Columnist Dean Juipe: Magazine too kind to Kambala

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2001 | 2:07 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

It was refreshing to see Kaspars Kambala sitting on the bench and cheering, enthusiastically at that, for his teammates.

A game earlier he had sat and brooded, disgracing himself and his UNLV basketball team on national television.

But Monday night against New Mexico, Kambala modified his outward appearance. Challenged by coach Max Good to support the team or abandon it, he seemingly chose the former.

That was noteworthy in itself, given the not-so-farfetched notion that Kambala might just quit the Rebels in the days that preceded UNLV's impressive win over the Lobos.

Yet when we assembled Tuesday morning and dissected the game in the office, a discussion arose concerning Kambala's unexpectedly poor season and the bottom line is that we decided he was "no Jon Koncak." In other words, Kambala may have the size to play in the NBA for a couple of minimal-dollar years but that he wouldn't be a high draft pick and that he wouldn't have any staying power based on his present game.

He's stiff, he's bullied by bigger and stronger men and he has even abandoned the little jump hook that once gave his offensive game a hint of a repertoire.

So imagine the absolute shock later in the day when an advance copy of the Feb. 5 edition of ESPN The Magazine arrived and here was a full five-page article on Kambala -- plus, coincidentally, one of almost an equal length on Rick Pitino -- that all but fawned over the big guy.

The (misguided?) writer of the piece was attempting to solicit sympathy, if not outright tears, for Kambala, under the premise that his home life both before he arrived at UNLV and even today, is, in a polite word, lousy.

Diminished if not overlooked were the basketball facts of the matter: Kambala seems to have regressed in each of his four seasons as a Rebel, and, to make matters worse, has had lapses of judgment that reserved him a spot in the coach's -- as well as the fans' -- doghouse. Just in the last month he had dinner with the man who most recently brought down the UNLV program and caused the NCAA to apply still more sanctions, David Chapman, and, more recently, childishly withdrew from the team during a harrowing loss at BYU that exposed the Rebels' lack of solidarity.

As a penalty, Good benched him until well into the second half of Monday's game. Kambala came in and did OK, yet his performance actually paled in comparison to that of the man who replaced him in the starting lineup, Sylvester Dotson.

Yet now Kambala is portrayed as a budding superstar, if not a soft-hearted celebrity, by a national magazine.

As detailed in the article, Kas has not only added a wife, he and Jessica have acquired a young boy who was abused earlier in his life. That part of the story is wonderful, and the Kambalas deserve everyone's respect.

Yet you have to do more than adopt a child and come from a pitiful background, as Kambala maintains he did, to be a standout collegian and the worthy focus of a magazine piece.

Right now, in the midst of his senior season, Kambala might grade out well for what he's accomplishing at home. But in terms of impressing the pros, or even UNLV's fans, he has been disappointing.