CANCELED SEASON THE END FOR HARRIS?Byline: HOWARD BECK / NBA NBA abbr. 1. National Basketball Association 2. National Boxing Association NBA (US) n abbr (= National Basketball Association) → Basketball-Dachverband (= Everyone associated with the NBA loses something if the league's labor war kills the season. Money. Championship hopes. Comeback attempts. Fresh starts. Del Harris loses something far more personal: the chance to honor his late parents. And if the season is indeed canceled this week, Harris may also lose his job. The latter issue is cloudy. The Lakers coach is in the final year of his contract, and the team has not offered an extension. Even with the season on the verge On the Verge (or The Geography of Yearning) is a play written by Eric Overmyer. It makes extensive use of esoteric language and pop culture references from the late nineteenth century to 1955. of oblivion, management has made no assurances Harris will get a final opportunity to take the Lakers to the Finals. And there's no reason to believe that will change. If there is no season, Harris probably has coached his last Lakers game. It would be another crushing blow in an already tumultuous offseason for the 61-year-old Harris. His father, Elmer Harris Elmer Harris is the name of several people:
The losses ``had a profound effect on me,'' said the deeply religious Harris, noting it was his father who inspired his love of basketball growing up in tiny Plainfield, Ind. All Harris wanted was a chance to dedicate the season to his parents. To win a championship for Mom and Dad. ``It was during Dad's process of dying, I was kind of using the season as sort of a reason for him to hold on, hang on,'' Harris recalled in an interview last week. ``He was truly a basketball fan and sports fan and was the reason I got involved in sports in the first place.'' It was Elmer Harris and twin brother Delmer - for whom the coach was named - who instilled Del with a passion for sports. And later it was Delmer who helped the 26-year-old Del get his first major high-school coaching job, in Spencer, Ind. But Del's uncle died 25 years ago, missing the chance to see Harris coach in the NBA and take the Houston Rockets to the 1981 Finals. ``That was a big regret at the time, that he had not been able to see that,'' Harris said. ``I had hoped that Dad would be able to complete this, and see us win a championship, and put a closure, a final touch, on all the things we started on so many years ago.'' In recent years, both of Harris' parents lost their vision. They tracked the Lakers' progress through Del's sister, Beverly, who watched all the games via satellite TV in Tennessee and called with regular scoring updates. During close games, she'd call during the final minutes and hold the phone up to the TV so they could hear the action. The way Harris figures it, Mom and Dad might get a better look at the games now. ``I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. how it works in heaven. I suppose they have better things to do than watch the ups and downs ups and downs pl.n. Alternating periods of good and bad fortune or spirits. ups and downs Noun, pl alternating periods of good and bad luck or high and low spirits of an NBA season,'' Harris said. ``Or maybe they just see the good parts, you know, it's all joy up there.'' Perhaps in heaven, it's one long replay of Lakers-Sonics in the '98 playoffs, or Rockets-Celtics in the '81 Finals, or Del's Coach-of-the-Year season in 1995. But the courts are empty and Harris' chance for closure is slipping away. ``Hopefully,'' Harris said, ``we will still be able to do this and fulfill all those things. If not, they'll still share in whatever future endeavors might come up. In any case, their passing on has had a profound effect on me. Whether we win this championship or not, there will still be other positive things that came from their life.'' The case for Harris: All sentiment aside, the Lakers should do the right thing and bring Harris back for another season no matter how the lockout lockout, intentional closing up of a company, factory, or shop by an employer to prevent employees from working during a strike or labor dispute. The term lockout plays out. All signs pointed to this being Harris' last season, with that outcome subject to change if he wins a title. The buzz is that assistant Kurt Rambis Darrell Kurt Rambis (born February 25, 1958 in Cupertino, California) is an American former professional basketball player and current assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. would take the reins next. Although Harris posted a .691 winning percentage in the last three years - behind only Chicago's Phil Jackson
Philip Douglas "Phil" Jackson (born September 17, 1945 in Deer Lodge, Montana) is the current coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, an American professional basketball team. (.825), Seattle's George Karl George Matthew Karl (born May 12, 1951 in Penn Hills, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American former National Basketball Association (NBA) and American Basketball Association (ABA) player and current head coach of the Denver Nuggets. (.740) and Utah's Jerry Sloan Gerald Eugene Sloan better known as Jerry Sloan, (born March 28, 1942 in McLeansboro, Illinois), is an American National Basketball Association coach. He is one of professional basketball's most successful coaches, with a career win-loss record of 1035-689 (as of April 18, (.736) - he has not developed a strong rapport with his players. But reports of