Cheap Seats

It pays to stay in school

When center Sam Bowie turned down $3 million offers from the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers and stayed retired, San Antonio Spurs guard Doc Rivers wasn’t surprised.

“That just goes to show you,” Rivers said laughing, “how much he got paid at Kentucky.”

Back to you, in the AT&T Media Work Room

Corporate sponsors snapped up everything the NBA put on sale for All-Star Weekend. As Mark Heisler of the Los Angeles Times points out, there was “the Shick Rookie Game, the Foot Locker Million-Dollar Shot, the AT&T Shootout (no, they weren’t downsizing by shooting employees), the Nestle Crunch Slam-Dunk. The league even sold sponsorship of the room where reporters typed their stories, which became - I’m not making this up - the AT&T Media Work Room, presented by Fleer.”

Meanwhile, “Michael Jordan blows off media day, as he always does, and is fined $10,000, as he always is. Charles Barkley is with him, playing golf in Las Vegas. Barkley shows up on game day with bronchitis, a hangover or both.”

Then there’s Shaquille O’Neal, who should have been the MVP, but loses by a 4-3 vote of writers. “Of course, Shaq deserves this dishonor,” Heisler adds, “having thumbed his nose at the press for the four privileged years he’s been in the league. Not only is he a lively young man who turns into a mumbling, monosyllabic mummy whenever he consents to be interviewed, he brags about it, even inventing a name for it: ‘Shamming.”’

We hadn’t noticed an intellectual drop-off. When’s the last time Shaq was mistaken for Arthur Ashe, anyway?

Meadowlark Stupak

For 40 years, Bob Stupak dreamed of playing for the Harlem Globetrotters. Even though the 53-year-old millionaire is of average height and has no detectable basketball skill, Stupak dreamed on. Saturday his dream came true. All it cost was a $100,000 donation to the United Negro College Fund.

Stupak, chairman of the Stratosphere Tower casino in Las Vegas, played briefly in the Globetrotters’ afternoon game in Madison Square Garden. The plan was for him to enter the game as a sub, be fouled by an opponent and take his free throws. He ended up hitting 1 of 5 free throws, and donated an extra 50 grand for making one.

What’s next for the man who claims to have won a $1 million bet on the 1989 Super Bowl?

“Maybe Carnegie Hall,” he said. “I can play the piano a little. Just kidding.”

We double-dare ya to pass off, Yinka

When New Jersey Nets center Yinka Dare gets his first assist, he will have the worst assists-to-turnover ratio in NBA history. Going into the weekend, his total was 42 games, 58 turnovers and no assists, leaving his ratio mathematically undefined.

Said Dare, refusing to cave in to the pressure, “I’m not going to rush it. I’m not going to force it.”

The last word …

“Ted Marchibroda went from working for Robert Irsay to working for Art Modell. I’m not sure if that’s a resume or a rap sheet.”

- Michael Ventre, Los Angeles Daily News

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo