Webber of broken promise

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The immaturity and lack of discipline of Chris Webber trumped the talent.

That is his legacy.

His pathological bent to be a knucklehead inevitably led to bad endings in four NBA cities. It was as if he could not help himself. He could not see that he was the problem. It was not the coach, the system and the circumstances of the franchise. It was him.

He was always conflicted. He wanted to be a bad man, a product of the mean streets of Detroit, only he was out of hoity-toity Country Day and hardly a gangster.

Webber never could grasp that the art of cool comes to those who are comfortable with who they are instead of those straining to be something they are not.

Webber was not even a bad man near the end of a tight game. He was one of the softest 20-10 players ever. He was like Elvin Hayes in that regard, both inclined to fill their stat line in the first three quarters of a game before coming down with alligator arms and an ever-tightening esophagus.

At his best, Webber was a No. 2 guy masquerading as a franchise player. And coaches indulged him in the belief that age and experience eventually would compensate for his flaws. Theirs was a false belief.

Webber would land in a city as a basketball savior and leave with a series of unmet expectations and bad feelings.

The 76ers are a mess now, just as the Wizards once were after Abe Pollin grew tired of Webber's problems with various law-enforcement agencies.

The Wizards made the mistake of ignoring Webber's rift with Don Nelson, a player's coach who somehow could not reach the enigmatic one.