S.F. Mayor Blasts Sprewell Suspension

SAN FRANCISCO - Mayor Willie Brown denounced Latrell Sprewell's one-year ban from the NBA for attacking his coach, saying the Golden State Warriors' P.J. Carlesimo may have deserved to be choked, newspapers reported today.

Brown asked the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the NAACP to investigate the NBA action.

"Maybe the coach deserved choking," Brown said, according to the San Francisco Examiner. "I'm not justifying what (Sprewell) did as right. But nobody is asking why he did it or what might have prompted him."

The San Francisco Chronicle quoted Brown as saying: "His boss may have needed choking. It may have been justified. Someone should have asked the question, `What prompted that?' "

Mayoral spokeswoman Kandace Bender said today that Brown had been quoted out of context and had been speculating about what Sprewell might have been thinking.

As Carlesimo met with players to discuss Sprewell's suspension, his former teammates expressed friendship for Sprewell and muted support for Carlesimo.

Though no Warrior player condoned Sprewell's attack on Carlesimo, they said the coach was harsh and that the All-Star guard couldn't handle that type of intensity.

Sprewell attacked Carlesimo at practice Monday and reportedly threatened to kill him. The team suspended him for 10 games, then terminated his $32 million contract on Wednesday. Yesterday, the NBA suspended him for a year without pay, ensuring he will not play in the league until at least Dec. 3, 1998.

"Everybody was sad and disappointed about what the team did to Spree," guard Bimbo Coles said after practice yesterday. "Spree's still a great person who lost it for a split second."

Muggsy Bogues called the NBA's suspension "very severe" and said everyone on the team was aware of the friction between Sprewell and Carlesimo.

"This has been brewing for months. If it hadn't happened the other day, it probably would have happened later on," Bogues said. "You have two grown men who probably wish they could take it all back right now."

Sprewell's lawyer, Arn Tellem, also was highly critical of the suspension.

"It is totally excessive and outside the bounds of any precedent in team sports history," Tellem told The New York Times. "It is an abuse of the commissioner's powers. Given all the other incidents involving players and referees and even players and coaches, this penalty is totally out of line with anything that's gone on before it."

Brown said he decided to speak out because he thought Sprewell hadn't been treated fairly by the team or the media.

"I hate to see a huge apparatus take advantage of a single individual. The singular overkill in this incident cries out for attention," he said. Sprewell is "being held up as if he's Charlie Manson."

Warriors' counsel Robin Baggett dismissed Brown's "choking" comment.

"He doesn't know the facts. He obviously hasn't learned from his Elvis Grbac experience," Baggett said. Last fall, Brown caused a stir when he called then-San Francisco 49er quarterback Elvis Grbac an "embarrassment to humankind" for playing poorly in a game.

NOTES

-- Houston's Charles Barkley has reached an out-of-court settlement with the man police say Barkley flung through a plate-glass window in a bar fight, a newspaper in Orlando, Fla., reported. But Randy Means, a spokesman for the state attorney's office, said his office will decide by next week whether to file formal charges against Barkley.

-- Shaquille O'Neal's abdominal strain is getting better, but there is still no date set for his return to the Los Angeles Lakers' lineup.