9101190144 DETROIT FREE PRESS 910509 Thursday, May 09, 1991 METRO EDITION

SPT

1D Photo Color JULIAN H. GONZALEZ;Photo Associated Press : Bill Laimbeer looks at an NBA season the way he looks at his feet during a mile run at training camp: "One-two, one-two, one-two. You don't look up until you get to the end and someone says you're finished." Laimbeer (above, breaking up Sidney Moncrief's drive in Game 2 against Atlanta) admits that Isiah Thomas had to talk him into returning this season, saying, among other things, that an NBA salary is hard to match. "Isiah was right about the money," Laimbeer says. MITCH ALBOM SEE ALSO METRO FINAL EDITION 1D Copyright (c) 1991, Detroit Free Press LIKABLE LAIMBEER? AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, IT'S STILL HARD TO DECIDE WHETHER HE IS OR ISN'T BOSTON -- The last time I had breakfast with Bill Laimbeer he stole my grapes. Just reached across the table and grabbed them. Didn't even say thanks -- although he did close his mouth when he chewed. He does have manners. He also stuck me for the check. So it's risky business getting close to Laimbeer, even at breakfast. But I am doing it again, four years later. I am sitting here as he orders eggs Benedict, two bagels, cream cheese, large orange juice, coffee -- "Your newspaper is paying for it," he sneers -- and I am doing it because I want to know one thing: I want to know whether he is ready to quit. Life without The Prince of Darkness? Well. There have been whispers that Laimbeer -- who'll be 34 May 19 -- has considered retirement. Maybe next year. Maybe the year after. Some say he had to be talked into coming back this season by Isiah Thomas, who reminded him, among other things, that there is nowhere on the planet where he can earn the NBA's kind of money. Bill admits the story is true. He also says, "Isiah was right about the money." You can call Laimbeer many things. Dumb, he isn't. But he is not made of steel. The years take their toll. Laimbeer could never run or jump worth a hoot, and now he says, "I hurt every day. I have pain all season long. And I notice I can't run and jump as well as I could before." Where does that leave him? If he got any slower, he'd be a mailbox. Any more earthbound, he'd be topsoil. And yet, he can still change a game -- sometimes more than any player in a Pistons uniform. He did it Tuesday night. You want to win, you must rebound, you must box out, you must change shots and you must infuriate the other team. Laimbeer did all these things -- especially the infuriation thing: In the first quarter, he took a charge from Kevin McHale and did a backward flop. The ref called McHale for the offensive foul. BOOOOOOO! Third quarter, Laimbeer pushed his way inside, grabbed an offensive rebound and tossed a quick shot as he fell to the ground. The ref called foul, Celtics. BOOOOOOOO! With fewer than five minutes left and the crowd on its feet, Laimbeer took a pass and launched a 20-foot jumper. Swish! Silence. The game was history. Infuriation. He specializes in it. Maybe it's his sneer. Maybe it's the awkward way he carries his body. Maybe it's his money -- he grew up wealthy -- maybe its his interviews, maybe it's the faces he makes when he's called for a foul -- as though a cop just gave him a speeding ticket and he wasn't even in the car. Whatever. He makes people crazy. Last week, in the Atlanta series, I was seated behind the Pistons bench, and there was this fan, a fat guy with a baseball cap who never stopped yelling at Laimbeer. The entire game. "YOU'RE FILTHY, LAIMBEER!" he screamed. "YOU'RE FILLLLLTHY!" Even when the game was no contest, even when Laimbeer wasn't playing, even when his voice got hoarse, this guy wouldn't stop. "YOU'RE FILTHY, LAIMBEER! YOU'RE FILLLLLTHY!" Infuriation. So you might say, "Gee, why should anyone care if a guy like that said good-bye?" There might even be a party. Something small, like the Mardi Gras. And yet, I maintain that when Laimbeer goes -- and he says unless he suffers a major injury it won't be this year -- we will not see the likes of him again. A Bill Laimbeer comes along once a century. Which is good and bad. How many times could you take a guy who comes to breakfast wearing a shirt that reads: "Sometimes, I'm so bad, I don't even like myself." "I think about quitting every day," he says, smearing the cream cheese on the bagel. "But it would be hard for me to leave right now because I'm still an integral part of an outstanding basketball team. I'd feel like I was quitting on my friends." "What if they weren't such a good team?" I ask. "Then it would be easier. I couldn't see staying around while we spent four years rebuilding." "What about your family? What does your wife say?" "Sometimes I complain about being tired, how I don't want to go through another season, stuff like that. She just says 'You want to quit? Quit. Don't expect any sympathy from me.' " I should say that Laimbeer's wife, Chris, is a sweet, thoughtful, giving woman. What she is doing with this guy I will never know. But that is part of the Laimbeer mystery. You want to know something? He