---

A weekly exploration around the NBA

By M.J. Darnell

* Waaaaah...

Antoine Walker told the Boston Globe that Danny Ainge sent him to Dallas because he wanted to "set his career back." In Antoine's mind, Danny Ainge sat in his office and hatched a plan to send him to a team where he wouldn't fit in, just so he wouldn't be able to put up numbers. Antoine Walker is saying that Danny Ainge purposefully made a move to hurt his own team, just to spite Antoine Walker.

He sounds like a 7th-grade girl who was just dumped by her boyfriend.

What he's saying makes no sense. Is it rational at all to think:

- that Danny Ainge would intentionally make a trade that he knew would hurt the team that he was just hired to rebuild?
- that playing for Don Nelson, who's always loved three-point gunners, and has always wanted a point forward, would hurt Antoine Walker's career?
- that Antoine's statistics, 17 points and 10 rebounds per game, support any of this?
- that Danny Ainge would dislike Antoine Walker?

Okay, that last one is kind of easy to believe.

And none of this is to mention that Dallas is 5 games over .500, and Boston is 2 games under, so why exactly would he be upset? His scoring has gone down exactly 3 points per game. Does he think Danny Ainge desperately wanted to deprive him of those three points, and is he that upset because that he isn't getting them?

Raef Lefrentz is not a great player. He is not an All-Star. But he is the best player that any team was willing to give up in return for Antoine Walker. I hate to burst your bubble, 'Toine, but if the Celtics could've gotten an All-Star in return for you, they would have.

* Malone and Cuban

Karl Malone and Marc Cuban got into a little verbal slapfight this week, providing some pretty solid trash talk through the media. I don't want to rehash all of it, but the basic gist of it was that Cuban called Malone a dirty player, and Malone retaliated by basically calling Cuban a jocksniffer, and then Cuban said he might give Malone a "California salute" when the Mavs visit the Lake Show on Friday night. I don't know what that is. I don't know if I'd recognize it even if I saw it. If it's anything like the Cleveland Steamer, I don't want to know.

Anyway, they're both right in their criticism of each other. They both annoy me, but in this bout of girlish taunts, I give the edge to Cuban.

Karl Malone has a lengthy history of injuring people with his pointy, powerful elbows. You may just call it hard, physical play, but I think Isiah Thomas and his 40 stitches would disagree, Joe Kleine and his plastic surgery might disagree, and Dave Ramer and his ended career would probably also disagree. I hate to hold a college incident against a guy, but Malone's history of vicious "inadvertent elbows" goes back that far.

Perhaps you're wondering why I approve of Charles Oakley's physical play and not the Mailman's. There are reasons. Oak might send a guy to the floor, but as far as I know, he's never hospitalized anyone during a basketball game, and if he has, he certainly hasn't sent as many people to the ER as has Karl Malone. If anyone ever did require an ambulance ride after an Oakley foul, Oak would probably come clean about it, readily admit any intended harm, and he'd probably have a reason for it. If he's going to hurt someone, it's not going to be an "inadvertent elbow," it's going to be face-to-face and probably for a good reason, like a dispute over a dice game or a woman.

Malone, on the other hand, constantly throws those elbows, and when they hurt people, he always denies any wrongdoing. It was always an accident. They were always "inadvertent elbows." Never once has he admitted to throwing an elbow at someone on purpose, but you know it's happened.

I respect Karl Malone for his old-school work ethic and his desire to win, but saying that he hasn't taken some cheap shots would be like saying that Vin Baker has never had a beer. It's just not likely.

* A+ for B-Card

Until recently, I had only known of Brian Cardinal as guy on the Pistons roster that I would cut when I felt like signing a free agent while playing NBA Live. All I knew about him is that he had about a 45-overall rating, he was fairly tall, fairly white, couldn't score, couldn't shoot, couldn't get me anything in a trade, and I needed that roster spot for someone with a few marijuana arrests on their record (a tactic I like to use in NBA Live, though I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to actual NBA GMs).

