PHILADELPHIA -- In a way, it's a mystery. In a way, it's a painful but natural progression. Whichever, it means Lionel Simmons is buried somewhere near the end of the Sacramento Kings' bench.
This is the same Lionel Simmons who is one of just eight players in Kings' history to accumulate 5,000 points, 2,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists.
This is the same 6-foot-7 forward who is the franchise's Sacramento-era leader in steals, who's No. 2 in scoring, rebounding, minutes, games played and field goals.
Keep going. This is the same guy who was the national college player of the year as a senior at La Salle University, who has a contract that guarantees him more than $13 million between now and 1998-99.
Or is it? Of the 12 players on the Kings' active roster, he is now frequently the 11th or 12th to enter a game. Sadly, he did not get in at all on opening night against Minnesota.
"The season is a marathon, not a sprint, and a lot can change," Kings' coach
Garry St. Jean said.
A LOT began changing last season when the Kings added physical forwards Brian Grant and Michael Smith in the draft and Simmons went down with a knee injury. After four full seasons as a starter and one of the cornerstones of the team, "Train" missed 24 games. He finished with a career-low scoring average of 5.6 points per game, shooting a career-worst 42 percent from the floor. He has come back from surgery, but is behind Grant, Smith, Walt Williams and Tyrone Corbin at both frontcourt positions.
The question then is, why has Simmons not been able to reclaim his role? Is he favoring his knee? Is he as aggressive as he once was? Is something missing from his game? Through his career, given consistent minutes he always has been able to put up nice numbers in virtually every column of the boxscore. In bits and pieces, he has not been nearly as effective.
To this point, his major contribution has been to knock down two free throws with two-10ths of a second remaining to secure the Kings' first victory in Portland since 1986.
"I can't answer that because I don't know," Simmons said. "I can't say my knee isn't an issue, but if it is, it's not a major one. Maybe I've been a little hesitant, a little reluctant.
"I don't think I'm as assertive as I used to be, but I'm not sure about that. When I was a starter, I wasn't a guy who would shoot, shoot, shoot. I'd get involved slowly, find my way. But coming off the bench, it's hard to play like that. You've got to come in and make (an immediate) contribution."
He is listed on the Kings' salary cap at more than $2.67 million, a likely reason Vancouver and Toronto bypassed him in the expansion draft. Still, he has considered what it might be like to play elsewhere, and didn't object when he heard his name mentioned several weeks ago in rumors. One that seemed to make sense had him going to Boston for point guard Sherman Douglas.
Kings' vice president Geoff Petrie admitted that had come up, but it died
just as quickly.
"I GUESS (a move) could still be a possibility," Simmons said. "But that's not up to me. It's up to the team. I don't know if they're working on it or not. I'm trying to be optimistic, but I can't see the season continue to go the way it has started."
Clearly, the developing Kings can use every available resource and St. Jean insists that includes Simmons.
"We have a better team than last season, he's coming off an injury," St. Jean said. "When he plays, he gives us a solid effort, but he's competing at a position where we're deep. At the same time, I'm not married to a lineup."
"I don't know what the answer is for Lionel. He seems to be moving very well defensively, hits his jumper in practice. Maybe what he really needs is time on the court. For a player, the whole thing is about minutes."
"One answer, I guess, is that he has already had a nice career, but he's still young (27), has time to do more. There's plenty of time."
"Usually, I can play through things," Maxwell said. "Not this time."
Coach John Lucas has plugged in Greg Graham as the starter, waived free agent backup Elmer Bennett and added 5-7 Greg Grant, one of four players under six-feet ever to play for the team.
Grant, the NCAA's Division III scoring champion with a 32.6 average at Trenton (N.J.) State in 1988-89, had begun the Continental Basketball Association season with the San Diego Wildcards. Since '89-90, he has logged time with Phoenix, New York, Charlotte, the Sixers and Denver, and also signed contracts with Indiana and Orlando. He appeared in 127 games with the Sixers in '91-92 and '92-93.
Tom Chambers, who spent time with San Diego, Seattle, Phoenix and Utah in 14 seasons, is playing for Macabi Tel Aviv in Israel. He said his team, like the country, did not bounce back quickly from the Rabin tragedy. "One guy just stopped playing," Chambers said of a workout a few days after the assassination. "He said to the coach, `I can't do it. My heart hurts too much,'" Chambers told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, "These people are so emotional. Even in practice (coaches and players) yell and scream at each other. I didn't know what to make of it at first. But they hold nothing back, so their pain is visible." ...
Go ahead, laugh at Golden State's Clifford Rozier. "People can laugh all they want," Rozier said, "but I do believe I can outrebound Dennis Rodman if I can get at least 30 minutes a game." ... Go ahead, feel a little compassion for the Warriors' Rony Seikaly, traded last season from Miami to Golden State. "I never felt accepted in any way," Seikaly said. "I felt like a stranger. I'm usually a confident person, but I was walking on eggshells. It was like when you're young and change schools. You look for new friends, but everyone knows everyone else except for you. The problems I had last season were not basketball so much as friendship." ...
The locked-out referees were discouraged when the league tendered a new contract proposal that linked regular-season salaries and playoff money. "They're matching apples with kumquats," said Fred Slaughter, attorney for the referees. "We're busy trying to match apples with apples." Slaughter was even more upset that the league sent a copy of the latest proposal by overnight mail to each locked-out official.
When the referees rejected a five-year proposal that included an 18.6 percent salary increase in the first year and total of 60 percent in raises, the league said it would add a third official to the replacement crews by Dec. 4. "Unless the union changes its position, they haven't left us with any choice but to play out the season," league senior vice president Jeff Mishkin said.
In addition to writing this exclusive column for SportsLine USA, Phil Jasner covers the NBA for the Philadelphia Daily News.
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