Hoop Nightmare

When a basketball star choked and tried to punch his coach, it highlighted a growing culture clash in the NBA. Are the game's bad boys, old-guard coaches or the hype-hungry endorsement industry to blame?

In pro sports ugly usually begets uglier. And the incident in Oakland where Golden State Warriors star Latrell Sprewell assaulted his coach, P. J. Carlesimo, during a practice was plenty ugly from the start. After the coach scolded him for a lacklu ster effort, a teammate told NEWSWEEK, Sprewell ""went straight playground" on Carlesimo: ""Bitch, you're gonna trade me or I'm gonna kill you." Then he apparently decided not to wait for that first option, seizing the coach's throat. Players pulled Spre well off, and the 27-year-old all-star guard was ushered out of the gym. But 15 minutes later he returned and lunged at Carlesimo again, striking him a glancing blow to the neck. ""You prepare for a lot of things in the course of a career," said Carlesim o, who has had strained relations with players in the past, ""but no one prepares for something like this."

The attack heightens already growing concerns about the lack of discipline among the game's younger stars. The NBA generation gap was on full display last season when Dream Teamers Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley all criticized th e lack of respect young players show the game--and pretty much everyone and everything. This lack of respect for authority appears endemic to all of today's big-dollar sports. Fans have puzzled over how Baltimore Orioles star Robbie Alomar could have spi t in an umpire's face and walked away with just a slap on the wrist. Or how the Chicago Bulls' Dennis Rodman could have head-butted a referee and lost only a few paychecks.

Yet over the next couple of days, the Sprewell episode triggered a stern response, as if everyone had suddenly decided that enough was enough. First Sprewell's union refused to ""condone violence of any kind," and his shoe company, Converse, called his act ""inexcusable" and severed its endorsement deal. Even Sprewell's agent, Arn Tellem, who has mustered defenses of criminal and boorish behavior on behalf of clients like the NBA's Isaiah Rider and baseball's Albert Belle, was left temporarily spe echless. Only Sprewell didn't seem to get it, apologizing to his fans and family but not to his coach or team. So Golden State, which just last year had shown Sprewell the money to the tune of $32 million for four years, showed him the gate--firing him f or violating the ""good moral character" clause of the NBA contract.

The league was equally anxious to send a message: it suspended Sprewell for a full year, the longest boot in league history. ""A sports league does not have to accept or condone behavior that would not be tolerated in any other segment of society," said NBA Commissioner David Stern.

The NBA, which has emerged over the past two decades as America's hottest sports enterprise, is a complex economic model. Its stars often hear two equally lucrative--and sometimes contradictory--messages. Their teams hail discipline; their shoe com panies prize the street cool that moves the merchandise. The post-Jordan era figures to be an anxious one for the league. Sprewell, who once attacked a teammate with a two-by-four, is part of a new NBA generation that is, like many of the kids in the nei ghborhoods where they come from, more confrontational. ""Older players in the league, because of racism, know how to be more accommodating when situations aren't to their liking," says Elijah Anderson, a University of Pennsylvaniasociology professor who is writing a book entitled ""The Code of the Streets." ""This new generation has no patience for anything they think isn't fair. They won't take it."