Sprewell unconcerned about scoring slippage

By STEVE ASCHBURNER
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune

Minnesota Timberwolves swingman Latrell Sprewell doesn't necessarily look tired, sound tired or, to hear him tell it, feel tired. But then, that's just the player talking.

Sprewell's legs might tell a different story, if they could. So might his concentration. Or his jump shot.

"I feel fine," Sprewell said, shrugging off a question about fatigue, 60 games into his 12th NBA season. "That's never been something that's bothered me."

The recent droop in Sprewell's stats might argue otherwise. On Sunday at Philadelphia, the Wolves veteran scored five points, making only two of nine shots in 33 minutes. There was his 1-for-6 night against New Jersey last week, when he scored three points in 38 minutes. A couple of weeks before that, Sprewell scored four points on 2-for-8 shooting in a loss to Memphis.

Over his past 11 games, Sprewell is averaging 13.0 points on 37.4 percent shooting, a noticeable drop in production from his first 49 games (16.5, 42.5 percent).

In the six games immediately before this 11-game stretch, he was humming along at 24.2 points on 44.6 percent.

One number that hasn't slacked off is Sprewell's playing time; at 38.8 minutes, he ranks 14th in the NBA in usage. At age 33, he's at least three years older than anyone else in the top 25. Even Sam Cassell, the Wolves' 34-year-old point guard who was playing a heavy 36.6 minutes prior to the All-Star break, has been throttled back to 31.7 since then, slipping entirely off the leaders list.

Might Sprewell be better off, too, with a lighter workload? Especially with three-fourths of the season behind him? Over 751 games prior to this season, he had averaged 39.6 minutes, including 38.6 last season and 41.1 in 2001-02. But he wasn't 33 then.

Sprewell smiled, but looked a little cornered by the question.

"I like to play, so I could never say that would be a good idea," he said. "I've been doing this for 12 years, every day. You learn what to do, what not to do. I'm not like I was at 25, but I'm fine."

OK, well, how about this: Sprewell has had 13 games this season in which he has scored fewer than 10 points, a surprisingly high number for someone so high up in NBA scoring (17.5 points per game, tied for 30th). He has had 28 nights when he reached 20, five when he got 30 or more, yet 13 when he didn't even break 10. The Wolves are 7-6 when that happens, 36-11 the rest of the time.

No one above Sprewell on the scoring list is close to that; Stephon Marbury and Eddie Jones have been held to single digits seven times each, Chauncey Billups eight times and Ron Artest, still establishing himself as a scorer, nine times. Cassell has been held below 10 four times, Kevin Garnett not even once.

That could be a sign of the streakiness, even the inconsistency, that Sprewell showed in New York, where 8-for-23 performances or the occasional six points were not uncommon. It could be, too, an indication of how the Wolves' offense works, how heavily it is based on the pick-and-roll and how seldom it sets up Sprewell for anything but a perimeter shot deep into the 24-second clock.

"I've been in that (shooting guard-small forward) spot for five years now," teammate Wally Szczerbiak said. "The way our offense runs, the ball is in KG's hands and it's in the point guard's hands a lot. If you aren't getting some easy buckets in transition, there can be lulls and times when you can't get into a rhythm, and Spree's a rhythm player."

That's why Kevin McHale, the team's vice president of basketball operations, would like to see coach Flip Saunders and the Wolves take a less-is-more approach with Sprewell. Higher quality minutes, fewer in quantity.

"The guys on the team have to understand what everybody's strengths and weaknesses are," McHale said. "They have to get him some push-ups, let him attack, get him involved in the offense, get his motor going again offensively. He's great at slashing and running and getting out on the break ahead of people, and that's what we need to do.

"We have to get him some better shots. If he hasn't had a shot in a while, then he's not getting the free throws and the layups that get you going."

Like Saunders, McHale loves the fact that Sprewell keeps defenses honest just by being on the floor, by running out his routes in an un-Randy Moss-way even when he doesn't touch the ball. But that comes at a price, in fatigue and exposure to injury.

"You've got to make sure you have enough gas in the tank for (the playoffs)," McHale said. "It probably would benefit Latrell to get him more involved for 32 minutes, as opposed to having him out there for 39 minutes and not really involved.

"What's our goal? To win a championship. You're not going to do that with everybody being tired."