League Couldn’t Have Scheduled More Ridiculous Story Lines

Things are looking up!

It’s true, there has been criticism of the new, drawn-out playoff schedule, but this comes from people who don’t understand the elemental beauty of the NBA.

In case you’ve been away, in pro ball these days, the game isn’t the thing. The marketing is the thing.

This is fortunate because New Millennial ball is so awful. The Lakers may be scoring at will on the Sacramento Kings’ Human Layup Line defense, but out in the provinces, field goals are still precious feats, as in the broken-down Phoenix Sun-San Antonio Spur series, in which the Suns averaged 71 points in the first two games and actually won one.

So much for this year’s (token) attempt by the league to promote offense by having the referees call more fouls--adding extra free throws and points, promoting the illusion that since scoring is up, the game is faster.

Fortunately, in the new playoff format, there are fewer actual games!

Now we’re getting three days in between, complete with mandatory interview sessions, meaning everyone is bored out of their gourds and/or going nuts.

This has led to several memorable moments, opening up exciting new story lines, as they say on TV.

* New York--Butch Carter, the wrapped-way-too-tight coach of the young Toronto Raptors, is going into tabloid hell to meet the veteran New York Knicks, so what does he do to calm his kids? He goes bonkers before the series even starts, filing a $5-million suit against Marcus Camby for calling him a liar.

Apart from sending Gotham editors into ecstasy, Carter unleashes a wave of ridicule on himself so high, Vince Carter shoots three for 20 in Game 1 and is barely noticed.

Talk about your unforgettable TV! One moment NBC’s Pete Vecsey confides that Carter will drop the suit if Camby apologizes, followed by NBC’s Jim Gray reporting that Carter just said he won’t drop the suit.

In the ensuing days, as it dawns on Carter that he has just committed the blunder he’ll be remembered for the rest of his career, he announces he actually did it on purpose, to keep his team from being distracted.

“I think I did that,” Carter says. “I kept the media off them.”

He subsequently suggests he got bad advice and, after a meeting with his bosses, drops the suit.

Carter has funny ideas about distraction. Before the season, he publicly protested cutting rapper Master P, who had had a pretend tryout, saying the pop-star hysteria around the team was keeping the heat off the other players.

Finally, Carter says the Knicks are winning because the Raptors are worried about their contract situations. Raptor veterans, who are already up to here, go off.

“For him to say that,” Doug Christie says, “is ludicrous and expected.”

By now, even management, which just signed Butch for three more seasons at $6 million, can tell that he’s the distraction they have to worry about.

Of course, it’s still not too late for a miracle rally. As the Sundance Kid said, “Keep thinking, Butch, that’s what you’re good at.”

* Charlotte--With the Philadelphia 76ers, opponents are superfluous since they’re usually fighting among themselves.

Before the series against the Hornets, 76er General Manager Billy King, who is supposed to leave the brutal candor to Coach Larry Brown, says Allen Iverson may be able to coexist with Brown, “but I think a lot of soul-searching has to take place by everyone. . . . We want to see the kid succeed. But there’s a responsibility--not just on our part or his part but everyone’s part--to be responsible to each other.”

Iverson proceeds to score 40 points in a Game 1 upset and blows up at King.

“I don’t feel like they treat me like a franchise player,” he says. “I’m treated nowhere near like a franchise player. I’m treated like the 12th guy on the bench.”

Iverson keeps testing Brown with late arrivals or failures to arrive and Brown has already broken his own record for keeping quiet. For his part, Iverson doesn’t sound too pleased about Brown’s extension. So whatever accommodation anyone has to make has yet to be made.

Of course, with the personalities involved in this one, the real show is yet to come.

* Indiana--The Indiana Pacers, lords of the East, have a walkover in the first round, facing George Karl’s rolling, tumbling, non-defending Milwaukee Bucks.

Karl, who’s out of things to say to his players, has taken to trying to destabilize the opposition, passing judgments and involving himself in everyone’s business as if he were a sportswriter. This may or may not have had anything to do with overhauling the Orlando Magic after Karl, in an overt appeal to stoke dissension among Magic players, advised them they were all on their way out.

On the off chance it helped, Karl starts this series by rapping Pacer Coach Larry Bird for saying he’s leaving.

“I think it’s distracting and disorienting to your team,” Karl says. “A coach should never de-energize or distract his team. That’s a Dean Smith philosophy.”

Replies Bird: “You know, I never got up in the morning worrying about what George Karl said. Never have, never will.”

