T he NBA recently disclosed its new motto - the suc- cessor to "I love this game," if you will - a jingle it hopes will bind the ageless legends of decades past to the far-from-aged boy scouts currently inhabiting the hardwood. Thickly veiled behind a sheath of self-deception, the association attempts to placate its own fears and those of the basketball public by assuring us that "it's all good."
But, as any basketball realist will tell you, the NBA is not all good. In fact, the Dennis Hopper in us sees "bad things, man." Very bad things.
Last Wednesday night's draft proceedings at the Madison Square Garden Theater very well may have submitted the final straw in a stack of missteps and mistakes that eventually will break the league's back. Or perhaps the fall from grace is only beginning.
In a matter of mere hours, four teenie-bobbing preps became lottery picks, donned NBA headgear and vaulted into a wildly different tax bracket. One more got a second-round call, while a sixth waited breathlessly and never exhaled.
Immediately, the debate raged.
Does Kwame Brown have the athletic gifts to mirror Antonio McDyess? Can the Bulls afford to wait years upon years for both Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry to mature at the expense of revenue and victories? Will Sagana Diop ever shed his "project" exoskeleton?
All are valid queries, and all leave the NBA's cloudy future irrevocably tied to children.
But all are on-court, between-the-lines concerns. While the league and its many detractors allowed the games kids play to consume their focus over the last few weeks, they failed to consider the lives kids live.
We were so tantalized by Chandler's gazelle-like movements and Curry's unfettered force that we almost disregarded the fact that once the pick has been made and the contract signed, there's a whole lot of living left to be done.
Sadly, DeShawn Stevenson reminded us.
While the four adolescents celebrated their stroke of financial fortune, Stevenson struggled to salvage his reputation. The Utah rookie - an already all-but-forgotten high school to NBA leaper - was arrested on June 19 for allegedly participating in consensual sex with a 14-year-old girl whom he had provided with alcohol. In other words, possessing an illegal substance, Stevenson allegedly committed statutory rape. The Jazz refuse to comment, but police accessed a taped phone conversation between Stevenson and the girl's mother in which he confesses all.
Draft night is eerily similar to prom night: It only happens once, and years later, the only thing you recall is how ugly your suit was (see Karl Malone and Jalen Rose). After that, it's on to the rest of your life...though a starkly different one than the coddled upbringing of most basketball prodigies.
More times than not, the kids freakishly good enough to bypass training wheels and go straight to the Schwinn need much more polish on their survival skills than on their jump hook.
I carry little doubt that the Chandler/Curry tandem will evoke images of Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson, or that Diop will realize the upside trumpeted as even bigger than his backside (after all, he is 297 pounds). Kevin Garnett did it, no problem. Need I shower Kobe Bryant with additional plaudit, or do his two championship rings speak volumes louder than my voice can reach? Tracy McGrady could be better than Bryant...and soon. Rashard Lewis, Al Harrington and Jermaine O'Neal are in the fledgling stages of rapidly emerging careers.
Some pundits contend that for every McGrady, there are five Korleone Youngs, whose brief and nondescript NBA career became a common signal flare against early entry.
A preponderance of evidence, however, supports the contrary. For every five McGradys, there exists a single Young.
These kids are ready to play - they've been grooming and tailoring their skills since grammar school. Many, however, have done so at the expense of living real lives.
It's no wonder Stevenson finds himself embroiled in such turmoil, or that Shawn Kemp fathered six illegitimate children, or that an unknowing Bill Willoughby retired penniless after cunning agents stripped him clean.
These are the incidents worth dreading, not Karl Malone breaking a toothpick-thin tot over his knee in a battle for post position. The Mailman will assuredly deliver such lessons, and someday Brown may do the same as his heir-apparent.
What the homily Stevenson received, though, can't be absorbed by experimental osmosis. By then, it's too late.
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