funsc
Bench
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/11227004.htm
UNDER THE WEBBER
[size=-1]By PHIL JASNER[/size]
[size=-1]jasnerp@phillynews.com[/size]
THE 76ERS, the story goes, acquired Chris Webber - a five-time NBA All-Star, the Western Conference Player of the Month in January - at the trade deadline last month.
They're not certain they've seen him yet.
Worse, a 19-point performance in Wednesday's victory over Detroit notwithstanding, he knows they're right. It hurts him as much as it puzzles them.
There's a 6-10 Sixer wearing Webber's familiar No. 4 jersey, the same number he wore for more than six seasons with the Sacramento Kings. He's even in the starting lineup. But he's not in his element. He knows that, too. He's fighting to change it, but it has been a battle steeped in disappointment and frustration.
It was time to talk about all of it, because after the Sixers face Toronto tonight and visit the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday night, they'll be in - of all places - Sacramento the following evening. Webber, introspective and thoughtful, has tried to block it out of his consciousness. He was jolted back to reality when a friend called and said it was time to order however many tickets he needed for Monday's game.
"Let some people say I've lost every piece of confidence, which is hilarious," Webber said in an interview with the Daily News. "I just think it's a new environment. People have to trust me to be me. I've done a lot in the past to make people question my character. I've grown up in front of everybody, in the toughest times of life in front of the camera.
"But my work has always been my work. I've always put 100 percent into it. If you brought me here for the reasons you brought me here for, then put me in an environment that allows me to do it."
The Sixers are 7-5 in games in which Webber has played since joining them Feb. 26. He's not tilting at windmills. He's trying to be what he has always been - a versatile, consistent, unselfish player, averaging nearly 22 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in his 12 seasons.
But he feels he is being asked to prove himself all over again. He shot 4-for-18 in a loss to New Jersey. He had eight points in a loss to Golden State, five in a victory over the Lakers. In his debut in the Wachovia Center, he had 16 points and 11 rebounds, but missed a followup of an intentionally missed free throw by Allen Iverson that would have forced overtime. He sat out a stretch of nearly 12 minutes of what became a one-point victory in Atlanta. He sat out Saturday's loss to Chicago with a peroneal neuropathy in his left leg; he had to ask what the peroneal nerve was, and exactly how he might have hurt it.
In 46 games with the Kings this season, he averaged 21.3 points, 9.7 rebounds and 5.5 assists in 36.3 minutes. With the Sixers, those numbers have dwindled to 14.5 points, 7.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 31.9 minutes.
He has, in his struggle to re-establish himself and find a niche with the Sixers, heard it all. Go ahead, ask.
What about the stories indicating that he did not like Kings teammate Peja Stojakovic, a star in his own right?
"Not true," Webber said. "I don't know... that's probably one of the things that hurts me the most."
Sitting out for nearly 12 minutes March 5 against the lowly Hawks?
"That's the longest time I ever sat out in my professional career," he said.
Has he been able to reconcile that experience with himself?
"But ask me if I ever reconciled scoring under 10 points in two games in a season, which had never happened before," he said. "Ask me that. Ask me if I've reconciled having the worst season of my life after having one of the best first halves of my life. There's a lot you can ask me about."
How about the booing that cascaded down on the team during the March 8 loss to Golden State?
"I knew it was directed at the team," he said. "I didn't care, because they weren't getting me. If you weren't booing me, I wanted to boo, too."
That he, as a national TV report said, supposedly dislikes playing for coach Jim O'Brien?
"I think people are going to make their assumptions," he said. "I can't hide a lot of my body language, so I think that gives people an avenue to guess and suggest. I think I can play for anybody, because I think I'm talented and I can listen. I think it can work."
Can he play - and succeed - with Iverson, who dominates the ball, leading the league in scoring and minutes?
"If it wasn't for him convincing me to be here, it would have been a lot more difficult," he said. "I believe in us. I believe in that guy. He's brainwashing me. I believe in him. Until somebody knocks me in the head, I believe in him."
Ask him, then, what he wants.
"If I was traded here, if I go 0-for-95, I'm supposed to take that next shot," he said. "I'm the new guy. You traded for me. You've seen what I've done in the past. I wasn't happy going from a place that trusts you to a place you have to prove yourself after 12 years, longer than mostly everybody. I just want the trust I felt I earned."
It is not breaking new ground to say that Chris Webber thoroughly disliked Sacramento when he first arrived there seven seasons ago, or that he learned to love it. Washington traded him there May 14, 1998, for Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe. He never wanted to go. Yet, a day before he was traded to the Sixers, he told the Sacramento Bee, "I don't want to trade this for the world."
He was the No. 1 overall pick in the draft in 1993, taken by Orlando and traded the same day to Golden State. He was sent to Washington in 1994. During his career, he has been arrested for marijuana possession, charged with second-degree assault and cited for various traffic-related violations. Last season, he was suspended for eight games for violation of the league's anti-drug program and for lying to a federal grand jury about his involvement during his Michigan career with booster Ed Martin. He has a guaranteed contract that pays him $17.5 million-plus this season and more than $62 million the next three seasons.
