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Final answer Despite All-Star treatment, Carter accepts Olympic bid
Posted: Friday March 24, 2000 05:41 PM
Everyone had assumed for weeks that Toronto's Vince Carter would be selected to fill injured Phoenix forward Tom Gugliotta's spot on the U.S. Olympic basketball team. Initially, however, Carter told the league he was hesitant to commit to the Games because he had promised himself he'd go back to North Carolina to take summer classes. What he didn't say was that he was hesitant for other reasons. Several team sources said the Raptors' star forward felt dismissed and resented by some members of the 2000 All-Star class in Oakland last month and wasn't sure he wanted to endure that experience again. One Toronto player added, "Why should he want to play if the league jerked him around in the first place by not picking him for the original squad?" In the end, Carter gave in. "How can I turn down representing my country?" he told me. Earning his penniesIn his last couple of seasons in Orlando, Penny Hardaway neither enjoyed playing the point guard spot nor being the focal point of the offense. Now with both Gugliotta and Jason Kidd out of the Suns' lineup, the likelihood is that Hardaway will have both responsibilities placed on his shoulders over the next few weeks.At $86 million over the next six years, "Phoenix didn't pay him to fold under pressure," one Western Conference official said. "We're all about to find out if the temperamental Penny Hardaway has matured and grown." League should celebrate Starks rulingFollowing an arbitrator's ruling that let John Starks out of his contract with the Chicago Bulls, but prohibited him from playing in the NBA postseason, the league should probably be raising its hand in triumph. The ruling specifically stated that the only reason Starks couldn't get picked up by another team for playoff competition was because he was on an active roster this season and didn't get waived before the March 1 deadline, points the NBA hoped would be emphasized.Had the arbitrator ruled completely in favor of Starks, thus allowing him to join a playoff-bound team, the league office would have gone ballistic. "The last thing the league wants is for the doors to tampering to be opened wide," one GM told me. "They don't want some player getting picked up for the minimum salary by a playoff team, who'll take care of him under the table or reimburse him later on." Translation: They don't want to revisit the Alonzo Mourning fiasco with the Hornets, or the Juwan Howard situation with Washington and Miami, for that matter. Stephen A. Smith covers the NBA for the Philadelphia Inquirer and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
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