a full-scale mutiny are vastly exaggerated, and the more difficult personalities are either gone (Nick Van Exel Nickey (Nick) Maxwell Van Exel (born November 27 1971 in Kenosha, Wisconsin) is a retired American professional basketball player in the NBA. Van Exel, a 6'1" left-handed point guard, was most well known for his flashy style of play and his ability to hit critical shots during ) or soon will be (Elden Campbell Elden Jerome Campbell (born July 23, 1968 in Los Angeles, California) is an American former professional basketball player who played center in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Campbell played college basketball at Clemson University. , within seconds after the lockout ends). And Harris has improved the team's finish each year despite never having a full season with a healthy Shaquille O'Neal Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal (pronounced "shak-KEEL") (born March 6, 1972 in Newark, New Jersey), frequently referred to simply as Shaq, is an American professional basketball player, generally regarded as one of the most dominant in the National Basketball Association (NBA). - not to mention the challenges posed by Van Exel's tantrums, Kobe Bryant's youth and the lack of a reliable power forward. A healthy Shaq, a maturing Bryant, a real power forward and a better clubhouse atmosphere will put the Lakers in championship contention, and Harris deserves to be there when it happens - even if it means getting a contract extension the Lakers hadn't intended to give him. More lockout fallout: The NBA and its battery of attorneys are mulling the consequences of a lost season, and among the weighty issues - assuming the league survives - will be the status of player contracts and the structure of the NBA draft The NBA Draft is an annual North American event in which the National Basketball Association's (NBA) thirty teams (29 in the United States and one in Toronto, Canada) can select players who wish to join the league. . Conventional wisdom is that player contracts - which run by year, not by season - are in effect even if there are no games. That means Bryant and Lakers point guard Derek Fisher Derek Lamar Fisher (born August 9 1974 in Little Rock, Arkansas) is an American professional basketball player with the Los Angeles Lakers. He was with the Utah Jazz but asked to be released from his contract to care for his 10-month-old daughter, who has cancer. would be free agents this summer, and O'Neal could exercise an opt-out clause in his contract. It also means the Nuggets Nuggets can refer to several branches of interest:
In all, some 100 players would become free agents, adding to the current pool of 200 and making for a signing season that could put baseball's hot stove league The Hot Stove League is a baseball-related term, referring to the off-season. Therefore, it is not actually a "league", but the term instead calls up images of baseball fans, anxious for the start of the new season, gathering around a hot stove during the cold winter months to shame. The draft is another matter. Without a season of win-loss records, how would draft order be determined? Would the Clippers pick first again? No one knows yet, but one possibility is the league could order the draft based on three-year cumulative records, or use a combination of those records and the lottery. The ``winner'' of a three-year record scenario? Not the Clippers (they'd be sixth at .333), but the Vancouver Grizzlies The name Grizzlies may refer to:
Santa Shaq: O'Neal has been a notable absence at charity games, wisely skipping the Showtime debacle, opting out of the Chris Mills game at UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX and sitting out a Dallas game when he couldn't get large enough shorts. But he's still in a giving mood. On Dec. 20, O'Neal picked up the checks for everyone eating at Ruby's Restaurant in Redondo Beach. ``I shook his hand and thanked him,'' Kenneth Eldredge, who had half a club sandwich and a bowl of clam chowder chowder, stew of fish or shellfish with potatoes, onions, and pork (usually salt pork), thickened with crumbled hard bread. The name chowder seems to have originated from the French word chaudière , told the Easy Reader. ``He was very pleasant.'' HARRIS' CAREER With an impressive 61-21 season with the Lakers last year, Del Harris moved into a tie with Cleveland head coach Mike Fratello for 17th on the all-time winningest-coaches list with 550 wins. Here's a breakdown of Harris' career from Houston to Los Angeles. Year Team Record 79-80 Houston 41-41 80-81 Houston 40-42 81-82 Houston 46-36 82-83 Houston 14-68 87-88 Milwaukee 42-40 88-89 Milwaukee 49-33 89-90 Milwaukee 44-38 90-91 Milwaukee 48-34 91-92 Milwaukee 8-9 94-95 Lakers 48-34 95-96 Lakers 53-29 96-97 Lakers 56-26 97-98 Lakers 61-21 Total 550-451 LOCKOUT AT A GLANCE A look at the NBA lockout through Sunday, Day 188: Total days of season missed: 62 Games lost Sunday: 3 Total games missed: 418 Earliest estimated date season can start: Feb. 1 Negotiations: Nothing scheduled, but something should transpire before the league's Board of Governors meets Thursday to vote on whether to cancel the season. Projected player salary losses (through Feb. 1): More than $500 million. CAPTION(S): Photo, 2 Boxes PHOTO Del Harris, who has not been offered a contract extension, has a .691 winning percentage in the last three years. David Sprague/Daily News BOX: (1) HARRIS' CAREER (see text) (2) LOCKOUT AT A GLANCE (see text) |
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