But, in his mind, he doesn't have it all.
"This is the first time my work really has affected my life," he said. "I was settled and OK at the point I was in my life, whereas the other times I got traded it was OK to move. I was young, didn't care, hadn't been any place as long as I was in Sacramento.
"Someone called [recently] and said I needed to get my tickets in order for the game out there, and I just thought to myself, 'Dang, I didn't think we were going that soon.' This is not a tough guy [reaction], this is not bravado; it's just me putting up a wall mentally. I really don't want to think about [going back].
"I want that to be the best 6, 7 years of my career. I don't want to think about who did me wrong. I don't want to think about [how] I came back early [after 50 games, from knee surgery]. I don't want to think about when I first got there. I don't want to think those things. I'd rather just put it away in my mind, as the best time I've had so far, and not open it up again until I retire... I don't want to think about it. I haven't. And I don't have to."
But he saw Kings teammate Vlade Divac leave in free agency to join the Lakers. He saw teammate Doug Christie traded to Orlando. Didn't he wonder what - or who - might be next?
"No, never," he said. "I thought I was going to retire in Sacramento. They told me I was going to, and that's what I believed."
But when opportunity knocked for Geoff Petrie, the Kings' president of basketball operations, Petrie hurled the door open. The Sixers were offering Kenny Thomas, Brian Skinner and Corliss Williamson for Webber. Petrie included Michael Bradley and Matt Barnes to bring the exchanged contracts within the league rule of 15 percent and $100,000.
Petrie, apparently believing the Kings, as they were, had gone as far as they could, was essentially breaking Webber's contract into three pieces, hoping that in the offseason he might have more flexibility to make additional changes.
The Sixers, on the other hand, were getting what they craved: a legitimate, multitalented second star.
Webber left Sacramento as reluctantly as he had arrived.
"I didn't want to be there [at first]; I was honest," he said. "But I found a group of people I believed in, and they made everything better. It's that simple. I found people I was on the same page with, that I could be myself around. That made up for anything [involving] being a young, single male, despite not being in an urban city, or in a city where everyone was married.
"Those people were like a family to me. For all those reasons, I was happy to eat crow. I was happy to eat my words and say I enjoyed it there. I have two homes there; I was adding on to one.
"But that's what you get: You find a situation you don't think you want, you do everything not to be in it and then you get the chance to say you love it.
"And then they don't want you. That's life."
UNDER THE WEBBER
[size=-1]By PHIL JASNER[/size]
[size=-1]jasnerp@phillynews.com[/size]
THE 76ERS, the story goes, acquired Chris Webber - a five-time NBA All-Star, the Western Conference Player of the Month in January - at the trade deadline last month.
They're not certain they've seen him yet.
Worse, a 19-point performance in Wednesday's victory over Detroit notwithstanding, he knows they're right. It hurts him as much as it puzzles them.
There's a 6-10 Sixer wearing Webber's familiar No. 4 jersey, the same number he wore for more than six seasons with the Sacramento Kings. He's even in the starting lineup. But he's not in his element. He knows that, too. He's fighting to change it, but it has been a battle steeped in disappointment and frustration.
It was time to talk about all of it, because after the Sixers face Toronto tonight and visit the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday night, they'll be in - of all places - Sacramento the following evening. Webber, introspective and thoughtful, has tried to block it out of his consciousness. He was jolted back to reality when a friend called and said it was time to order however many tickets he needed for Monday's game.
"Let some people say I've lost every piece of confidence, which is hilarious," Webber said in an interview with the Daily News. "I just think it's a new environment. People have to trust me to be me. I've done a lot in the past to make people question my character. I've grown up in front of everybody, in the toughest times of life in front of the camera.
"But my work has always been my work. I've always put 100 percent into it. If you brought me here for the reasons you brought me here for, then put me in an environment that allows me to do it."
The Sixers are 7-5 in games in which Webber has played since joining them Feb. 26. He's not tilting at windmills. He's trying to be what he has always been - a versatile, consistent, unselfish player, averaging nearly 22 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in his 12 seasons.
But he feels he is being asked to prove himself all over again. He shot 4-for-18 in a loss to New Jersey. He had eight points in a loss to Golden State, five in a victory over the Lakers. In his debut in the Wachovia Center, he had 16 points and 11 rebounds, but missed a followup of an intentionally missed free throw by Allen Iverson that would have forced overtime. He sat out a stretch of nearly 12 minutes of what became a one-point victory in Atlanta. He sat out Saturday's loss to Chicago with a peroneal neuropathy in his left leg; he had to ask what the peroneal nerve was, and exactly how he might have hurt it.
In 46 games with the Kings this season, he averaged 21.3 points, 9.7 rebounds and 5.5 assists in 36.3 minutes. With the Sixers, those numbers have dwindled to 14.5 points, 7.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 31.9 minutes.
He has, in his struggle to re-establish himself and find a niche with the Sixers, heard it all. Go ahead, ask.
What about the stories indicating that he did not like Kings teammate Peja Stojakovic, a star in his own right?
