IT WASN'T HARD to figure why Tim Legler, Johnnie Hilliard and Stephen Howard were among the last players to leave the floor after the Utah's Jazz's training camp practice session ended Friday morning at Westminster College. Or why Mike Higgins, favoring his injured ankle, lingered on the sidelines, talking with the trainer. In the area of October motivation, there's nothing like going to practice without a guaranteed contract.
It's the thing Legler, Hilliard, Howard and Higgins have in common. Of the 15 players still in camp, they're the only four who are not guaranteed paychecks throughout the season. And since NBA rosters are limited to 12 players, it doesn't take a math major to sort out that four doesn't divide into one.Not that Jazz coach Jerry Sloan is making camp a cakewalk for the 11 players who are on contract. "There are 11 guaranteed contracts on this team, but not 11 guaranteed jobs," he says. "We've always felt that way here. The best guys stay on the team. Regardless."
Still, Legler, Hilliard, Howard and Higgins are aware of the enemy and they know it's each other. In the next two and a half weeks, three of them are most likely going to have to give.
"In college," said Howard, a 1992 graduate of DePaul and the only true rookie of the four, "you might be fighting to start, but even if you didn't, you still had your scholarship. This is different. This is fighting for a spot on the team, for a career in the NBA."
"You try not to think about that too much," said Howard, a 6-foot-9 forward. "You try to just come to practice and play."
"But you've got to make something happen," added Legler, a 6-foot-4 guard who has played extensively in the CBA and spent last season playing in France. "When there's a 10-minute scrimmage you can't just blend in. You have to try and do something so you'll get noticed."
In the 10-minute Veterans-Reserves scrimmage that concluded Friday's practice, Legler served as a case in point. Early in the game he got a steal - from John Stockton, no less - and, on the resulting fast break took a nice feed for a layup. Later, he scored consecutive 20-foot jump shots - just the ticket for a two-guard hoping to back up Jeff Malone.
Also helping the Reserves were Howard and Hilliard; Howard with some effective defense on a sometimes-daydreaming Karl Malone and a smooth layup past Malone (after which Larry Krystkowiak said "nice play"), and Hilliard - a 6-foot-4 guard from the College of Idaho and the Albany Patroons of the CBA - with some spirited defense.
For a fleeting moment, with the Reserves ahead 23-18 and less than 30 seconds to play, you could have made a good case for Howard, Legler and Hilliard - and their $60-a-day per diem contracts - in; Stockton and Malone - and their $7 million-plus in guaranteed contracts - out.
But then Stockton, with four seconds left, made an off-balance 26-foot three-point shot to narrow the deficit to 23-21. And then, after the Reserves botched their inbounds pass, the Veterans had the ball back under their own basket with one second left.
Howard guarded Karl Malone, who prepared to inbound the ball, while Hilliard locked on Jeff Malone and Legler on Tyrone Corbin.
Corbin and Jeff Malone crossed, both Hillard and Legler locked on Malone, and The Mailman bounced a pass to Corbin under the basket for the game-tying points that went in just as the horn sounded.
Proud of themselves even if this is October and these were a bunch of rookies, the Veterans high-fived and congratulated each other as if they'd just beaten, say, Lithuania.
And the rookies? They were the object of Sloan's wrath, of course. To paraphrase his post-scrimmage remarks, the coach told Howard he should have protected the basket and never allowed Malone to have the angle he had on his bounce pass; and he told Hilliard and Legler they should have switched and not given Corbin a free lane to the hoop.
On the sidelines, Higgins - a 6-foot-9 forward who hurt his ankle the first week of training camp and hasn't been able to scrimmage - stood and watched with no expression even if this was the kind of scene you dream about: Your three chief competitors all screwing up and getting chewed out at the same time.
With that, it was all over but the taking of a few extra shots before showering - a gesture that can help your shot and can't hurt your work ethic reputation with the coaching staff.
"You're bound to make mistakes, playing against these kinds of players," said Howard as he paused to reflect on the Veterans ability to clutch a tie from the jaws of defeat.
"Hopefully I won't make too many of them," he said. "But they happen. And most of the time, the coaches know you're human."
He looked around. Legler and Hilliard were finally heading for the locker room. So he did too.