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NFL

Thursday, October 28
Magic perform own disappearing act

By David Aldridge
Special to ESPN.com

Darrell Armstrong remembers waking up one morning this summer to have breakfast with his college coach and the coach's wife.


	The Magic could use Doc Rivers the player as well.

"And my college coach said 'you know, Ike (Austin) got traded,'" Armstrong said, laughing. "I got to ESPN, ESPN2, and start looking at those little transactions, what's going on, and I was like 'oh, my gracious, he did.'"

Another day, another Orlando Magic trade. They kept count in the Land of the Mouse this summer, and the final number was eight significant trades, involving 23 different players. Guys like Dale Ellis and Danny Manning were acquired and sent packing before they ever played a minute. And the heart of the team that took Orlando to the 1995 Finals -- Anfernee Hardaway, Nick Anderson, Horace Grant -- was ripped away.

"I was thinking," Armstrong said, "I was the last person to come ... on the championship team, and now I'm the last person to basically leave. I mean, everybody's gone."

It was, to be blunt, not the job that Doc Rivers signed on for. And suddenly, his four-year contract to coach wasn't long enough. A source says that Rivers asked for three more years when Hardaway was sent to Phoenix for Danny Manning, Pat Garrity and two first-round picks.

All Rivers will say is that he did want assurances from GM John Gabriel and team president Bob VanderWeide that he wouldn't be judged by this season's won-loss record.

"We've had a lot of discussions about that," Rivers said. "They came to me after all the trades and all the stuff that happened, and they said 'Doc, we understand it's not what you signed on for, but we're gonna be behind you, we're gonna try to do things for you to help you out in that regard.' And so far, they've been terrific. That's all I can ask for."

So Rivers is doing what coaches do: he's promising to be up-tempo. The difference is, he may actually do it. He has no choice. The stars of this team will be rookie guard Corey Maggette, second-year forward Matt Harpring and second year center Michael Doleac, fourth-year forward Ben Wallace, Armstrong and do-everything forward Bo Outlaw. Of that group, only Armstrong has reached his 30th birthday.

And thus, we smart guys have the Magic in the Atlantic Division basement this season.

"Everybody has their opinion," Maggette said, "but I feel that our team has really been working hard, and we believe we can win."

SHADES OF GRAY

A brief word about this Jim Gray business:

Jim Gray works for the opposition, NBC. I don't know the man personally. In my line of business, you cross paths with people like Gray, and you say hello, wave and move on. That's not knowing someone. So all I can do is judge people like Gray by the quality of their work.

Most of the time, his work is exemplary. On occasion, I've thought he was trying too hard to be Minister of Justice, Finder of Important Facts. But you can't argue with his work in boxing, where he has consistently been the only one of those alleged "reporters" who'll ask real questions. He did a post-fight interview with one of Butch Lewis's fighters once where he literally had to shout down a preening Lewis to ask the fighter questions.

Most "sideline reporters" find out nothing, tell you nothing. Gray does both.

Watching his interview with Pete Rose on Sunday, both Grays were on display. To those who wondered why he asked Rose about his banishment from the game, I say: "You've got to be kidding." What else do you ask Rose about? The weather? The reason Rose's presence at the event was significant was precisely because he's been banned from the game.

To not ask Pete Rose the question is an abdication of your responsibility as a journalist.

Did he go on too long? I think so. Did he really think Rose would 'fess up to him after denying the undeniable for a decade? A general rule of thumb when it comes to interviewing subjects on controversial topics is you can ask the question. If the subject doesn't come clean, you can ask a followup. If he or she still doesn't come clean, move on. By those standards, Gray asked two questions too many.

Perhaps NBC should have conducted the Rose interview before the ceremony, and not on the field. Perhaps NBC should have interviewed Bud Selig, too. And perhaps somebody should have told Gray to wrap it up. (In every reporter's ear there's a little thing called an "IFB," which stands for "interrupted feedback," which connects the reporter to the producer and/or director of the show sitting in the transmission truck. That's how reporters know when to talk when the camera cuts to them. Someone tells them to go. And surely, if someone at NBC thought Gray was going on way too long on that line of questioning, they would have told him through the IFB.)

But journalists are paid to ask questions. Most of the time, we ask on your behalf, because you aren't allowed on the field, or in the locker room. We are your surrogates. You may not believe me, but I have yet to meet a reporter who works on a story to sell papers or improve ratings. We do what we do for money, to be sure. So do you. But we do it because you can't be there.

Jim Gray asks what he thinks are questions you would ask. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe all of you wouldn't ask Pete Rose in that situation. Maybe you would allow Pete Rose his moment in the sun after a decade in the darkness. I don't begrudge any of you that, if that's your opinion. But I don't think all of you would. I think a lot of you wanted to hear if Rose was contrite, or understood why he's been banned, or was willing to take responsibility for what he'd done.

Jim Gray spoke for you. And for me.

-- David Aldridge

Rivers looks to be in his element: talking basketball and teaching basketball. Everyone who thought Rivers would be a natural at this appears to be right. He's surrounded himself with veteran NBA assistants Dave Wohl, Johnny Davis and Clifford Ray, and he listens to their suggestions.