Now, however, what I know about Brian Cardinal is that he can ball. Well, a little bit. He averages over 10 points a game in 23 minutes, which isn't going to make me run out and buy a Brian Cardinal throwback jersey, but his average of 10.7 this year does top last year's average by about 9.9 points, for about a 1300% increase.

Eric Musselman is actually running plays for him in Golden State. It's true, an NBA team is running plays for Brian Cardinal. He can get to the rack, get fouled, and bury free throws. He's 5th in the NBA in free throw percentage. He even led the team in shots against the Knicks last Saturday. In a November game against the Clips, he put up career highs of 24 and 10.

If you'd have told me before the year that Brian Cardinal would have a 24-point, 10-rebound game against anybody, I'd have assumed he changed his name to Brianne, underwent an operation, and was now the starting center for the Sacramento Monarchs of the WNBA.

* The Mighty 10

1. LA Lakers. Number one, and probably not going anywhere for a while. Believe me, I'm not happy about it, either.

2. Sacramento. Quietly finding a way to get it done without C-Webb. Peja is a stud, among the league leaders in points per game, three-point percentage, free-throw percentage and weird facial hair.

3. Indiana. The East should be happy they're cracking the top 3. The last time I gave Indiana some love, they went out the next night and get worked over by the Lakers. If it happens again, Pacers, I'm not putting you in the Top 5 ever again.

4. Houston. Sitting atop the Midwest division, having won 4 of their last five. Let this be a lesson to teams with goofy uniforms. Change is good.

5. New Orleans. To this point, Baron Davis is as good a choice for MVP as any, and the guys surrounding him are the best dirty work crew in the league.

6. Toronto. Winners of five straight. Memo to GMs: Trading role players for scorers is a good idea.

7. Memphis. Winners of six straight. See above.

8. San Antonio. On a bit of a tear recently, after the slow start.

9. Philadelphia. Leading the Atlantic Division is like winning a drinking contest in the Amish country, but they've won 3 in a row, two of them without AI. Impressive.

10. Utah. Nuggets or Mavericks are probably more deserving right now, but just in case they're about to go in the tank, I wanted to send some more love to Jerry Sloan and his team for what they've done this year. Consider this week's 10-spot a season-long achievement award.

* The Meek 5:

25. Washington. Is Gilbert Arenas important to this team? With him, they can hang around .500. Without him, they've lost six of eight. Kwame Brown's been putting up nice numbers, though.

26. Orlando. The Magic are on fire, winning of their last two of twenty-one games.

27. Phoenix. Little depth, and even less D. Losing to a team on a 19-game losing streak... well, that'll get you fired.

28. Miami. It's tempting to just list the entire Atlantic Division here.

29. New York. Dyess is back, so they probably won't stay here long, but they are losers of their last six, most recently losing a 95-73 nailbiter to the Jazz.

* Sheed Up

You've probably seen it by now, but Rasheed Wallace sat down and gave a rare and lengthy interview to Geoffrey C. Arnold of the Oregonian. After reading it, my first reaction was to wonder why the guy didn't ask him about the recent incident where he threw a basketball the length of the floor and injured Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje. I wanted to hear an explanation for that.

It didn't come in the interview, but Lang Whitaker of Slam Magazine says he's heard the story a bit differently. The version he heard says that 'Sheed and Bonzi Wells chucked a basketball to the other end of the floor to scare Double Boumtje, and he turned around right before it got there and it hit him in a very sensitive male area. That's what made them laugh. They both later apologized.

The whole incident doesn't seem so bad now, does it?

And after reading the interview, Rasheed doesn't seem so bad, either. I don't know if there's anything in here that's going to win the man a Nobel Prize, but I did want to give my take on some of his quotes.

"In my opinion, they just want to draft n****** who are dumb and dumber - straight out of high school. That's why they're drafting all these high school cats, because they come into the league and they don't know no better. They don't know no better, and they don't know the real business, and they don't see behind the charade."

