INDIANAPOLIS -- He has become a virtual vagabond, willing to go wherever he must in hopes of capturing that which he covets most:
An NBA championship.It's a chase that darn-near routed Sam Perkins to Utah, where the Jazz, he was thinking at the time, offered ample opportunity to win in the pros what he had already from college and the Olympics:
A title.
He won one as a sophomore at North Carolina, when he teamed with Michael Jordan and James Worthy, among others, to claim the 1982 NCAA championship. And he won another in '84, as co-captain of the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic Team.
But he doesn't have one in the NBA, something Perkins -- nearly 39, and still going -- is trying one last time to change as his Indiana Pacers, down 2-0 to the Los Angeles Lakers in a best-of-seven series, go at it again in today's Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
His title hopes, however dim, are still alive, and it is all because timing took him to Indiana instead of Utah back in January of 1999.
The Jazz went after the then free-agent, Perkins, in those weeks just before the NBA lockout came to a close, and if it wasn't for the fact Utah star Karl Malone was, at the time, in the midst of his "the-Jazz-have-not-shown-me-enough-love" crisis, they just may have been able to land him.
"Utah was one of the teams that was after me . . . but I had already decided," Perkins said of his decision to sign with the Pacers. "I had already made up my mind. It's nothing against Utah. I had known (then-Jazz president) Frank Layden from years past, so if they had come in little earlier, I would have went.
"But they had a situation there where Karl Malone didn't know whether he was coming back, or what. I didn't want to wait for that, and have other people wait for my decision based on something like that."
So, while Malone spoke then of his desire to be traded, Perkins went with the club he figured would give him his safest chance at making a run for that elusive NBA championship.
Dallas didn't do the trick. He spent his first six pro seasons, starting in 1984-85, with the Mavericks, who took the Lakers seven games in the '87-88 Western Conference Finals, but never did make it to the NBA Finals when he was with them.
Perkins later left Dallas as a free-agent for those very same Lakers, who advanced to the '90-91 Finals with the 6-foot-9, 260-pounder as their leading postseason rebounder. Perkins, known as a big guy with good outside shooting range, even hit the game-winning 3-pointer in Game 1, but that was the only game the Lakers would win from Chicago in that series.
L.A. wound up trading Perkins to Seattle, which lost to Phoenix in the Western Conference finals during his first season (1992-93) there. In his fourth of six seasons with Seattle, the Sonics beat the Jazz in the seven-game-long 1996 Western Conference Finals but lost to Chicago after six games of the NBA Finals.
Perkins renewed his contract while in Seattle, staying because he figured the Sonics had a shot at winning it all. He went to Indiana two seasons ago, then decided to play one more season, his 14th and likely last in the NBA, for the very same reason. After this season, title or not, he intends to finally retire.
"My career has been long. I never thought I'd be playing this long," Perkins said. "If you think about the average career span of an NBA player -- it's been real good."
The only thing missing: "That's why I came back to at least do it again (one more season) -- because I knew this team was pretty good. . . . I stuck with it one more year -- and see what I've got?' It's pretty good."
Still, something is absent.
If the Lakers had won in '91, Perkins said he would have "come back in '92. . . . I was still fairly young then, and in my prime."
Now, though, the skills are eroding, the role (back-up big man behind center Rik Smits) is reduced, and the minutes come fewer and further between. The desire is still there, but there is really only one reason for hanging on.
If Seattle had taken the title in '96, Perkins -- as laid-back, easy-going and smooth-talking as NBAers come -- would have retired then. Ditto for Indiana in '99, whose success last season and this leaves him with no qualms over having chosen the Pacers over the Jazz.
"No doubt. I would have won and quit," he said. "I mean, that's what you go for. . . . If it was last year, and we (Indiana) would have won, I would have just faded to black."
E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com