"I spoke to Coach (Rick) Majerus about him a little bit," Doleac said (Majerus was an assistant at Marquette when Rivers played there in the early '80s.). "Coach Majerus said he was gonna work hard, and really get after us, and he has."

Rivers spent the offseason sending out memos to his players about how they were going to be the best defensive team in the league. And he's already working the officials.

"My biggest worry is that we have four young guys on the court, playing harder than some of the vets on the other team, and because some of the vets have reputations, they get the calls and my young guys get their heart broken," Rivers said. "That's my biggest worry, that we get a fair shake out on the court. Just because you don't know our names on the back, just because you don't know their reputation, does not mean that they should get bad calls ... I don't want respect, I just want fairness."

Rivers knows the reality of the deal. His guys are going to lose a lot this year, and probably next year. Only a handful of guys on his roster will be around by the time the Magic are good again. The nine first-round picks over the next three years (possibly four next June) don't do him any good now. Having cap room doesn't mean what it used to, and talk of Tim Duncan or Grant Hill coming to Orlando next year smells like pipe dreams.

But Rivers is ready to put his recruiting hat on.

"We have a lot of things going for us," he said. "First of all, we're in Florida; we have great weather. A lot of people live in Orlando. Wesley Snipes, Ken Griffey, Jr. Tiger Woods -- they live there for a reason. They live there because it's a great place and the other reason they live there is because there are no state taxes...

"In the olden days, it came down to the teams that had the most money. Now with this new deal, you're basically paying these guys the same amount of money. So I think it's gonna come down to the intangibles. And the Magic, we have the intangibles, and that's what I'm selling."

Hornets stick with DC
Paul Silas says he's sticking with Derrick Coleman, although Coleman has been charged with DWI in an accident that injured his Charlotte teammate, guard Eldridge Recasner. Recasner suffered a punctured lung when Coleman's car collided with a tractor trailer.

"Everyone has convicted this guy already, and you have to wait to see how this plays out," Silas said.

And it does indeed appear, though Silas won't officially say it, that Coleman will start for Silas at power forward ahead of Anthony Mason. This surprises me, because I know going into camp that the Bugs were leaning the other way, figuring that while Mason would be better coming off the bench, he would probably complain too much about a reserve role for the team's good.

Silas said Wednesday night that he hasn't talked with Mason or Coleman yet about who's starting. But he allowed that Mason would be a terrific lynchpin for a second unit comprised of young guys like rookie Baron Davis and second-year men Ricky Davis (out four or five more weeks after knee surgery) and Brad Miller.

"He's so versatile," Silas says of Mason. "He can play three positions. And he can break the defense down with his dribble. When we need things settled down, he can really settle down the second unit."

And Silas has gone ultra-big at times during the preseason, with Mason playing small forward next to Coleman and Elden Campbell. The mantra coming out of Charlotte is that there will be more than enough minutes for everybody if the Hornets play the up-tempo style they'd like. But Mase in Yo' Face has been known to, uh, strongly suggest that he be a focal point of a team's offense.

"It's not gonna be easy," Silas allowed. "But I have a good rapport with the guys, and they know that I will not lie to them, and I will not BS them. Whoever emerges out of this thing as the starter, I will expect the other to accept it and do his job. Because both are pros, and both are professionals."

Notes

When the Board of Governors meets Thursday and Friday in New York, word is at least a couple of owners are going to want assurances from new Grizzlies owner Bill Laurie that he won't move to St. Louis for at least five years to give Vancouver a real chance to show support. Laurie, who owns hockey's St. Louis Blues and the Kiel Center in St. Louis, would need the support of two-thirds of the league's owners to move.

Looks like Chucky Brown will start the season at small forward for the Spurs in place of the recovering Sean Elliott. "He's not gonna mess things up," says coach Gregg Popovich, and if that doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement, it isn't.

The Clips are thrilled with rookie Lamar Odom, who's played four positions so far in the preseason. "He's one of those gifted athletes that happens to play basketball," coach Chris Ford said. "My objective is to find ways to keep him on the floor. He's grab a rebound and go coast to coast. He'll make plays for his teammtes. He has a flair for the game. To put him at one position, I don't want to do that. His teammates know he'll make the pass."

Phil Jackson says he wouldn't mind sitting down with Bison Dele if Dele wants to re-think his retirement. "I had a special relationship with Brian Williams," said Jackson, who had a couple of months with Dele, then Williams, during the Bulls' 1996 title run. "I don't know Bison Dele. If Brian Williams wants to talk, I'll have lunch with him. He was maybe one of the brightest students I ever had ... and I heard he was gonna desalinate the oceans. That's pretty far out."

Teams are complaining that officials are going overboard on offensive fouls for illegal screens, but the refs have been given the charge to cut down on all excessive contact at both ends of the floor, not just the defensive end. And screen setting has become awfully sloppy over the last few years.

Quote of the week
"I almost wish after this game -- these last two games are over -- that they would demolish the building. Because I don't want to just see it sit here and be used for things other than sports."
-- Lakers Executive Vice President Jerry West, on the end of the Lakers' stay at the Great Western Forum after playing two exhibitions there last week.


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