This Punishment Does Not Fit The Crime

Ladies and gentlemen, the final score for the final time: ANARCHY 1, CIVILITY 0.

Forget all the college tournament scores. Forget the NBA and NHL results. The big score Wednesday came out of an arbitrator’s office, where John Feerick put $16.3 million back in Latrell Sprewell’s bank account with a decision that temporarily embarrasses David Stern and allows every punk in the land to think it’s perfectly OK for a self-centered player to assault a coach.

It wasn’t a total loss for the NBA. The No. 1 league priority all along was to make sure that Sprewell wouldn’t play again this season and thus get what he really wanted - a trade from the Golden State Warriors. It would have been completely disastrous had Feerick allowed Sprewell to help someone - San Antonio, perhaps? - to an NBA title after committing the most egregious and unforgivable physical act ever perpetrated in this sport.

Latrell Sprewell did not merely engage in a breach of decorum. He challenged proper authority in a very direct way when he placed both hands around P.J. Carlesimo’s throat. I don’t have any difficulty understanding why the Warriors believed he was in breach of his contract, and I don’t see why John Ferrick would have any, either.

Understand that Sprewell was no first-time offender. He is a multiple recidivist who has displayed distinct anti-team and antisocial tendencies in the past. He has had documented problems with teammates. He has had documented problems with society. He’s no, shall we say, choirboy who just happened to have a bad day.

Apparently, none of this counted in the mind of Mr. Feerick.

Funny. I, a layman, would have called that precedent, and I would have strongly taken that into consideration.

I point this out because it seems that precedent was indeed a major consideration in his ruling. There were references to NBA precedent, Warriors precedent, and general sports precedent. At the direction of Players Association head Billy Hunter, Mr. Feerick could find no precedent anywhere for the severity of the punishment meted out to Sprewell.

Well, duh. I guess not. Perhaps the reason there is no precedent for the severity of the punishment is that there is no precedent for the nature of the crime.

One of the phrases I love in this whole mess is Mr. Hunter’s reference to the “sanctity of the guaranteed contract.” Roll that one around on your tongue for a while.

Absent from Mr. Hunter’s thinking is any thought that there are reciprocal responsibilities involved when an athlete signs a multiyear “guaranteed” contract. This is the ultimate agent mentality. A player signs a contract, and if he should get hurt, he gets paid. That’s the nature of the beast, and we all understand that. Teams can partially protect themselves by taking out insurance, but the gamble is basically all theirs. The player has no feeling of obligation, no feeling of guilt, no sense of manly pride in attempting to live up completely to his end of the bargain.

This does not apply to all players, certainly. Not a day went by, for example, when Larry Bird did not feel an enormous sense of responsibility to give his employer an honest effort. He did not want to be paid for doing nothing, or less than his best.

So now comes a Latrell Sprewell, in the second year of a four-year contract worth approximately $32 million. He has problems with an abrasive coach. The team is losing. He is not playing very well. He’s stressed. He’s not an easy guy to get along with, in the best of circumstances. One day something happens at practice and there is Latrell Sprewell choking the coach. And there is Latrell Sprewell returning to the scene of this crime 20 minutes later for Round 2. This is shameful behavior. It must be punished severely.

Section 16 of the standard player’s contract includes a clause calling on the signee to “conform to standards of good citizenship and good moral character.” There is a reference to “moral turpitude.” It is clear and unambiguous, at least to me. If ever a team had a legitimate right to invoke its option to terminate said contract for violation of Section 16, it was the Golden State Warriors.

“Sanctity of the guaranteed contract”? Bring me the very large, economy-sized barf bag.

It is obvious John Feerick turned out to be a classic Bleeding Heart, more concerned about the rights of the criminal than the victim. And the victim in this case was Sport itself.

The rules of the game call for John Feerick to have the official last word, but let the record show that Warriors general manager Garry St. Jean distinguished himself by trying to do the right thing, and David Stern makes two. All coaches and decent people everywhere should never forget this.

Perhaps we should ask if Anarchy general manager Billy Hunter has more games scheduled this season.