NEW YORK. Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor, better known as "Prince" Charles, left tongues wagging among pro basketball scouts after a private work-out in Harlem today.
Parker Bowles: "Now dribble with your weak hand to show them you can go to your left."
"He's Heir Apparent to the British throne," said Danny Ainge, Executive Director of Basketball Operations for the Boston Celtics, "but he's also heir apparent to a long-line of flat-footed white players such as Hank Finkel, Greg Kite, Eric Fernsten and so many more." The Celtics, who are headed towards one of their worst seasons in franchise history, will almost certainly have one of the first picks in the college draft next summer, and are believed to have their eyes on Charles, who hit one of two open shots he took at the Children's Zone here.
"You mean Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor counts as four picks?"
"He plays taller than he is, because he's got such an incredible vertical leap--zero on our radar gun," Ainge said. "His first shot was an air ball, but he made his second. My Hewlett-Packard Programmable Calculator tells me that's a 50% shooting average, and you can't argue with statistics."
"I've got a foul on number 11, blocking a Prince en route to a Royal Lay-Up."
Charles was defended by ten middle-school students who could not overcome his height advantage. "He pump-faked me up, and all I could do was grab his belt on the way down to break my fall," said sixth-grader Tiffany Pratt.
Artest: Not that kind of King.
Charles, whose titles include Prince of Wales, Prince of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay and Burberry Rookie Traffic-Cone Dribbling Champion, was accompanied by Camilla Parker Bowles, his long-time paramour and more recently his agent in negotiation with teams who may want to draft the scion of the House of Windsor who is projected as a shooting guard. "My guy's gonna get paid what's he worth, or he'll play in Italy next year," the tough-talking Bowles said. "It's not every year someone enters the draft who's descended from Kings, and I'm not talking about Ron Artest."
NEW YORK. An altercation between Los Angeles Lakers' center Kwame Brown and a man outside a night club last week has NBA officials worried that birthday-related violence may set back efforts to make the league more customer-friendly by reducing the frequency of player-on-fan attacks.
Turiaf: "He said it's his birthday--well it's my birthday too, yeah."
"Ever since the Pistons-Pacers fight, we've been on our guard," said commissioner David Stern. "It's a National Guard, however, so it only meets once a month."
Stern: "A chocolate cake? Sounds like fun!"
The incident occurred at a Hermosa Beach nightclub following the Lakers win over the Orlando Magic on January 12th, when members of the team were celebrating small forward Ronny Turiaf's birthday. Alexander Martinez, a 5' 9" man who was celebrating his 30th birthday with his wife and friends, emerged from the club at around 2 a.m. holding a $190 chocolate cake. Brown grabbed the cake and threw it, hitting Martinez in the back.
Jackson: "Kwame, hit the guard with an outlet pass, not a chocolate cake!"
"That is not something I want Kwame doing," Lakers' coach Phil Jackson said at a press conference the next morning. "Just give the cake to a guard and let him bring it up the floor."
"This is gonna kill your turnover-to-assist ratio."
Brown said that he meant to hit Turiaf, who had been watching the Martinez party throughout the evening with a mixture of sadness and envy. "Ronny grew up in France, where they give you these little bitty birthday cakes that look like a croissant or a brioche. He kept repeating the line from the Beatles' song--'They say it's your birthday, well it's my birthday too, yeah.' I told him he's a Laker now, and Lakers have big honking birthday cakes."
Artest: Just wants in on the fun.
NBA officials say they will add extra security for Sacramento Kings' home games for the foreseeable future as small forward Ron Artest has recently grumbled about goodie bags given to children who attend birthday parties at the "Kings Kids Klub" before games. "Those kids get Airheads, Silly Suckers and Pistol Pete Maravich Pez dispensers. I've been good--I haven't gone into the stands for a long time. How come I don't get one?"
SACRAMENTO, California. Kings' forward Shareef Abdur-Rahim returned to action Thursday night against the Los Angeles Lakers with his jaw wired shut, and team officials say they will follow his situation closely to ensure that he is not endangering himself by playing.
Abdur-Rahim broke his jaw less than a month ago in a collision with Portland's Zach Randolph, and his Sacramento teammates praised him for his gutsy return to action. "Lot of guys with a name like his would have declared jihad on the whole Trailblazers' team," said Kings' guard Mike Bibby. "I think he deserves some credit for keeping his cool."
Abdur-Rahim said he was only doing his job and that he owed it to his teammates to get back into action. "Glz uzfez muz szufzz rzz awuzyz," he said with a smile as big as he could manage under the circumstances.
Basketball commentator Charles Barkley said jaw-wiring could have helped him keep his weight down during his career with the Sixers and the Suns, and to avoid costly lawsuits as well. "Some guy comes up to you in a restaurant and calls you 'Round Mound of Rebound' or 'Pizza King', it's only natural you throw him through a plate-glass window, right?"
NBA officials say they will monitor Abdur-Rahim's progress to see if the jaw-wiring procedure should be used more widely. "It is something we are looking into," said league spokesman Thomas Cranwell. "If we can prevent just one Ron Artest rap CD, it will be worth it."
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
