Hanging On The Rim With A Hangover

An overlooked angle in last weekend’s assemblage of the 50 greatest players in NBA history at the All-Star Game - highlighted by the most majestic halftime show in any sport ever, a simple, introduction of the 47 in attendance - would have been to ask each guy to give an account of his best game played with a hangover.

Some, such as teetotalers David Robinson and John Stockton, might have been offended. Others, like George Gervin, might have taken a half-hour to sort through the possibilities. Others could have told tales from both ends because their careers spanned the straight and the sauced.

A recurring theme in tales of boozing, partying, womanizing and yet playing well - a quiet but significant macho achievement among some in professional athletics - is the belief in the invulnerability of their magnificent bodies.

By now the savvy sports fan who has read the tell-all books from authors such as Jim Bouton, Peter Gent, Spencer Haywood and Tim Green, knows young athletes generally believe themselves to be indestructible. Based on early career evidence, who’s to argue?

When Walter Davis, the former Phoenix Suns star, tells of scoring 40 points the game after an all-night cocaine binge, the listener is easily persuaded that he is of an entirely different constitution and metabolism than the speaker.

Many who have survived pill-popping, sleepless cram sessions in a college finals week and were proud of it, never had to try to light up a defender like ex-Sonic Dennis Johnson the next night.

Davis and his fellow rare men have elevated themselves to the elite of the athletic elite and can get away with that sort of self-abuse, sometimes for years, sometimes forever.

Sometimes not.

You never know.

Which brings us to Shawn Kemp.

I don’t know if Kemp has an alcohol problem. I don’t know if he plays well, or poorly, with a hangover. I don’t know whether he needs a lot of sleep, or a little sleep, to play well.

And I don’t know whether his late-night drinking, be it seven or 10 drinks, before an afternoon game with one of the great teams in NBA annals, materially affected his performance.

What I do know is that a lot of other people don’t know what’s up with Kemp either, and that includes his coaches, teammates and management. He keeps a very private counsel in a very public endeavor.

I also know that a lot of Sonic fans care about Kemp, including those who were willing to stick their necks out and tell the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, when asked, what they saw that Saturday night. The restaurant employees were angry, hurt and disappointed.

Maybe they were naive about the private life of a star athlete. Then again, how many reading this sentence cannot be accused of the same? The employees could have kept to themselves, I suppose. But that runs counter to a demand I see growing daily among sports consumers: accountability.

When they saw Kemp disappear against a Bulls team he dominated eight months earlier - and this time without ace frontline defender Dennis Rodman - there was no amount of spin-doctoring about clever double-teams that could alter what common sense told them.

When fans invest their emotions, and increasingly substantial portions of their paychecks, in athletes and teams, they have every right to expect a sincere effort.

Perfection? No. Wins? No. But they expect and deserve the best an athlete can give. Nobody who saw Kemp that Sunday against the Bulls saw anything close to his best.

It wasn’t what Kemp did the night before, it was when he did it: the night before.

If Kemp were intoxicated Sunday night, celebrating a win over the Bulls or drowning his sorrows after a loss, the moment wouldn’t have said much. But when a prominent athlete drinks heavily in public and then screws up just hours later, he invites scrutiny and dismay.

Don’t like that? Tough. It’s a part of the deal, however unfair it might seem. A prime reason Kemp and his peers are so staggeringly wealthy today is because huge numbers of people follow their work, admire and lionize them, to the point of buying ridiculously overpriced shoes simply because the athlete says so.

With that kind of power and influence comes some degree of responsibility, up to and including some conduct of one’s private life. Nobody is saying a player can’t drink, or even get drunk. But if he does so publicly, and screws up, he risks experiencing the flip side of all that money and power: resentment and betrayal. It might not be fair, but it is inevitable, and only a fool argues the point.

If Kemp wants no part of public adulation and its scrutiny, he can say so and pull an Albert Belle. Didn’t hurt Belle at contract time, did it? But that abdication does nothing to help his teammates and coaches.

Kemp’s apparent lack of readiness for the Bulls game speaks to a pattern of dubious judgment about what he owes people who depend on him. Whether it is his recurring lateness to practice or flights, his occasional failure to play smart or his frequent avoidance of media inquiries, it means his coaches and teammates have to cover for him.

Maybe Kemp is among the few magnificents who can get away with everything. Is that something worth finding out?