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Wednesday, October 7, 1998
Houston tennis center becomes pseudo NBA camp
By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press Writer
HOUSTON (AP) - Many of the names and faces are familiar. The
uniforms are not.
It's odd to see Hakeem Olajuwon, Nick Van Exel, Ron Mercer
and other well-known NBA players racing up and down the court
wearing a red or blue shirt that says "West Side Tennis Center."
On a day when players should have been in training camp for
a season that was supposed to start in less than a month, a couple
dozen NBA players, former players and hope-to-be players scrimmaged
Tuesday at the site normally used by the Houston Rockets as a
training center.
No official from the Rockets or any NBA team was present because
the owners have locked out the players while labor negotiations
drag on between the two sides.
This week the league canceled preseason games. The next bargaining
session is Thursday, and the next casualty of the dispute could
be regular season games.
"It's real frustrating," said Van Exel, the All-Star
point guard traded from the Los Angeles Lakers to Denver earlier
this summer. "It's not the players' fault. Let that be known.
"It probably will get worse and worse and worse. It's
going to get nasty, I'm sure. But we've got to keep our ground
and not let them walk all over us the way their proposal is set
up to do. You've got to stand tough."
While a handful of players have worked out at the tennis center's
basketball court all summer, the NBA players union arranged to
have players at about a dozen arenas Tuesday, including Houston,
to try to gain public support for its position.
"The league is asking for a lot of unreasonable concessions,"
said Purvis Short, director of player programs for the NBA Players
Association, who met briefly in private with the players who showed
up in Houston.
"The players have said they're willing to renegotiate
and compromise, but they can't give up everything they have,"
Short said.
Rockets center Olajuwon made his first appearance at a workout
in Houston, as did Boston's Mercer, a first-team guard on last
year's NBA All-Rookie team.
"This is not the same as playing in the NBA. It doesn't
feel like it either," Mercer said. "Most of these guys
know each other, but it's not like your teammates."
"In the beginning I didn't think it was going to be this
serious," Olajuwon said of the lockout. "Both sides
need to sit down like gentlemen and compromise. That's the only
way people resolve problems - sit down and work it out."
"It's a big tug of war now to get it where both sides
want it," Golden State's Clarence Weatherspoon said. "Hopefully
we can get it at a point where we meet half way and we can get
things settled."
The workout was little more than spirited but brief and informal
pickup games. Some players hit the weight room after the scrimmage.
Others, like Houston high school star Rashard Lewis, a second-round
pick by Seattle in this summer's draft, stood around for more
than an hour waiting for a chance to even get on the court.
"It's hard for me to not be able to talk to my coaches,"
Lewis said while free agent NBA players such as Mario Elie and
retired star Moses Malone played.
"We're just trying to make a stand now," said Sam
Cassell of the New Jersey Nets. "It's going to take a while,
I think. It's serious now. I hope we can intimidate them (the
owners) in some way, but it's hard to do."
"None of us thought it would get to this point,"
said San Antonio guard Avery Johnson, who said it felt funny to
be working out in Houston instead of elsewhere with his Spurs
teammates. "It's just disappointing. Maybe they can go behind
closed doors for 24 hours and work something out."
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