Interesting read on CWebb

CWebb saga isn't over
by Ric Bucher

Nothing will twist your perception of how life works more than having a front-row seat for the NBA. Chris Webber's decision to return to Sacramento is the latest example.

CWebb did not want to go back to Sacramento, or at least that's what he hinted at for the last six months. He told Pistons GM Joe Dumars that as recently as two weeks ago. He gave Dumars, one of his childhood heroes, a laundry list of reasons -- Rick Adelman didn't coach enough, the players weren't serious enough, the franchise's expectations weren't high enough.

None of that mattered in the end, because the Kings' ability to pay him $120 million was enough.

Think about it -- he tried every way imaginable to get out of town, couldn't, and the result is that he and his children and his children's children will be obscenely rich forever.

But will he be happy?

In the eight years I've covered Chris, I've never known him to be at peace with anything. So I can't tell you how heartfelt his complaints about the Kings were. Webber, as he admitted when I did my midseason ESPN The Magazine cover story on him, could have Michelangelo paint his ceilings and find fault with how the master cleaned his brushes.

Can he be happy? Rest assured, we are about to find out. Outrageous wealth is a magnifying glass that, above all else, exaggerates a person's traits, good and bad.

What makes Webber so fascinating is that he has such a beguiling array of assets and defects. He can be extraordinarily sensitive one second, and amazingly obtuse the next. He can be alternately thoughtful and rude to the same person without provocation.

When he first met with the Pistons, he and his family arrived exactly at the appointed hour. The subsequent conversation convinced Dumars that Webber neither wanted to be a King nor a Piston, so he offered Detroit's salary-cap space to help orchestrate a sign-and-trade, thinking the Pistons might be able to gain something out of the transaction as well.

Webber gave Dumars every means of contacting him -- phone numbers, pagers, e-mail address -- but despite various subsequent messages and attempts, Dumars never heard back from him. Other teams bailed much earlier -- Orlando, San Antonio and Houston, for example -- after he failed to follow through on his professed interest.

It's that inconsistency that makes me doubt that the drama surrounding CWebb is over. Having been in the Bay Area and D.C. when he signed long-term deals in those places, I'm not convinced Sacramento is his last stop. One reason is that Webber seems almost happiest when surrounded by chaos and uncertainty; what makes others nervous almost seems to soothe him.

I don't question that he'll play well and that the Kings are assured a perennial playoff spot. I also don't doubt that he'll wield his new authority to demand changes or acquisitions, such as finding a way to acquire his boy Latrell Sprewell from the Knicks.

He'll have nights where he'll be the game's best power forward, amazing us with those enormous, nimble hands, that tremendous wingspan and that ferocious passion. The $120 million will seem well worth it.

And there still will be other nights when his limited lateral mobility will be exposed and he'll settle for jumpers and appear distracted.

The CWebb Show has set up in Sacramento. Count on it still being very much a circus.

I've always thought of Chris Webber as a loser, and something tells me that he'll still remain unhappy with this team as long as they keep losing in the 1st or 2nd round of the playoffs. He clearly ran out of options when the 18th finally came, and he had no real alternative to signing with the Kings. I wouldn't be surprised to see him ending this contract with another team...


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President of the CC.net Realist Club, everyone needs a dose of reality once in a while...