He says Issel, unlike Rick Pitino, gives him the green light offensively.

"I'll give you an example," he said. "We were playing a scrimmage during training camp and I had an open three and I didn't take it. Dan was upset. I came to the bench and he said, 'Why didn't you take that? I have confidence you can make it.' I didn't have that in Boston. I just have the confidence and the freedom this time."

But that doesn't mean he'll be a Nugget next season.

News & Notes

The Raptors have been scouting the Pacers a lot lately. Could be the regular in-season preparation for a division opponent. Could be a team looking hard at Mark Jackson.

With Barkley gone, and Hakeem Olajuwon on the shelf another month or so, Houston's youth movement starts a lot sooner than it wanted. When Barkley got hurt, "it was almost impossible to concentrate on that game," Walt Williams said. "It was just a terrible situation. But I think everybody's pretty much been upbeat. We've got to go on. We've got a big hill to climb now."

The Celtics have all but abandoned pressing and trapping with their starting unit. Boston will trap with its reserves, when Dana Barros, Calbert Cheaney, Walter McCarty and rapidly improving Tony Battie are on the floor. "I tried one time with the Knicks to press with (Bill) Cartwright and (Patrick) Ewing together," Pitino said. "Then I took a step back, and I said, 'Wait a second. There are certain people who fit the press, and there are people who do not.'"

The recent deaths of Pop Gates and John McClendon, two pioneers in basketball, received very little fanfare. That's unfortunate.

Gates was a star for the famous Harlem Rens professional team in the 1930s and helped break the professional basketball color line in 1946. McClendon learned the game from James Naismith at Kansas; McClendon's Tennessee State team was the first black school to win a national basketball championship, in 1957.

Among McClendon's many coaching innovations was the four corners offense later made famous by Dean Smith at North Carolina. And the success of his teams helped open the door for players from historically black colleges to get to the NBA.

Quote of the Week
"Well, he's really tight with the Pearl Jam guys."
-- Sonics VP Wally Walker, musing on Dennis Rodman's possible motivation for starting the preposterous rumor that he'd soon be playing in Seattle with the Sonics.


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