Curb your enthusiasm

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2002 | 10:24 a.m.

As gala grand openings go, this was a first class dud.

The Las Vegas Slam of the ABA made its home debut Tuesday night at the Cox Pavilion and lost to the Southern California Surf, 131-112, before an announced crowd of 371. The actual attendance was fewer than 200.

The Slam, which took over for the now-defunct 0-7 Chicago Skyliners, is now 0-3 since moving to Las Vegas.

So is the Slam 0-10 or 0-3 this season?

Or -- as the official boxscore indicated -- 0-8?

"That's a difficult question to answer," said Mike Carroll, who owns part of both the Slam and the 14-6 Surf.

Turns out it really doesn't matter. Every team in the ABA gets an automatic playoff berth.

"The one thing we have coming into this is that this team will be guaranteed a spot in the playoffs," Carroll said. "They're in the playoffs no matter what. By the end of the season we'll see who's on top."

Although he was disappointed by the small turnout, Carroll said he was still happy with the Slam's home debut.

"You look at the scoreboard and see that the team that lost had 112 points -- you can't be too embarrassed about that," Carroll said. "This is fast-paced, exciting basketball. I thought we had a decent turnout for the first night."

In many ways it had all the makings of an old-timers' game.

Former NBA dunk expert Cedric Ceballos, who played for the Suns, Lakers, Mavericks, Pistons and Heat in 11 NBA seasons, had 17 points, 12 rebounds and four assists in 34 minutes of action for the Slam.

Former UNLV Rebel Gerald Paddio scored a game-high 33 points, including three 3-pointers. Another former Rebel, forward Patrick Savoy, added nine points and six rebounds off the bench.

Meanwhile, the Surf had three players with 22 or more points, topped by former Georgia Tech guard Fred Vinson (27). Former Oregon State star Corey Benjamin, a former first-round pick of the Chicago Bulls, added 22 points, including a key four-point play after Las Vegas had closed to within 12 points midway through the final quarter.

Another former Rebel, Reggie Theus, made his Slam head coaching debut.

"For only a week and a half of being together, these guys put together a pretty solid basketball game," Theus said. "I thought we put ourselves in position to win the game. We were down by 12 points and then we had some defensive lapses."

Theus, armed with a team salary cap of $350,000, held a four-day training camp at Valley High School two weeks ago and invited 30 players to try out. He eventually cut that squad down to 10 players.

"We're still getting to know each other out there," he said. "When we do, I think we'll have a pretty good basketball team."

The Slam hosts the Kentucky Pro Cats tonight at 7 at Cox Pavilion.