infuriates me, too. He drives me crazy. Not like a Guillermo Hernandez or Roger Clemens. Those guys are just jerks. Bill Laimbeer gets to me because 90 percent of the time he behaves as if someone stole his cookies and milk: He is cranky, whiny, annoying, loud, rude, boorish and immature. But the other 10 percent of the time he is one of the most astute, knowledgeable and thought-provoking personalities in the game. Let me give you an example. After five minutes of complaining to me that all reporters "only want negative stories" and that the press "is just waiting for the Pistons to fail" and that he feels justified in "abusing young writers who ask stupid questions because they're stupid," after five minutes of that drivel, he suddenly switches gears. He wants to explain the life of a professional basketball player. And he stares and me. And this is what he says: "We have this drill every training camp, the mile run? I hate it. I think it's stupid. I hate running anyhow. So when we do it, I just look at my feet, putting one foot in front of the other. I never look up. I just watch my feet. One-two, one- two, one-two. I keep looking at my feet until someone tells me to stop. "That's the way the NBA life is, that's how you survive, especially the regular season. You travel, you play, you eat, you fall into a routine. The way to get through it is to treat it like that mile run, looking at your feet: One-two, one-two, one-two. You don't look up until you get to the end and someone says you're finished." And then he stops. He sighs. Damn it. I hate when he gets smart like that. Do you know what Bill Laimbeer wants to do when he retires? He wants to host an outdoors show. He is hoping to try it this summer. Says he's got the camera crew and the producers all lined up "if I don't get lazy and forget about it." What he envisions is a sort of "American Sportsman" starring, of course, himself doing all those outdoorsy things he loves so much. "I'd like to do a show where I take Vinnie Johnson salmon fishing," he says. "Or maybe a show where I take Dennis Rodman pheasant hunting. Stuff like that." You can see this, right? Laimbeer goes onto the lake, looking for salmon, and when his line breaks he throw a fit, jumps up and down, splashes the water, screams and hollers -- and the fish are so scared they just jump into his boat. Here! Take us! Just don't hurt us! "Of course what I really want to do is be a pro golfer," he says. (Laimbeer is already outstanding at golf, a one- handicap.) "It probably won't happen, though. My age. And the travel. "Of course, I could go into business with my father." ?=Oh," I say. "What kind of business?" "Corrugated boxes." Corrugated boxes? Somehow I don't see corrugated boxes. Not for Laimbeer. For one thing, nobody boos you in the corrugated box business. I mean, if they do, you must be really bad. And I think Laimbeer has gotten used to the boos. Maybe even come to like them. After all, he has been booed from Orlando to Los Angeles. In big arenas and little arenas. On local TV and on network prime- time broadcasts. "It's funny," he says. "I used to enjoy the booing a lot more two or three years ago. But now, when I'm introduced and they boo me, I really don't even notice. It's just noise. It's like the national anthem. "Besides, people don't hate me the way they once did. I don't arrive in towns and read newspapers where they call me The Prince Of Darkness anymore. I think it's because we've won two world championships. Something I do must be working. "You know, I was reading a business magazine over the summer, and there was this item about conventional wisdom from the past versus the present. And they used the LA Raiders football team as an example. They said the old conventional wisdom was that the Raiders were nothing more than 'a team full of Bill Laimbeers.' The new conventional wisdom says 'Maybe Bill Laimbeers are not so bad.' " A whole team's worth? Catch me before I pass out. But all right. We are not talking about more Laimbeer, but less. So when will he go? He says the only milestones he still covets are the 10,000 point/10,000 rebound marks. He is within reach of both. He says the money is not that big a factor, that he would leave the game even with years left on his contract. "The main thing is health. Right now I can still walk around a golf course. I don't have any permanent injuries. I don't want to push my luck." So when? This year? "Probably not." Next year? "Maybe." The following year? "I don't know." He chomps the last of the bagel and washes it down with coffee. I look at him, smirking, and I still can't decide whether I like him or not. In the book, "The Natural," Roy Hobbs tells his sweetheart that one day he wants people to point at him and say, "There goes Roy Hobbs, the greatest to ever play the game." I ask Laimbeer how he would want people to finish the sentence "There goes Bill Laimbeer . . . "World champion," he says. "That's it?" "That's it." "But they can say that already." He grins. "I know." I bet I get stuck for the check again, too. BILL LAIMBEER; BIOGRAPHY; DPISTONS;Pistons