Kings should enjoy Webber while they can

Chris Webber still remembers that first plane ride into Sacramento, looking down on the farms and the rivers and all those open spaces.

Webber had grown up in Detroit, and played professionally in the Bay Area and Washington. He enjoyed the lights and the nightlife.

Now he felt as if he were Neil Armstrong on the final approach onto the Sea of Tranquility.

"I was crying. Crying like a baby," he said before last night's 89-85 loss to the Sonics. "I felt like the NBA had banished me to Sacramento. That's what had happened. It was definitely a banishment, a punishment."

When Webber was traded from Washington to the Kings on May 14, 1998, for Mitch Richmond, it felt more like a sentencing than a trade.

The Kings had been a laughingstock franchise. They hadn't won a playoff series since moving from Kansas City to Sacramento in 1985.

The networks never came to Sacramento. There were none of those long, sizzling spring playoff runs in Sacramento. Webber felt as if he was some aircraft slipping off the radar.

Sacramento?

Suddenly Webber, the brightest star from the 1993 draft, who had signed a six-year deal with Washington in 1995, was looking at spending the prime of his career in the NBA's gulag.

"After I flew in, I went over to Billy Owens' house and just cried in his car," said Webber, 27. "Tears like a little baby. It's something I'll never forget. But one door closes and another opens. And, eventually, that's how I took it."

And now Sacramento is lighting up like Vegas. ARCO Arena is the best little fieldhouse in roundball.

Sacramento has gone from gulag to glitter. The most entertaining basketball in the world is being played in the NBA's quietest city.

Watch a Kings' fast break and you remember how good the NBA still can be. Passes connect like electricity, jumping from pole to pole. They run an offense that is stylish and unselfish.

The Kings are legitimate contenders for the NBA Finals. They are a complete team in a league full of incompletes. Sacramento would be the happiest place on earth, except that its star, Webber, becomes a free agent at the end of the season. "I've played long enough now to know that it isn't about how fancy your team is," Webber said. "It's not about the uniforms. It's about winning a championship. It's about, can you win and that's going to be the basis of my decision.

"I heard (Charles) Barkley say last year, `When I retire, if I don't win a championship, I don't care.' I don't know if I can really, sincerely handle not winning a championship. Being in the league 10-15 years and not winning, that would be a hard pill to swallow."

Alex Rodríguez said the same thing and left for the money, not the chance at a ring, in Texas.

Webber--the only player in the league averaging at least 25 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and two blocks--can re-sign in sleepy Sacramento and guarantee himself a half-decade of championship runs. Or he can move to New York or some other glitter city and take his chances.

He was asked if a Kings' championship would guarantee his return to Sacramento. After all, he would have his championship and the possibility of more to come.

"I'd like to be able to answer that question," he said. "I hope that's the situation. But If I win one, I want to win some more."

Best guess? There's a better chance of Alex Rodríguez playing for the Kings next season than Webber. So enjoy watching this season with this team.

The Kings handle the ball like the Globetrotters and play defense like the old Chicago Bears.

It has added Doug Christie and Bobby Jackson to the backcourt and made superstar-in-waiting Peja Stojakovic the starting small forward.

Christie is a tenacious defender and the kind of ballhandler who can take the pressure off mercuric Jason Williams.

"This team has the best chemistry of any team I've ever played on," Webber said. "Everybody understands each other and likes each other and understands what I'm going through.I knew we could be this good."

Webber's value? It will be set somewhere around $121 million. Good money unless you're A-Rod. "First of all, I love him as a baseball player," Webber said. "And second of all, I wish I was a shortstop. I wish I was A-Rod."

Webber laughed. A-Rod? He seems very happy being C-Webb.