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Strickland saga continues
Posted: Friday April 07, 2000 04:23 PM
Wizards GM Wes Unseld confirms he met behind closed doors Tuesday with injured point guard Rod Strickland to discuss the veteran's decision to skip Washington's Mar. 21 home game against the Nuggets. Strickland, who says he was upset about his injury, was fined a game's pay, or roughly $100,000. Wizards team president Michael Jordan also took part in the meeting via speakerphone, according to Unseld. And what about the report in Thursday's Washington Post that Strickland was so frustrated about this season he briefly thought of retiring? Unseld wouldn't touch that one. But given that Strickland still has still got two years and $20 million left on his contract, the Wizards no doubt would have loved to call his bluff. Raptors search for defense, leadershipWhatever happened to all that veteran leadership on the Raptors? Toronto coach Butch Carter held a three-hour team meeting Monday to clear the air after a week of locker room finger-pointing, but admitted afterward that he'd done so only after waiting in vain for team captains Dee Brown and Doug Christie to do it first. Meanwhile the Raptors have become sieves on defense. In their last 11 games through Friday they had allowed every one of their opponents to shoot better than 45%. As one Eastern Conference GM told me: "Their problem is that Vince [Carter] and Tracy [McGrady] don't play any defense." Hornacek falls shortWhen Jazz guard Jeff Hornacek missed a free throw in Tuesday's 103-93 win over the Clippers, he all but kissed goodbye his chances of breaking Calvin Murphy' s alltime NBA single-season record for free-throw accuracy. As of Friday, Hornacek (94.8%) needed to hit 42 straight to catch Murphy's 95.8% mark, set during the `80-81 season. Not likely, given that the Jazz had eight games left and Hornacek was averaging just 2.45 attempts per game. Big signings are no luxuryBad news for the Lakers, Timberwolves and Cavaliers. Despite your owners' best efforts to "grandfather" those megabucks contracts signed before the new labor agreement (Shaquille O'Neal, Kevin Garnett, Shawn Kemp) so that they won't count against the luxury tax slated to kick in for the 2001-02 season, it looks as if the NBA is going to reject the proposal at its Board of Governors meeting next Tuesday. As one GM said of the Grandfather Faction: "They created the problem in the first place by handing out those big contracts. Now we're just going to let them off the hook? I don't think so." Marty Burns covers pro basketball for CNNSI.com. Look for his columns on
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Click here to send Marty a comment or a question.
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