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Kings 2004 preview: Mark Kriedler: Webber's leadership will depend on deeds
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PST Tuesday, November 2, 2004
Can Chris Webber become the emotional foundation of the Kings and transform them from happy-go-lucky runners-up to grim-faced conference championship contenders?
Terrific question. Allow me to address it with another one: Can Webber score?
Can Webber rack up points and shoot a percentage from the floor that he won't be embarrassed to say out loud? Can the man consistently collect rebounds like loose change and hand out assists like Halloween candy corn? Can he put his body on an opposing forward with enough heft and force to alter the other team's offensive possession?
Can he do any of those things, or even all of them, and stay healthy while doing so? Because those are the only things that are going to make a difference, no matter what Webber - or anybody else - says in the days between games.
You want leadership in the modern era of the NBA? Listen, this is it. Score. Rebound. Assist. Defend.
There is no toughness outside of what happens on the floor. There is no team-building that can exist apart from raw results. All the rest, though heaven knows I make my living from it, is talk.
Not that I graduated from the Cynic's Academy of Disbelief, but this notion of leadership among highly paid professional athletes may be the most grand over-hype ever concocted by an industry that would have you thinking the Super Bowl (to select one example) is a substitute for the apocalypse its own self.
And here let's be clear: We're talking about "leadership" in the locker room, the kind of phony, jazzed-up cheerleading you hear so much about but never quite connect directly to the business of winning. It's a popular myth.
It isn't as though there is no leadership in pro sports; it's that such galvanizing moments almost always occur during the games themselves. In locker rooms and clubhouses, not so much.
Curt Schilling. Kobe Bryant. Roger Clemens. Shoot, Joe Montana and John Stockton. I can give you a laundry list of athletes who either made very little impact in the locker room or clubhouse - or, in the cases of Schilling and Bryant, were actively disliked by teammates - yet went with such competitive ferocity into the actual games that they "led" their teams to victories.
And thus, Webber's offseason comments about the Kings needing to be tougher and more down-to-business about things, no matter how passionately he may have believed them when he made them, aren't worth a sweaty towel.
Webber says lots of things. He says most of them beautifully, articulately and with what appears to be genuine emotion at the time they're uttered. He may or may not believe them the next day, or the next week, or whenever.
To the Kings' front office and on down through the ranks, Webber remains an enigma, his comments for public consumption almost always taken with a grain of salt. Any effort to pin Webber into a single camp - underappreciated performer, self-absorbed bad guy, whatever - is doomed to failure. He's far too complex for that.
But either way, he cannot lead from a shower stall. He cannot lead from a trainer's table. He can give only so many speeches; he can take only so many impressionable young pros under his wing.
On the court. Or not at all.
This was a great offseason for being consumed by the trivial, and nowhere was that more brightly illustrated than in the general reaction to Webber - the man, the myth, the interview.
Webber lit the fuse of talk-show dynamite on the night of last season's playoff elimination game at Minnesota. You remember that one; it was just vague enough to implicate any number of his teammates (but Vlade Divac and Peja Stojakovic most of all) for their sotftness in the face of true challenge.
Fast forward through the summer, when Webber famously told The Bee's Martin McNeal about his team's supposed new leadership crew - he mentioned himself, Bobby Jackson, Mike Bibby and Doug Christie - and again asserted the need for mug-your-mother-style toughness in the coming season.
It made for great reading and absolutely no team impact, and this is why: Leadership-wise, Webber is exactly as good as his game. And at the end of last season, coming off his serious knee injury and long post-surgical rehabilitation (and league suspension), his game was infinitely so-so.
"I was very limited," he said recently of his abbreviated time last season. "But last year was last year. I'm not going to make excuses.
"This isn't football, where you get a signing bonus and you have to earn your contract. I knew I was going to put myself at risk for not keeping the normal stats I have, or looking embarrassing at times. But I'll always do that, 'cause I want to win a championship."
It is true that leadership in sports is, generally speaking, horribly ill-defined. Montana was an almost invisible presence in the 49ers' locker room, and it couldn't have mattered less; on the field, he was the epitome of a team leader. Ronnie Lott, on the other hand, could rattle a teammate's dentures with his roar; but without his brilliant Hall of Fame game, the words would have fallen flat.
My view is that Webber just has too much history, personally and with the Kings, to suddenly morph into a locker-room leader. For one thing, such a role generally requires an absolute consistency of character. Webber doesn't have it; he bottle-rockets his way from angry to funny to thoughtful and back, from fine-art collector to hardscrabble boy from the 'hood, without settling on any one persona.
Nothing criminal about that, but it reinforces the notion that, for Webber to lead anybody, he has to be on the court and playing at a phenomenally high level. And here I part company with Webber's detractors, because I think that, health permitting, that level is still attainable.
You've seen the Kings' training-camp roster; you know how critical Webber and Brad Miller are going to be this season. An extended injury to either player would be devastating. So would a simple bout of lousy play.
No, if Webber truly wants to lead this team anywhere, it will have to be on the floor - doing the dirty work, scrapping for loose balls, hitting the open jumper, pounding inside when the lane is begging for a presence. Besides, "Mike Bibby's going to have the ball in his hands a lot more often than either Chris or Peja," says coach Rick Adelman. Duly noted; but in the end, the true leaders find a way to matter. It ain't about the look. It's about the game.
