Bibby blooms

Kings' guard has made the playoffs his coming out party

If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're thinking this: Where in heaven's name did Mike Bibby come from? Did he make some pact with the devil that turned a solid point guard into the second coming of Magic Johnson, minus, of course, nine inches? Or has Bibby been this good all along? I really don't have the complete answer. But the emergence of the erstwhile Arizona alum -- whose clutch jumper in a terrific Game 5 on Tuesday night gave his Sacramento Kings a 3-2 lead over the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals -- proves at least three things:

1. It sometimes takes a while for a player's role to evolve on a team, particularly on clubs that are still learning how to win.

2. Players' reputations are not always accurate, particularly when those reputations are made playing for losing teams.

3. Championship pedigree matters.

As regards No. 1, the Kings are not all that surprised by what Bibby has done in the postseason, where he has been -- and I risk overstating the obvious here -- their most valuable player. Gradually, Sacramento has seen it coming. "We didn't need Mike to do all the things he's doing at the beginning or middle of the season," Kings coach Rick Adelman said last week between Games 3 and 4 in Los Angeles. "It's not always clear what a team needs, especially from new players. As the season went on, and particularly in the playoffs, it became clear that we needed this kind of ball control from our point guard. And it hasn't been a problem for other players to show Mike that trust because, gradually, he's earned it."

Another factor is that the Kings have been playing much of the last month without Peja Stojakovic, their second-leading scorer, who returned from an ankle injury for Game 5. Adelman claims he never said it outright, but Bibby understood that some of Peja's points had to come from him. That is the some-have-greatness-thrust-upon-them part of the Bibby emergence.

So established is Bibby as Sacramento's leader, it's easy to forget that he is, or at least was, a new addition to its roster. So much attention has been given to the Jason Kidd-for-Stephon Marbury trade that brought the Nets to the Eastern Conference finals, that Sacramento's Jason Williams-for-Bibby deal has almost been forgotten. By the end of the postseason, one wonders which deal will prove more significant.

The whisper around the league before Bibby got to Sacramento was that he was, in NBA parlance, "a stat guy," i.e., a player who put his own numbers above team performance. I'd be lying if I told you I could confirm that one way or another, since I rarely saw Bibby play in Vancouver -- something I have in common with most of the free world. But he's not a stat guy now. In fact, if the NBA awarded assists to the guy who made the pass that led to the pass that made the basket, as is the case in the NHL, Bibby would be averaging about 25 assists a game.

The other explanation I've heard about Bibby's stellar play in May relates to the NCAA championship he won in Arizona. I disregarded it the first 10 or so times I heard it, but started to believe the theory when it was spelled out by Kings' center Vlade Divac. "Of course it makes a difference," he said when I professed doubts that having what it takes to win a college title transfers to the NBA. "The energy you have to show to win a championship, Mike has already shown it. He is born champion," Divac said. "He is reacting the way champions do when in tight spots." All right, I buy it.

All this is not to say that the Kings have clinched the Western Conference title. Almost nothing has gone according to script in this series, and I'm not discounting the possibility that the Lakers can win two in a row and crawl back to the Finals. But if they're going to do it, they'd better face the fact that Kobe Bryant will have to defend Bibby most of the way, as tiring as that might be for the Lakers' superstar.

Behavior at games reflects behavior in society

Many sports fans are ignorant, classless boors. I didn't say "most," but I did say many. To reiterate an old point that doesn't get reiterated enough: Paying an outlandish amount of money to get into a sporting event should not give you carte blanche to yell anything you want at an athlete. You want to pay the big bucks? That's your call. But the laws (sadly, they are unwritten) of civilization still say that when you show up to a game you don't check your humanity at the door, along with your briefcase and backpack.

I say this after witnessing the egregious treatment given Kidd, and to a lesser extent Bibby, by the respective visiting crowds in Boston and Los Angeles. The Nets' point guard was taunted by chants and signs of "wife beater" -- a reference to the assault charge filed against Kidd last year for hitting his wife, with whom he has reconciled. (The court ordered Kidd to undergo counseling for six months.) Joumana Kidd said she was subjected to much worse things that the TV cameras didn't pick up, and I don't doubt it for a minute.

In L.A., meanwhile, where half the fans can't be bothered to get off their cell phones until halftime, Bibby had to listen to chants of "where's your father?" -- a reference to the estrangement between the Kings' point guard and his father Henry, a former NBA player who is divorced from Mike's mother.

Both subjects are legitimate topics to be examined in the proper forum. Just as legitimately, the athletes may choose to stay silent about them, which, for the most part, is what Bibby has done. The Kidds decided to talk and did so several months ago to Sports Illustrated's Scott Price, who did a long thoughtful piece about their relationship.

Screaming insults heard by a woman and her son (as was the case in Boston), or yelling deeply personal and painful indignities to an athlete are simply wrong. But in a society that seems to have lost the compass that once measured civility, the sad thing is that such behavior seems to be treated as business as usual.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum covers the NBA beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.

 

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