COURTSIDE CURSING: PASS BLAME.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH Media

About seven minutes into Wednesday night's Lakers-Sacramento game at Staples Center, dweebish courtside reporter Jim Gray was welcomed to ESPN's telecast with this update:

``Kobe Bryant got here to Staples Center about 10 minutes to 7 local time, which turned out to be about 55 minutes before game time. I spoke to him when he came out on the court. I asked him how he was feeling. He said, `OK.' I asked him if he was ready to play. He said, `Yes I am, I'm always ready to play.' He said his mental frame of mind was good for this game.''

It was simply Gray at, for him, his best - taking somewhat pertinent information, dumbing it down with simplistic questions and reporting it with a quiver in his voice as if he was hunkered down with Geraldo Rivera dispensing information about the U.S. Army's whereabouts during ``Shock and Awe.''

As expected, Gray also caught up with Bryant as the half ended, hitting him with three typically inane questions, two of which Bryant answered, ``I don't know,'' after which even Gray had to laugh and say, ``Tough questions, I guess. Get back in the locker room. Thanks for your time.'' Bryant put his hand on Gray's shoulder and returned the laugh, saying, ``Yeah, tough questions.''

If only Steve Francis received that kind of handle-with-care treatment from Gray a few days earlier.

At halftime of Sunday's ESPN telecast of the Houston-Sacramento game, Francis, the Rockets' star guard, had Gray stick a mike in his face moments after he went down hard on a play and thought he was fouled. There was no call on the play.

``What happened out there at the end of the half?'' Gray managed to ask Francis, who in turn blurted out an obscenity as he complained about the officiating. As Francis walked away to the locker room, Gray kept after him and got him to turn and curse again.

Although Francis came back to Gray before the start of the third quarter and apologized to the fans and commissioner David Stern, Francis was hit with a $25,000 fine - as opposed to the one-game suspension the NBA slapped on the Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal for cursing twice into John Ireland's live microphone on a KCAL-Channel 9 telecast on Feb. 1, which essentially cost O'Neal $275,000.

So what are the lessons here? There are several angles to examine, especially in this politically touchy climate with FCC threats of increased fines for networks that transmit anything live on the air that viewers could deem offensive.

First, is the reporter at fault? In Francis' case, there's definitely some culpability. Gray has to know the potentially inflammatory situation he's getting into, especially with an emotional player like Francis.

``I don't blame Steve Francis,'' agreed Michael Wilbon on ESPN's ``Pardon The Interruption.'' ``He is in an emotional basketball game where he is not only asked but required to be at an emotional pitch to play this game. And now you want him to come out and say nice things to a sideline reporter? That's junk.''

Is the NBA at fault for allowing games to be broadcast without any kind of delay to prevent this from happening?

Isn't it bound to happen again with all the boom mikes networks are allowed to put into team huddles during timeouts, or having refs wear microphones during telecasts?

Stu Jackson, the NBA's vice president of operations, told reporters this week: ``We've had the same policy the last five or six years and it hasn't been an issue until now. I don't anticipate it to be a problem that's reoccurring. If it is, then it might warrant further consideration of changing the policy.''

And why is it a bigger crime in the NBA's mind that an obscenity goes out over live TV instead of one that's bleeped out on a sports news show even when it's obvious to the viewers what words the player said?

Maybe the next time Gray is assigned to do a game for ESPN, he can do a sideline interview that's actually pertinent - like finding an NBA front-office person who could actually address these things and alter policy before another explosive situation leaves egg on everyone's face again.

CAPTION(S):

box

Box:

SOUND BYTES