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Money, geography factors as Sabonis weighs final options
Granted, it doesn't take much to get Bill Walton excited about
basketball. Voted one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history and
certainly among the top three in college basketball history, Walton
could hardly contain himself during the NBA Finals in Philadelphia
when asked what aging Portland center Arvydas Sabonis was like as a
player in the mid-1980s and early 1990s.
"When he could run, he was the best all-around center I've ever seen,"
Walton said. "He could do it all. He was a 7-foot-3 Larry Bird, and I
don't think there could be higher praise than that."
Only time and money will tell if Arvydas Sabonis puts on a Blazers
uniform again.
Tough to argue. Unfortunately, few of us saw Sabonis playing in Europe
those days other than during Olympic competition, and now that his 37th
birthday is approaching and he has at least 300 pounds to lug around on
surgically-repaired knees and Achilles' tendons, he might not return for
a seventh and final season with the Blazers. And Blazers president Bob
Whitsitt is patiently awaiting his decision with Sabonis spending the
summer as he always does in Europe with his family.
"There's no magical timeline here," Whitsitt said. "But Sabas just
hasn't decided yet whether he wants to come back for another year
with us, or play for the team he owns in Lithuania one last season.
It's not like he's out there weighing offers from other teams. It's
either us or he's staying home."
Actually, there's more to it than that, of course. It's called money.
Texas tea. Rubles, if you are Sabonis and his former beauty queen wife.
Sabonis made $11.25 million last season, and Whitsitt has the Blazers
-- a certainty to be socked with luxury tax -- heading down the salary
scale, not up. The long-term contracts for moderate salaries given to
acquisitions Derek Anderson and Ruben Patterson are part of the new
equation for the Blazers.
Considering Patrick Ewing's salary dropped from $14 million to $2.25,
Hakeem Olajuwon from $16.7 million to $5 million and David Robinson's
new contract pays him $9.5 million this season as opposed to $14.7 he
received last season, there is little doubt Sabonis is in for a big
dip in pay should he return. In fact, had he sought an open market
contract in the NBA, he very likely would have been locked into a
scale at the mid-level exception of $4.538 million.
So it would be logical to assume the Blazers will pay Sabonis about
half of what he earned last season -- which of course will actually
cost them double because of the dollar-for-dollar match they'll pay
to the NBA for surpassing the luxury threshold expected to be about
$55 million when announced next summer.
"We want him back and he knows that," Whitsitt said. "We just want
to be fair about this and looking around the league at what those
other guys are making, we're comfortable it's fair market."
Whether or not Sabonis agrees with that remains to be seen. He
wasn't particularly pleased with coach Mike Dunleavy last season,
nor teammates Rasheed Wallace and Scottie Pippen as the Blazers
lost 17 of their last 25 games last season. It is a fresh start
with rookie coach Maurice Cheeks and the Blazers remain a solid
threat in the West to compete for home court advantage, if not
title contenders.
The names of available big men consistently mentioned are Jelani
McCoy, Adonal Foyle, Marc Jackson and Erick Dampier, the latter
three available for a menial price from Golden State's glut of
mediocre big men. But with Dale Davis aching for big minutes
this season, even at center, and the optimism that Shawn Kemp
will battle his way back from a cocaine problem, Whitsitt
isn't going to do anything rash at this point. He very
easily could scoop up Olden Polynice for the $1.3 million
exception, too.
"If there was something that we really wanted to do, we would
have done it already with Sabas, because we know he's short-
term anyway," Whitsitt said. "We'll just wait it out and see
what happens."
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