The Curious Case of Chris Webber

Or: How not to end a career

March 22, 2008

Many great players have never won a World Championship – the modest title the NBA deems fit for the last team standing each June. Today’s NBA consists of 30 teams. Only very few players managed to have an NBA career of more than 15 years. So chances are, you’ll end up blank.

Karl Malone pick and rolled and dunked his way to more points than “His Airness” himself; yet, the lasting image in my mind is his turnover in Game 6 of the 1998 Finals that led to Jordan’s jumper over Byron Scott that sealed Chicago’s sixth NBA Championship in eight years. Malone’s sidekick John Stockton – only the NBA’s all-time leader in assists and steals – is widely considered one of the greatest pure point guards; yet, no-one would compare him to five-time champ Magic Johnson. Reggie Miller shot down the Knicks countless times and nobody came close to hitting as many three-pointers for his career. But since his retirement after the 2003-04 season, Reggie, too, has entered the pantheon of “great players who have never won a ring”.

And I am pretty positive, he’s not too pleased about that. Really: it’s not a nice thing when a reporter who has run out of interesting things to say, comes back to mentioning what an amazing talent you were. There is just one small blemish on your resume: it’s a shame you didn’t win it all…

While it is laudable that an athlete like Reggie Miller decides to stick with his old franchise even though it has no shot in hell to compete for a title, it is easy to understand why a seasoned veteran seeks out greener pastures in the hunt for that elusive ring. Gary Payton was once arguably the best all-around point guard in the League, earning the nickname “The Glove” with his tenacious defense. When his skills began to deteriorate, he took his game from Seattle to the Land of Shaq – at that time, the best guarantee to win a title. When the Pistons sent Los Angeles home, Shaq went packing to Miami and Payton yet again followed him to town. And even though he only played a minor role on the 2006 championship team, he avoided the fate of Dominique Wilkins, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley and many others who weren’t as lucky.

So, if you’re keeping track: we’ve got loyal soldiers like Reggie Miller and we’ve got opportunistic mercenaries like Gary Payton. And then there is Chris Webber.

The National High School Player of the Year in 1991, Chris Webber was one fifth of the “Fab Five” who led the University of Michigan to two consecutive NCAA Finals – both losses. The number 1 pick in the 1993 draft, Webber became an instant hit with the Golden State Warriors whom he led to the playoffs in his rookie season. But during the summer, the Rookie of the Year fell out with his coach and demanded a trade. After a couple of so-so years in Washington, he went back to California in 1998, this time to Sacramento. Surrounded by a core of Vlade Divac, Mike Bibby and Peja Stojakovic, C-Webb was the star power forward of the NBA’s most exciting team that played an attractive and successful brand of unselfish basketball. Unfortunately for them, they played in the same division as Shaq and Kobe’s Los Angeles Lakers and – though they came awfully close in 2002 – never made it to the Finals.

C-Webb’s knees blew out in the 2003 playoffs against the Dallas Mavericks and when he came back, he was not the same player anymore. The attempt to team up with Allen Iverson failed so dramatically, that Philadelphia’s general manager decided to buy out his contract in January 2007. Free to choose any team he liked, Webber joined his hometown Detroit Pistons – a legitimate title contender. So far, all signs pointed towards Gary Payton’s career path.

But then the Pistons lost to LeBron James and company and Webber left Detroit to ponder retirement. When he came back from the shadows in January 2008, it was a shock to hear where he was headed: the Golden State Warriors. Golden State had just ended a 12-year playoff drought and shockingly defeated the top-seeded Mavericks in the first round. However, only die-hard Warriors fan would consider this year’s team a true threat to come out of the West. Worse yet, many of those same die-hard fans still recalled how their long run of futility had started: with Webber’s bitter exit in 1994. Not only that, Golden State’s coach Don Nelson was the same coach who had fought with Webber during his rookie seasons with the Warriors. And to top things off, the Warriors play at a breath-taking pace – which is fine as long as you’re not a 35-year old forward with bad knees. In the nine games he suited up for, Webber averaged a paltry 3.9 ppg before again succumbing to an injury.

Chris Webber’s decision to join the Warriors may seem utterly pointless (it does to me) but we can kindly attribute it to a longing felt by many old people: the urge to go back to where it all started. In fact, one day, Webber could very well find himself sitting next to Reggie Miller and Gary Payton in the basketball pantheon as the poster-boy for the third way to end a great career: as a sentimental warrior.

- Ole

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Created by: Ole