"Not true," Webber said. "I don't know... that's probably one of the things that hurts me the most."
Sitting out for nearly 12 minutes March 5 against the lowly Hawks?
"That's the longest time I ever sat out in my professional career," he said.
Has he been able to reconcile that experience with himself?
"But ask me if I ever reconciled scoring under 10 points in two games in a season, which had never happened before," he said. "Ask me that. Ask me if I've reconciled having the worst season of my life after having one of the best first halves of my life. There's a lot you can ask me about."
How about the booing that cascaded down on the team during the March 8 loss to Golden State?
"I knew it was directed at the team," he said. "I didn't care, because they weren't getting me. If you weren't booing me, I wanted to boo, too."
That he, as a national TV report said, supposedly dislikes playing for coach Jim O'Brien?
"I think people are going to make their assumptions," he said. "I can't hide a lot of my body language, so I think that gives people an avenue to guess and suggest. I think I can play for anybody, because I think I'm talented and I can listen. I think it can work."
Can he play - and succeed - with Iverson, who dominates the ball, leading the league in scoring and minutes?
"If it wasn't for him convincing me to be here, it would have been a lot more difficult," he said. "I believe in us. I believe in that guy. He's brainwashing me. I believe in him. Until somebody knocks me in the head, I believe in him."
Ask him, then, what he wants.
"If I was traded here, if I go 0-for-95, I'm supposed to take that next shot," he said. "I'm the new guy. You traded for me. You've seen what I've done in the past. I wasn't happy going from a place that trusts you to a place you have to prove yourself after 12 years, longer than mostly everybody. I just want the trust I felt I earned."
It is not breaking new ground to say that Chris Webber thoroughly disliked Sacramento when he first arrived there seven seasons ago, or that he learned to love it. Washington traded him there May 14, 1998, for Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe. He never wanted to go. Yet, a day before he was traded to the Sixers, he told the Sacramento Bee, "I don't want to trade this for the world."
He was the No. 1 overall pick in the draft in 1993, taken by Orlando and traded the same day to Golden State. He was sent to Washington in 1994. During his career, he has been arrested for marijuana possession, charged with second-degree assault and cited for various traffic-related violations. Last season, he was suspended for eight games for violation of the league's anti-drug program and for lying to a federal grand jury about his involvement during his Michigan career with booster Ed Martin. He has a guaranteed contract that pays him $17.5 million-plus this season and more than $62 million the next three seasons.
But, in his mind, he doesn't have it all.
"This is the first time my work really has affected my life," he said. "I was settled and OK at the point I was in my life, whereas the other times I got traded it was OK to move. I was young, didn't care, hadn't been any place as long as I was in Sacramento.
"Someone called [recently] and said I needed to get my tickets in order for the game out there, and I just thought to myself, 'Dang, I didn't think we were going that soon.' This is not a tough guy [reaction], this is not bravado; it's just me putting up a wall mentally. I really don't want to think about [going back].
"I want that to be the best 6, 7 years of my career. I don't want to think about who did me wrong. I don't want to think about [how] I came back early [after 50 games, from knee surgery]. I don't want to think about when I first got there. I don't want to think those things. I'd rather just put it away in my mind, as the best time I've had so far, and not open it up again until I retire... I don't want to think about it. I haven't. And I don't have to."
But he saw Kings teammate Vlade Divac leave in free agency to join the Lakers. He saw teammate Doug Christie traded to Orlando. Didn't he wonder what - or who - might be next?
"No, never," he said. "I thought I was going to retire in Sacramento. They told me I was going to, and that's what I believed."
But when opportunity knocked for Geoff Petrie, the Kings' president of basketball operations, Petrie hurled the door open. The Sixers were offering Kenny Thomas, Brian Skinner and Corliss Williamson for Webber. Petrie included Michael Bradley and Matt Barnes to bring the exchanged contracts within the league rule of 15 percent and $100,000.
Petrie, apparently believing the Kings, as they were, had gone as far as they could, was essentially breaking Webber's contract into three pieces, hoping that in the offseason he might have more flexibility to make additional changes.
The Sixers, on the other hand, were getting what they craved: a legitimate, multitalented second star.
Webber left Sacramento as reluctantly as he had arrived.
"I didn't want to be there [at first]; I was honest," he said. "But I found a group of people I believed in, and they made everything better. It's that simple. I found people I was on the same page with, that I could be myself around. That made up for anything [involving] being a young, single male, despite not being in an urban city, or in a city where everyone was married.
"Those people were like a family to me. For all those reasons, I was happy to eat crow. I was happy to eat my words and say I enjoyed it there. I have two homes there; I was adding on to one.
"But that's what you get: You find a situation you don't think you want, you do everything not to be in it and then you get the chance to say you love it.
"And then they don't want you. That's life."
that's great to hear!! Webb seems to be finding his game. It had to happen, I said it at the time and I'll say it now, he is way too good to continue to play as badly as he did initially. Hearing he had 20 points made me smile, and seeing that AI only had 17 made me smile even more. I know it's only halftime, but it was nice to see CWebb shown as the "leading scorer" on espn, it's been a long time.