What, them worry? The Pacers won 10 in a row over the Bucks including last season’s 3-0 playoff sweep, before they split this season, 2-2.

“For it to be a rivalry, the other team has to win,” says Indiana’s Jalen Rose after the Pacers’ win in Game 1. “If we played them 15 times, we’d win 12 or 13.”

The Bucks then run up a 31-point lead in Game 2 and coast to the victory that ties the series, 1-1.

That’s some conference, the East.

* Seattle--Now we know why Gary Payton never wants to talk.

The Seattle SuperSonics were already down, 2-0, to the Utah Jazz, when Payton, who has been avoiding reporters for years, was hit with a $10,000 fine by the league.

The next day, he started talking with a declaration he is fed up with everyone on his side.

“I don’t give a damn no more,” he says. “I’m telling the truth. I’m going to be worried about myself now. . . . I didn’t talk to Vin [Baker, his struggling teammate, whom he once tried to mentor]. That ain’t my job. You tell Wally [Walker, general manager] and [Coach] Paul Westphal to talk to him. I ain’t got nothing to do with it. . . . That ain’t my responsibility to make plays for Vin. My responsibility is if they trap me, get it to an open player. If he is one of the open players, then that is going to happen.”

Skeptics have been waiting for Payton to demand a trade for a year. Whether it’s public or discreet, it looks as though it’s coming, all right.

* Los Angeles--Shaquille O’Neal gets an easy 46 in the opener. Sacramento Coach Rick Adelman says the refs let him knock people around. O’Neal calls Adelman “an idiot.”

Aren’t we taking this stuff a little seriously?

Every coach O’Neal has faced in the playoffs, including Phil Jackson, says the same stuff--he gets away with murder, travels on that bunny hop, etc. If they didn’t, it would mean O’Neal just went scoreless or retired.

In truth, the Sacramento threat seems to have been a little exaggerated. Chris Webber may score a lot of points, but since either O’Neal or Kobe Bryant looks as if he can beat it by 10 or 15 a night, that’s a nice comfort margin.

Actually, nobody out there looks close to the Lakers, but at this languid pace, they could lose their minds as easily as anyone else, so stay tuned.

FACES AND FIGURES

How far they’ve come dept.: Can anyone remember who the Lakers started at power forward a year ago? That’s right, J.R. Reid. Now a member of the Bucks, he was left off the playoff roster by Karl--and went home. “I think it was more of a mutual agreement,” Karl said. “He asked for the leave and we granted it.” . . . Oops: Only 15,023 showed for the Hornets’ playoff opener, which looked good compared to the 11,686 at Game 2 in the 23,799-seat arena. “To be in ACC country and not sell out a playoff?” asked upcoming free agent Eddie Jones. “A playoff game!”

The Boston Celtics’ Rick Pitino, on $10-million-a-year prima donna Antoine Walker: “First of all, I’m not looking to trade Antoine Walker. But I’ve always said that if there’s a deal that comes along that makes the Boston Celtics more competitive--not a quick fix that makes you better, but something that in the next three or four years brings a better team to the fans--then I would do it. I’ve got a lot of confidence in Antoine Walker. I think he’s getting better. Does that mean that we would not trade Antoine or any other player? No, that does not mean that. It’s just that my confidence is growing in him as a person. My confidence is growing in him as a player. I like the way he played the last 30 games. So the obvious question is what happened to the first 50?” In other words, any team that wants Walker can have him. . . . I can’t get enough of this stuff: Pitino also says he not only doesn’t regret rapping Boston fans for negativity, but maintains it shaped them up. “I’ve said this 15,000 times now,” he says. “I’m perfectly happy with what I said and I’ve seen a noticeable change in the fans’ attitude toward our players since that time in a positive sense. If somebody starts to boo some of our players for missing free throws, the other people just drown it out with applause.”

Even Dallas Maverick owner Mark Clueless, er, Cuban isn’t really expected to go through with his plans to move Coach Don Nelson upstairs, after the Mavericks finished on a 31-21 run, which, if you subtract the Cuban-mandated Dennis Rodman 3-9 reign of terror, was a 28-12 run. “I’ve had a lot of great years,” Nelson said, “but I don’t think any of them were better than the last three months. We’re the best team in basketball right now.” . . . And Nelson, pretending he doesn’t want to coach again: “Losing has been too hard for me. The last two months have been wonderful, but when you’re losing it’s an impossible job. I smoke too many cigars. I drink too many beers. Look at me. I look like I’m 100 years old. And I’m only 59.”