Kings 2004 preview: Mark Kriedler: Webber's leadership will depend on deeds
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PST Tuesday, November 2, 2004
Can Chris Webber become the emotional foundation of the Kings and transform them from happy-go-lucky runners-up to grim-faced conference championship contenders?
Terrific question. Allow me to address it with another one: Can Webber score?
Can Webber rack up points and shoot a percentage from the floor that he won't be embarrassed to say out loud? Can the man consistently collect rebounds like loose change and hand out assists like Halloween candy corn? Can he put his body on an opposing forward with enough heft and force to alter the other team's offensive possession?
Can he do any of those things, or even all of them, and stay healthy while doing so? Because those are the only things that are going to make a difference, no matter what Webber - or anybody else - says in the days between games.
You want leadership in the modern era of the NBA? Listen, this is it. Score. Rebound. Assist. Defend.
There is no toughness outside of what happens on the floor. There is no team-building that can exist apart from raw results. All the rest, though heaven knows I make my living from it, is talk.
Not that I graduated from the Cynic's Academy of Disbelief, but this notion of leadership among highly paid professional athletes may be the most grand over-hype ever concocted by an industry that would have you thinking the Super Bowl (to select one example) is a substitute for the apocalypse its own self.
And here let's be clear: We're talking about "leadership" in the locker room, the kind of phony, jazzed-up cheerleading you hear so much about but never quite connect directly to the business of winning. It's a popular myth.
It isn't as though there is no leadership in pro sports; it's that such galvanizing moments almost always occur during the games themselves. In locker rooms and clubhouses, not so much.
Curt Schilling. Kobe Bryant. Roger Clemens. Shoot, Joe Montana and John Stockton. I can give you a laundry list of athletes who either made very little impact in the locker room or clubhouse - or, in the cases of Schilling and Bryant, were actively disliked by teammates - yet went with such competitive ferocity into the actual games that they "led" their teams to victories.
And thus, Webber's offseason comments about the Kings needing to be tougher and more down-to-business about things, no matter how passionately he may have believed them when he made them, aren't worth a sweaty towel.
Webber says lots of things. He says most of them beautifully, articulately and with what appears to be genuine emotion at the time they're uttered. He may or may not believe them the next day, or the next week, or whenever.
To the Kings' front office and on down through the ranks, Webber remains an enigma, his comments for public consumption almost always taken with a grain of salt. Any effort to pin Webber into a single camp - underappreciated performer, self-absorbed bad guy, whatever - is doomed to failure. He's far too complex for that.
But either way, he cannot lead from a shower stall. He cannot lead from a trainer's table. He can give only so many speeches; he can take only so many impressionable young pros under his wing.
On the court. Or not at all.
This was a great offseason for being consumed by the trivial, and nowhere was that more brightly illustrated than in the general reaction to Webber - the man, the myth, the interview.
Webber lit the fuse of talk-show dynamite on the night of last season's playoff elimination game at Minnesota. You remember that one; it was just vague enough to implicate any number of his teammates (but Vlade Divac and Peja Stojakovic most of all) for their sotftness in the face of true challenge.
Fast forward through the summer, when Webber famously told The Bee's Martin McNeal about his team's supposed new leadership crew - he mentioned himself, Bobby Jackson, Mike Bibby and Doug Christie - and again asserted the need for mug-your-mother-style toughness in the coming season.
It made for great reading and absolutely no team impact, and this is why: Leadership-wise, Webber is exactly as good as his game. And at the end of last season, coming off his serious knee injury and long post-surgical rehabilitation (and league suspension), his game was infinitely so-so.
"I was very limited," he said recently of his abbreviated time last season. "But last year was last year. I'm not going to make excuses.
"This isn't football, where you get a signing bonus and you have to earn your contract. I knew I was going to put myself at risk for not keeping the normal stats I have, or looking embarrassing at times. But I'll always do that, 'cause I want to win a championship."
It is true that leadership in sports is, generally speaking, horribly ill-defined. Montana was an almost invisible presence in the 49ers' locker room, and it couldn't have mattered less; on the field, he was the epitome of a team leader. Ronnie Lott, on the other hand, could rattle a teammate's dentures with his roar; but without his brilliant Hall of Fame game, the words would have fallen flat.
My view is that Webber just has too much history, personally and with the Kings, to suddenly morph into a locker-room leader. For one thing, such a role generally requires an absolute consistency of character. Webber doesn't have it; he bottle-rockets his way from angry to funny to thoughtful and back, from fine-art collector to hardscrabble boy from the 'hood, without settling on any one persona.
Nothing criminal about that, but it reinforces the notion that, for Webber to lead anybody, he has to be on the court and playing at a phenomenally high level. And here I part company with Webber's detractors, because I think that, health permitting, that level is still attainable.
You've seen the Kings' training-camp roster; you know how critical Webber and Brad Miller are going to be this season. An extended injury to either player would be devastating. So would a simple bout of lousy play.
No, if Webber truly wants to lead this team anywhere, it will have to be on the floor - doing the dirty work, scrapping for loose balls, hitting the open jumper, pounding inside when the lane is begging for a presence. Besides, "Mike Bibby's going to have the ball in his hands a lot more often than either Chris or Peja," says coach Rick Adelman. Duly noted; but in the end, the true leaders find a way to matter. It ain't about the look. It's about the game.
