Hoop Nightmare

Many of these young players have grown up with a strange mix of economic deprivation and royal treatment. ""When's the last time these kids heard "No, you don't do it that way'? When they were 12?" says Mike Brown, head coach at Hunter College in N ew York and a former assistant to Carlesimo at Seton Hall. ""They sure ain't going to hear that when they got $20 million in the bank and two Benzes in the drive."

Until Sprewell's meltdown, Allen Iverson was the most notable embodiment of the NBA's youth dilemma. Last season's rookie of the year had a string of run-ins with other players, management, the league and the law. As proud and sensitive as he is ta lented, he told NEWSWEEK last season, ""I can't change and I don't want to. There is a certain way I carry myself and a certain way I expect to be treated." Players like Iverson won't tolerate being ""dissed" publicly, not even by their coach. Harvard Un iversity psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint says many simply don't have problem-solving skills to cope with any perceived disrespect. One NBA star says that with certain players there is at least an implicit threat of violent retaliation. ""Believe me, the coa ches with smarts know who not to f--k with," he says. ""I guess Carlesimo missed his memo on Latrell."

In response, the league has turned to higher-profile, higher-paid coaches with more clout. The result can be a culture clash between authoritarian, mostly white coaches and their brash, young, mostly black talent. ""There may be a need for all coac hes, black or white, to learn to have better insight into this new generation, or we may see more of this," says sociologist Anderson.

Carlesimo, a successful college coach at Seton Hall, has a profane, in-your-face style that has infuriated some of his pro players. ""I felt like choking him many times," says Washington Wizards guard Rod Strickland, who walked off Carlesimo's Port land team in 1996 to force a trade. ""He has a way of dealing with you that's very condescending and degrading. As grown men, we don't deserve that, and sooner or later someone was going to step to him about it." Sprewell told the San Francisco Chronicle that he had ""snapped" after repeated and relentless tirades. ""How many grown men, particularly young blacks with their position in society, are going to take that kind of verbal abuse?" asks Poussaint.

The best coaches will master the new requisite skills. In recent seasons L.A. Lakers coach Del Harris had several confrontations with his volatile guard Nick Van Exel, who in 1996 was suspended for seven games for shoving a ref. While Harris consid ers their problems ""overblown," he admits that he has altered his style. ""I used to yell, but I don't anymore," says the Lakers coach. ""I learned you have a much better success rate when you treat the players with respect." 76ers coach Larry Brown, no w with his sixth NBA team, is trying a different--and gentler--approach, too, especially with Iverson. ""He realizes my directions to him are not criticisms but teaching," explains Brown. ""I told him whenever there's a problem, we can talk."

By last weekend the universal condemnation of Sprewell had begun to subside, and everyone was again stepping to the beat of self-interest. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown demanded an NAACP investigation of Sprewell's treatment by the team and leag ue, suggesting, ""Maybe his boss needed choking." Many players saw the league penalty as a hasty overreaction. ""You got a league that looks the other way at drugs and any number of things," says Shawn Kemp, whose problems with Seattle management last se ason earned him a trade to Cleveland. ""And then to hand down something like this, it's totally unfair." Union executive director Billy Hunter said depriving a player of his livelihood for a year because of ""one isolated incident" was unreasonable; he p lans an appeal. Some black fans, while not defending Sprewell, considered the severity of his public condemnation racist. ""I think they hate these guys making a lot of money," said a typical caller on Tom Joyner's nationally syndicated radio show, the m ost popular black radio show in the country. ""It's clear they don't like the power these young boys have." Temple University basketball coach John Chaney, who is black, is disgusted that there's any divide on the incident. ""To hear people are split on this," the 41-year coaching veteran said, ""well, goddammit, there was nothing right about it!"