Four A.M. on the Bronx Parkway Friday morning. The police stop a Range Rover for doing 77 in a 45 mph zone. Inside two men, one of them a 21 year old New York City basketball legend, now a Boston Celtic. And a .45 caliber pistol under the front seat.

Sebastian Telfair is cooperative, but neither man owns up to the gun. Both are charged with a second degree felony for weapons possession. It will sort itself out, just like the time when Telfair carried his girlfriend's loaded Smith and Wesson onto a Portland Trailblazer's charter flight. Or, when he had a $50,000 chain stolen from his neck at a restuarant belonging to P. Diddy.

An unidentified Celtics executive says Telfair will never wear the green again. He probably won't end up wearing orange, either. The odds, in fact, are less than those of Telfair hitting a shot from the floor. Those are about 37%.

They made a movie about Telfair, now 21, when he was in high school. He was already a legend. The next big thing. Or, in this case, small thing. Telfair is six foot tall and had never played a day of college ball when he was drafted in the first round and given a $7.5 million contract. The NBA money sounds impressive, but it was only half what Addidas is rumored to have given to "sponsor" him.

You might think Telfair has bad judgement. You might wonder what his thought process is. How anyone could throw away so much money so carelessly. How anyone could take that kind of risk.

Telfair is 21. Danny Ainge, the Celtics GM, is 47.

Ainge traded guard Dan Dickau, center Raef LaFrentz, and the 7th pick in the 2006 NBA draft to get Telfair and center Theo Ratliff, who played two games this season before going down with a bad back. Portland swapped the draft pick for Brandon Roy, who averaged 17 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and shot 45% from the field this season.

Telfair averaged six points and 3 assists per game and shot 37% from the field. No surprise, considering that in three years he's never shot 40% and never averaged more than 9 points or 3 assists per game.

So what did the Celtics and Addidas pay all that money for? An illusion. The illusion that raw skill translates to production without work. That flash equals potential. That you can put $23 million dollars into a teenager's hands and that they will use the money and the fame that comes with it wisely.

Put yourself in Telfair's place. You're given all that money and asked to disconnect from the people you grew up with. You have all that fame and you're expected to stay away from night clubs and hip hop celebrity. You're barely an adult, but you're supporting agents, girlfriends, family, hanger-ons, and keeping an eye out for people who are not only envious of you but who might want to take a shot at you. It's hard to feel sorry for Sebastian Telfair, but at the same time it's not that hard to understand him.

The NBA is dying from the inside out. It no longer controls it's own image or destiny. The league pays insane salaries to it's players, but the shoe companies pay more. Those companies are marketing image. Sometimes their interests and the team's overlap, sometimes they don't. The quality of play isn't as important to Addidas and Nike as the intersection of celebrity, sports, and marketing.

When the latest "Dream Team" crashes and burns, the executives at the shoe companies aren't bothered. How did their guys look? Did the backing track on the website video sound OK? Did the guys capture just that right mix of thug and resolution as they stared grim faced into the camera? Who cares if our guy's team lost, or if he gave up 35 last night? How did he look?

In a war for teenager's sneaker budgets Sebastian Telfair is just collateral damage, the cost of doing business.

As for me, If I were the Celtics I'd keep Telfair. Nobody is going to give you anything for him, and nobody is cancelling season tickets because some kid got arrested at 4 a.m. in Yonkers. Maybe somewhere inside Telfair the desire to put his natural ability to use will push him to learn and grow within the system.

Maybe someday Sebastian Telfair will be Sebastian Telfair. Unfortunately, maybe he already is.