MIAMI _ This is how it feels to ride a Magic carpet:The NBA rules teams can't send their luxurious private planes to pick up free-agent recruits? No problem. Two very powerful businessmen named Tim Duncan and Grant Hill board commercial flights and learn all the seats in their first-class cabins have been purchased for them so they can have plenty of privacy.
Upon landing in Orlando, Hill and Duncan can see, through the tinted windows of their white stretch limousine, what sports have become.
The limo takes them to the Grand Floridian Spa & Resort, where they stay, courtesy of the Magic, in 1,792 square-feet hotel suites that feature breathtaking patio views of the nightly fireworks over Disney's Cinderella castle and cost, even in "value season," $1,465 per night, not counting the 11 percent sales tax.
When hungry, Hill and Duncan dine on lobster near the grand piano in the VIP room of the Coral Reef Restaurant and watch scuba divers feed the dolphins, manatees, sharks, sea turtles, sting rays and assorted exotic fish in the 5.7 million gallons of seawater that surround them. This acquarium experience is meant to simulate dining in the middle of the sea (except that, in the sea, the scuba drivers probably wouldn't be wearing Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck costumes).
Hill gets a craving to ride roller coasters? An entire theme-park section is closed off so he can have the area to himself. Duncan loves big toys, too, which is why he leaves a lavish barbecue at the $7.5 million home of Orlando's team president so he can ride a Jetski in the lake out back.
The exclusive neighborhood in which Hill and Duncan check out real estate _ named Isleworth, short for Isle Of Worth, and designed as Arnold Palmer's dream community _ features a magnificent country club and golf course. One of its members, fresh off the practice range, stops by the barbecue to help woo Hill and Duncan to Orlando.
His name is Tiger Woods.
There are certain inherent privileges to living in this posh a world, so it didn't surprise Magic executives at all when, even though he was standing before an elaborate buffet, Duncan instead asked for a Wendy's hamburger. See, the Magic had wined and dined Shaquille O'Neal once upon a time and tolerated it when, at an elegant dinner with team executives, O'Neal and his brother started throwing the food at each other. So, a Magic official was promptly dispatched to get Duncan his hamburger, even if all he wanted to do was maybe throw it.
Hill and Duncan, conglomerates, are powerful enough to tip the NBA's balance of power if they decide to team their talents, so the Orlando organization asked them, in Disney-ese, to simply "Imagine ..." They did this by emblazoning the phrase "Imagine ..." across T-shirts and banners that featured Hill and Duncan reaching for the same basketball _ in Magic uniforms, of course. And it had to be overwhelming to the two players, walking into a facility where every employee was wearing these T-shirts, a Disney world created just for them.
This entire recruiting visit felt like cartoon fiction, and you'll excuse Hill and Duncan if they were hypnotized as the talk whirled back and forth from basketball to roller coasters, from work to play, from them visiting the Magic Kingdom to becoming the Magic's kingdom. The worlds of sports and business and entertainment have blurred together so seamlessly that Hill and Duncan, discussing a potential mega-merger, not unlike Time Inc. and America Online, could have asked themselves the very same question regardless of whether they were standing under those patio fireworks or under that basketball rim:
Are we in fantasy land?
Will Hill and Duncan leave Detroit and San Antonio in that white stretch limo's rear-view mirror? Hill has already announced he will. The Pistons could have checked Hill's Web site (granthill.com) to find out his views on teen pregnancy or see him quote Johann Wolfgan Von Goethe or check out his latest compilation video, but what they couldn't learn about him over the last few months was whether he would accept their $80 million.
He finally told them this week that he wouldn't. He did this by phone. So the Grant Hill Era is officially over in Detroit. Not once in six years with him did the Pistons advance beyond the first round of the playoffs.
Team him with Duncan, though, and you make any team in the league an instant championship contender. Duncan, very private, seems undecided. He hasn't uttered a word publicly about his status in a week. His Web site (slamduncan.com) isn't helpful (it's being renovated). And the Spurs are putting up one heck of a fight to keep him.