I agree and disagree. I don't think the 18-year-olds are being drafted because they're young and dumb, I think they're being drafted because they can play, or might someday be able to play. But if they do happen to be young and dumb (and let's face it, most young standout basketball players aren't going to be placed in an environment that emphasizes academics), it's just that much easier for them to be exploited.

"They look at black athletes like we're dumb-ass n******. It's as if we're just going to shut up, sign for the money and do what they tell us."

Don't ever let yourself think that race isn't an issue in the NBA. When all but one of the owners are white, and the majority of the players in the league are black, issues exist. It's just that simple. And even if you don't agree, then at least Rasheed is thinking. At least he's got his mind on a bigger issue that a lot of players probably would never think about.

"Some of the technicals I deserved. Cussing at the officials or throwing something. But some of them I didn't deserve."

Come on now. A certain precedent has been set for 'Sheed's on-court behavior, and if an official ever felt like T'ing him up just because it looked like he was about to curse, it's hard to blame him. Every now and then, he probably deserved a T just on general principle. If he ever got T'd up and was truly undeserving, he should think of it as punishment for something he had gotten away with in the past.

"I'm not scared of the NBA. I'm not scared of the NBA officials. If I feel as though myself or my teammates have been dealt a wrong hand, I'm going to let it be known. I'm not going to sit up here like most of these cats and bite my tongue. That's not me."

Nor should it be.

"I listen (to my wife), depending on the situation. Nine times out of 10, yes, I do listen."

You know, I'm not Dr. Phil, but considering the fact that she's your wife, 'Sheed, you may want to listen to her roughly 100% of the time. You don't always have to do what she says, but you do have to listen. It goes love, honor, and respect. Not love, honor, and respect, depending on the situation. Listening to the head coach 90% of the time is one thing, but the wife? The wife gets 100%.

"Up until (talking to my wife), I didn't regret (the marijuana arrest). OK, we had gotten in a little trouble. But did that make me a bad person? Does that mean I'm a bad basketball player? Does that mean that I don't want to win? No. That's what the media and others tried to make it seem like. Everybody is entitled to their opinions, but the only opinions that matter to me in this world are my wife and my kids, my mom - my immediate circle."

Hard to argue with that.

"It doesn't have to take a Portland Trail Blazer or a professional basketball player to do good things in the community. You can work at a bank or work at a 7-Eleven. You donate your time or money to the local Boys & Girls Clubs or PAL (Police Activities League) Club. They won't see you as a role model, but you are. I don't know why they see a basketball player as a role model. I do it the way I want to do it. I go out in the community. It doesn't take news cameras or reporters or big events to get involved with the community. It's everyday stuff. I don't need a TV camera to let me know on the inside that I'm doing something good."

Big-time props to 'Sheed for his community work, and even bigger props for never using it as a photo-op. His work in the community comes from the heart.

"I'm definitely happy with who I am, my personality, my lifestyle. I'm definitely pleased with it. I won't change it. Not one bit. Not for any amount of money. I'm going to be me. Plain and simple."

It's hard to accept when you hear an athlete say they don't care what the fans think, but at the end of the day, what's important is that a person is able to go to sleep at night being able to live with the person they are and the decisions they've made. His life is his life, and he's got to live it for himself and his family. So much of the public's perception is shaped by the media. Take the Boumtje-Boumtje incident above. Sheed had been one of my favorite players, but when I first read about what he did, I was appalled. He went from one of my favorites down to Jeremy Shockey territory. Later, I hear a different version, and it doesn't seem so bad, in fact, it seems like something I might do. Someone in the media wanted me to think about Rasheed Wallace in a certain way, and I did. It's so easy for the media to shape public opinion in one way or another, just on how they decide to tell a story. And if it's so easy for a reporter to manipulate public emotion against a guy, it's hard to blame Rasheed Wallace if he doesn't feel like fighting it in the other direction.

Comment, Question, Problem, Compliment, Tirade, Hate Mail? Did I leave your team out of the rankings? Feel free to swing me an e-mail. I'd like to start a little mailbag feature in here. mjd888@insidehoops.net (remove the 888)

-M.J. Darnell, www.themightymjd.com