Tucson Weekly: Hit Man (December 11

The Guys Discuss Latrell Sprewell's Fate.
By Tom Danehy
WHEN THE DOMINO Round Table discussion group opened its weekly meeting down at the gym Sunday, there was no doubt as to what the subject matter would be: Latrell Sprewell and his $32-million assault on P.J. Carlesimo.
And for those of you who believe in the power of subliminal messages, I want to tell you that it's a complete coincidence that our discussion group is named after two pizza places. Heck, we haven't had pizza in weeks; we're on a health kick, which means we all eat salad before the burgers and fried chicken.
Danehy For those of you unfamiliar with the Sprewell case, I'll provide a little background. (A personal note: I'm always pleased and amazed when people tell me that they read my column even though they don't like sports. Why, if I had a dime for every person who's told me that, I still wouldn't have enough money to make a local call, since they deregulated pay phones.)
Until last week, Latrell Sprewell was a vastly overpaid member of the vastly underachieving Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association. Alas, as is often the case in this day and age, he's a spectacularly talented athlete, but an even more spectacularly boorish individual on and off the court. Sprewell is rude, crude, and heavily tattooed. (And quite often booed.)
He was a surprise when he came into the league, displaying remarkable ability which soon elevated him to all-star status. However, a dark side began to emerge, one symptomatic of a malady of the '90s--a spoiled, coddled athlete who gets a pass on the rules which hold a society together simply because he can run, jump, dunk or hit better than the rest of us.
Just another jerk who thinks the word "discipline" is the long form of "dis," and he ain't takin' dissin' from nobody!
Anyway, Sprewell has always been able to show that he can run, jump and dunk better than the rest of us. Last week, he proved he can hit, too. During a particularly spirited practice, Sprewell attacked Coach P.J. Carlesimo, grabbing him by the throat, choking him and threatening to kill him.
When they finally pulled Sprewell off Carlesimo, the player was ordered out of the building. He went to his car, where he should have cooled off and perhaps done a self-examination of his scrotum to see if he had what it took to go back in and apologize.
Instead, he sat there and stewed, and when he went back in, he ran up and punched Carlesimo and threatened to kill him again.
The Warriors first announced that Sprewell had been suspended for 10 games without pay, a fine which would have cost him nearly $1 million. A couple days later, the Warriors announced they were canceling his four-year, $32 million contract, the first such action in NBA history. Then, even as the NBA Players Association cried foul over that, the league weighed in with its own punishment. No NBA team can sign Sprewell for one year.
The reaction from around the league was swift and mostly predictable. Coaches and general managers lauded the team's and the league's actions. Players thought it was blown out of proportion and he should have been given a slap on the wrist. He needs to be pimp-slapped upside his fat head for being such a moron.
One NBA player said, "What if a guy beats up his wife or gets in a drunk-driving accident? You gonna tell me the team can cancel your contract for that, too? That ain't right."
And that, sadly, is about as cerebral as the average NBA player gets these days. To answer his foggy-brained question, yes, I think it would be not only proper, but required, that a team cancel the contract of a wife-beater or drunk driver.
I think it's perfectly reasonable that if a team is paying athletes insane amounts of money, they should conduct themselves with a measure of common sense and decency.
As expected, our round table had a wide range of views, most of them horribly wrong. Many of us are basketball coaches at various schools and at various levels. I asked Stew, who coaches at Green Fields Country Day School, if he could imagine his players ever attacking him. He laughed and said, "Tom, I'm at Green Fields. If those kids ever got mad at me, they'd probably make jokes about me in Latin and snicker because I wouldn't understand them."
Jay, who isn't a coach and, judging by his performance last Sunday, isn't much of a basketball player either, jumped in and said, "I'm just glad it was a white man who was in a chokehold this time!"
We were hoping that Brian Peabody would show up. He's the best-known coach in our group. Brian and I form a domino tag-team known as White and Whiter. (We're both part-Irish, but he's Whiter, since he's already had a brush with skin cancer and all I've ever had were a couple industrial-strength freckles.) We wanted to ask Brian about it, but we realized that he coaches at Salpointe, so he hasn't had a lot of experience coaching African Americans.
As is often the case, Bill Washington turned out to be the voice of reason. He's a hard-working guy with a lovely wife, and therefore not one of us believes that he comes from Detroit. He thinks the league took an especially tough stand to please fans and that the final resolution will be some kind of compromise.
He felt that Sprewell was wrong to attack his coach and should receive some kind of stiff fine and suspension, then added, "If you're paying me eight mil', you can yell at me all you want (as long as it's not racial or about my family)."
His is the voice of experience, since he works at UPS, where they pay him large amounts of money to drive around town, and in exchange, he has to dress funny.
I finally dropped the bombshell. I told everybody that Sprewell was thinking of hiring Johnny Cochran. "Aw heck," went the refrain. "Sprewell's got his job back. He might even get back pay, maybe an extra $32 mil' for his pain and suffering."
I can hear it now. "Even if the coach got hit, you must acquit."

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