They flew in teammate and friend David Robinson from his Hawaiian vacation to meet with Duncan, though the Magic countered that by sending Duncan's friends Monty Williams and Johnny Davis to do nothing more than accompany him to Orlando, as if Duncan was a 7-foot 6-year-old who had never flown before. San Antonio taxpayers have essentially countered the fireworks and roller coasters by, ho hum, building Duncan an arena. The Spurs, upon request, will also supply Duncan with Wendy's hamburgers.
"Duncan is the great unknown," Orlando senior vice president Pat Williams says. "We're logjammed league-wide until he makes a decision. What we're doing here in Orlando is the ultimate high-wire act, maybe in sports history. There's no precedent for it. Right now we are sitting here with just three players under contract and the draft rights to Mike Miller. That's it. If this works, it's a magnificent story. If it doesn't, hey, we tried. No risk, no glory."
While the Magic was wooing Hill and Duncan, Chicago's frumpy GM Jerry Krause, who covets both, was harrumphing about what he viewed as Orlando's excessive recruiting efforts. The NBA tried to stifle the excess _ limiting organizations to gifts of less than $500 and not allowing the players to travel with entourages in tow _ but Krause condescendingly complained that, "The quality of people we're going to talk to are very bright and don't have to have a dog-and-pony show put on for them. We're an organization of substance, not flash."
But while the Magic were making preparations to get Tiger Woods to meet Hill and Duncan, Krause and his organization of substance, not flash, was insulting prospective high school draft pick Darius Miles by asking him how many dollars he would have if he had four dollars and Krause gave him five more. Instead of a dog or a pony, what Miles got was a jackass.
The Bulls have apparently wizened up some since then, having seen the appeal Orlando's style had on Hill, so when 21-year-old free agent Tracy McGrady got off an airplane in Chicago on Friday, he was met by the bobbing Chicago mascot and screaming fans carrying banners and begging him to become a Bull. McGrady, though, wants to end up with Hill and Duncan in Orlando, too, calling Orlando "home" and presently taking night classes at nearby Rollins College.
The Bulls and Magic have similar salary-cap space, and Lakers coach Phil Jackson said last season that the Bulls would have an advantage in luring free-agent recruits over the Magic because Chicago was far more cultured than Orlando, which he dubbed "a plastic town."
Counters Williams, the team's senior vice president: "I understand that if you took away our Waffle Houses we wouldn't have any culture. But I've never before heard that the vibrancy of museums was a lure for NBA free agents. Look, Florida is meant to be fun. We're about lakes, bass fishing, sunshine, Mickey Mouse, Shamu and fun. We just wanted these guys to have fun. And you could tell they were impacted."
The Magic _ owned by Rich DeVos, the grandfatherly man who started Amway out of his garage with $500 and turned it into a $6 billion business _ did show a moment of restraint, though. After Hill and Duncan had done everything from tour the ostentatious team plane to see Magic jerseys with their names and numbers hanging in the Orlando locker room, Magic officials learned that Duncan wasn't much in the mood to be surrounded by a bunch of Disney characters.
So the employees steaming in those Mickey, Goofy and Donald costumes were promptly sent away.
And the officials of the Magic kingdom continued uninterrupted in wishing upon a star.
Now just imagine what Walsh, Gabriel (who was a part of that 2000 Orlando recruiting crew), and the rest of the Knicks crew are planning come July 1st. This is where you get creative and do everything possible to lure stars to NY with the idea of starting a dynasty. Gabriel and crew did an excellent job of using Orlando's advantages to appeal to the superstars in 2000 and you have to believe that Walsh and Gabriel are planning the same thing for this summer. New York has a lot of appeal and the possibilities are endless.
And guess what, Duncan and Hill both told their respective teams they planned on staying. Well, Duncan verbally committed to Orlando after his visit and Hill called Dumars later that week to tell him his decision to go to the Magic. That's why folks, we don't know what is going to happen until July rolls around and these free agents get the ultimate recruiting trip.
This is why we sacrificed 2 seasons, traded protected picks, and Jordan Hill..... to have a shot at a dream summer.
4/10/2010 7:11 PM LAST EDITED: 4/10/2010 7:14 PM