Sharpshooter Szczerbiak just fine playing waiting game

Of course Wally Szczerbiak was at Madison Square Garden on Friday night for the Cleveland Cavaliers' game against the New York Knicks. He was right there on the Cavs' bench where you'd expect to see him -- only in street clothes. During the warmups, an hour or so before tipoff. With a ticket in his pocket.

Szczerbiak knew more than enough somebodies, obviously, to score the seats. So rather than stay home on Long Island and watch the game on TV -- a very real option until he changed his mind Friday -- the 10-year NBA veteran hooked up with an old college friend from Miami (Ohio) and headed into the city. On this night, his wife Shannon put the kids -- Annabella, 6; Amberly, 3; and Maximus, 1 -- to bed. Most nights, though, Szczerbiak is right there for all the tucking in.

"Where's Wally?'' There's Wally.

Beyond its alliterative appeal and its obvious spin from the children's book series (Where's Waldo?), "Where's Wally?'' is a guessing game played every year at this time. Fans get to wondering where a once familiar, now fringe player has landed for the new season: In the league? Out of the league? Somewhere in between, like Memphis? Every year, after all, there are lots of new faces -- rookies, international imports, rehab returnees -- filling jobs previously held by guys who might or might not have been ready to relinquish them.

Every year, some players retire. Other players get retired. Some relocate in a league-wide game of musical chairs, each of them hoping for a roster spot when the tune stops. And some don't make it. They're the ones who start weighing the pros and cons of playing overseas or in the D League or in an independent minor league stateside. Or, if all the TV network analyst gigs are locked up for another season, getting (ugh!) a real job.

It's worth noting here that there is a significant difference between NBA unemployment and NBA early-retirement. Some out-of-work players are free agents of the unsigned variety. Others are simply free.

"I think we're going to be OK,'' Szczerbiak said in a phone interview Thursday. "I'm going to miss it, no question. I feel I played pretty well last year. I could still help a team, and Cleveland showed a lot of interest. I just have to weigh the health factor. That's the biggest thing. My well-being after my career, that's very important to me.''

Szczerbiak, 32, was talking about the left knee that he had surgically tweaked last month, another bill-come-due from 10 seasons in the NBA with four different franchises. He had sprained it last spring in his work as a Cavaliers reserve, and tried the rest-and-rehab route through the summer. Unhappy with the results, the 6-foot-7 swingman finally sought "a little meniscus clean-out and bone-spur removal.'' He's looking at another month or so before he's fully recovered. "The arthritis in there was pretty high,'' Szczerbiak said. "All the pounding. It comes with the trade.''

A lot of niceties come with the trade, too, and Szczerbiak appreciates that he experienced -- and forever will enjoy -- many of them. In 1999, he was drafted by Minnesota with the sixth pick overall, ahead of guys such as Richard Hamilton, Andre Miller, Shawn Marion, Jason Terry and Ron Artest. A natural-born scorer (his dad Walt played professionally in the ABA and in Spain), he joined a playoff team with a proven, pass-first point guard (Terrell Brandon) and a uniquely versatile 7-footer (Kevin Garnett) who made teammates' games better.

Szczerbiak averaged 11.6 points as a rookie, then 14.0, and for the lack of any immediate rivals, got thrust into the "KG's sidekick'' role even if he never quite fit (no one filled that void, frankly, once Stephon Marbury bolted Minnesota). So by his third season, with with the Timberwolves off to a 30-10 start, the Western Conference coaches looked for a Minnesota teammate to reward and picked Szczerbiak as a 2002 All-Star reserve.

Talk about impeccable timing: Brandon was hurt, never to play again. Chauncey Billups had taken his glimmer of future stardom to Detroit as a free agent. So by the Oct. 31 deadline to extend Szczerbiak's contract, owner Glen Taylor agreed to a six-year, $63 million deal. That's the one Szczerbiak just came off this spring, his $13 million salary for 2008-09 shed from Cleveland's salary cap.

Bad business? Maybe for the Timberwolves, certainly not for the Szczerbiaks. For perspective, it's worth noting that two years later, in July 2004, San Antonio gave Manu Ginobili a six-year, $52 million package. There's no question that Szczerbiak's deal was out of whack with his value to an NBA club, though he remained a dangerous shooter from any distance, regularly hitting 50 percent overall and 40 percent from the arc.

Then again, if there is truth in the saying that the only bad contract is one that a team can't trade, Szczerbiak's couldn't have been horrible. He was traded from Minnesota to Boston in January 2006, traded by the Celtics to Seattle in June 2007 and traded again to Cleveland, in a massive three-team deal that included Chicago, in February 2008. Credit the league's salary-matching trade rules and the size of those multi-player transactions to absorb his money, but credit his skills, too.

Szczerbiak averaged 7.0 points, 3.1 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 20.6 minutes for the Cavaliers last season. He made 45 percent of his field goals, including 41 percent of 3-pointers. And the Cavaliers were 19-5 when he scored at least 10 points (of course, in their best season ever, they were 47-11 when he didn't). Defensively, thanks to wear and tear, he's more suited to checking power forwards now. Then there's this:

"He still can shoot,'' Boston coach Doc Rivers said. "If you can shoot, you can help a team in this league.''

Denver had some interest in Szczerbiak this summer, but neither side fully pursued it. Signing just anywhere for the $1.3 million veteran's exception wasn't a priority for him; Szczerbiak has been careful with career earnings in excess of $70 million, so his nose isn't pressed against the NBA glass quite like some former players on the outside. We hear more often about those who weren't as careful -- "Sixty percent of NBA players are bankrupt four years after retirement, that's what they tell us in the player association meetings,'' Szczerbiak said -- but he isn't and won't be one of them.

But if his hometown Knicks had a spot open up? If the Cavs or some other top team came to him for a chunk of the season and a playoff ride? If Cleveland wanted to package him in a sign-and-trade deal in which he could take the Keith Van Horn role (Van Horn, already retired, pocketed an unexpected $4.3 million in 2008 as an on-paper-only throw-in to Dallas' acquisition of Jason Kidd from New Jersey)?

"Who knows? We'll see,'' Szczerbiak said. "Maybe in a couple of months, the phone will ring and I'll have that urge. But right now I'm just trying to get healthy and do my rehab. The thing with me is, it's got to fit in travel-wise. I like to be around the family. It's got to be the right scenario, the right place.''

In the meantime, Szczerbiak is enjoying his first season out of competitive basketball since early grade school. Ten years of NBA work flew by -- "It's unbelievable,'' he said -- but now there are four hands, four legs, four eyes rather than two to wrangle three young children. He and the family are headed back to Cleveland shortly, when his rehab is done, and he will audition for some TV work on college basketball in Ohio and elsewhere. A way to stay involved, he said. Then there is golf, a lot of golf, so Szczerbiak's got that going for him, which is nice.

Where's Wally? Right where he wants to be.

Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA for 25 years. You can e-mail him here.

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