ALLAN Houston has to get off better this afternoon than he did in Game 2. And it’s not going to be easy maintaining traction with all those rose petals under his feet.
Houston will be playing his first home game since hitting the most dramatic Knick shot of the decade. The ovation may swell even larger than Patrick Ewing’s left leg after games.
Houston, asked yesterday if he expects the love to be unmitigated, was too modest to refer us to a gift registry.
“Love is always nice,” he smiled. “All I want to do is just continue to play well.
“The bigger the games get, playing well will mean more. So if I get love, that will be wonderful, but the bottom line is not to be rewarded for what has happened but for what will continue to happen.”
And who knows what that will be? Without the prescience of Marcus Camby, who foretold teammates of his Game 2 dunk over Dikembe Mutombo, we can only guess the Knicks will polish off the Hawks by tomorrow night. The only thing absolutely safe to predict is that six-to-10 minutes into the game, Latrell Sprewell will enter to a reception that will turn Houston into last Sunday’s news.
Hey, a month ago, only David Wingate was cheering, so the more standing O’s the merrier. The Knicks are as willing to share the affection as they are the basketball right now, so who gets the bigger hand isn’t important. And won’t be, until the inevitable day this summer when Sprewell insists the Knicks either start him or trade him.
Sprewell, whose contract is up at the end of next season, will want the NBA maximum – $86 million over seven years. Do the Knicks marry him and all his baggage and trade Houston, who has four years left on what has become a very affordable $56-million deal? Or do they use Sprewell to get a terribly needed starting point guard or an extremely useful power forward, and stick with Houston?
The response of most Knick nuts is that Dave Checketts would have to be out of his rotation to trade away the franchise’s most electrifying presence since Bernard King. Sprewell had 31 points in Game 2 on a bad night that threatened to turn worse. The Knicks finally have a guy this good in the open floor, and keeping him is open to debate?
It’s just a hunch that when Sprewell doesn’t bat an eyelash about the potential backlash at asking out from what, by then, should be a team coming off a Final Four season, he won’t quite be the object of scorn Cecil Fielder became when he valued his next millions above remaining on a World Champion. Big Daddy got a few well-appreciated hits in the fall of 1996, but didn’t captivate a fandom as has Sprewell.
Every touch brings the crowd to its feet, each explosion to the basket makes P.J. Carlesimo a worse guy. Van Gundy, trusting his carefully-considered plans less and his instincts more, has been inserting Sprewell earlier. If Van Gundy comes out one of these nights wearing corn rolls, Houston should start packing.
There are larger considerations, however, than who looks untouchable right now. Although Sprewell hasn’t been a hazard to the coach’s health and has swallowed his compulsion to start for the good of this Knick run, he possesses a disquieting sense of entitlement for somebody whose career was endangered and character vilified only 18 months ago.
Late in this painful regular season, Sprewell’s agent, Robert Gist, couldn’t resist ripping Knick management. When Dave Checketts held the player responsible, his sneaker company jumped in to pay the fine, plus air commercials in which Sprewell, after making reference to his reputation as a “nightmare,” proclaims himself to be The American Dream.
The man’s remorse remains in as short supply as his patience to get into games, if you go by the body language. Of course, whatever message that sends about Sprewell’s festering selfishness is a lesser consideration if you believe the energy he unleashes off the bench would be sustainable as a starter.
Or, that the 28-year-old Houston, who shot only 1-for-8 against double teams in Game 2 at Atlanta after going off for 34 points in Game 1, will never mature into the night-in, night-out deadeye the Knicks hope.
We’re just not sure that Sprewell, an all-star starter on Golden State teams that made the playoffs only once in six years, who in a lot of Knick games has gotten his points after tides have already turned, who has yet to prove he will be the answer against Indiana, will seem quite as invaluable after Houston is gone.
A lineup with Sprewell at the two and Houston at the three wouldn’t be big enough to function. One or the other will go. Thus, Houston is absolutely correct when he suggests that at the top of the hump he cleared in Miami is a view of more.
That noted, he probably can’t score enough to win this popular election. The people speak every time Sprewell flies to the basket, so it’s up to Dave Checketts to carefully consider more than just votes when the decision is forced.