Orlando is the only place John Amaechi has enjoyed any NBA success, mostly confined to the 1999-2000 season.

He has been a marginal NBA player before then and since. Now he is struggling to play a few minutes a game for the Utah Jazz, who signed him to a four-year, $11 million contract last summer.

Amaechi would be the first to acknowledge that's a lot of money, certainly more than he ever dreamed of making as a pro basketball player. If he had not had the good season with the "Heart and Hustle" Magic of two years ago, he would probably be out of the game. Still, nothing annoyed Amaechi more than reading comments made by an unnamed member of the Magic organization, who said things have worked out for Amaechi.

"If you're tossed out of an airplane at 30,000 feet, the pilot shouldn't be taking credit just because you didn't die," Amaechi said.

He feels betrayed by the Magic, who convinced him to turn down a $15 million offer from the Lakers in the summer of 2000 and remain in Orlando. The implied payoff was a multi-year deal he was eligible to sign with the Magic the following summer. But after Amaechi turned down the Lakers, he had a bad year in Orlando, and the Magic never made good on their wink-wink agreement.

"It's not a question of what they promised me. It's a question of . . .I went from being shown around Palm Beach the previous year to not receiving an unsolicited telephone call," he said. "That's tough."

Normally Amaechi would be the last to complain. He was raised in England and does not have the sense of entitlement common to American athletes. But he showed the Magic loyalty in 1999 and he expected to get it back. His sister told him he was crazy for turning down the Lakers, and it turned out she was right.

"It certainly makes you think, and I hope people understand more what the business is about in the sport," Amaechi said. "Hey, these guys (the Magic) were good to me the year before. I've said that many times.

"If I was facing the same decision again, I would have to stay; they treated me very well. They got rid of a couple of veterans worth $5 million worth of contracts and kept me, and at the time (the media) was saying: 'Who the hell is this guy? What are you doing?"'

The Jazz are starting to wonder what they were doing in signing him. Amaechi is too analytical for his own good, and his slump has carried over into this season.

"A new place is part of it, the baggage from here is part of it," he said before Wednesday night's game in Orlando. "There's a lot of stuff together, nothing that I can't deal with and nothing that is anybody's fault but my own."

A plastic bottle of beer was thrown onto the floor at the conclusion of Friday night's Wizards-Magic game in Orlando.
This is going to continue to happen. A precedent was established at last Sunday's NFL game in Cleveland and quickly imitated Monday night in New Orleans. Among drunken fans, this is now the thing to do.

Fortunately, there is a very simple solution and it has already been invented -- the paper cup.

The ban of beer bottles at sporting events can take place either before somebody gets seriously hurt or after.

The top 10 (last ranking in parentheses): 1. L.A. Lakers (1); 2. San Antonio (3); 3. Sacramento (4); 4. Milwaukee (2); 5. Dallas (7); 6. Minnesota (5); 7. Philadelphia (6); 8. Toronto (8); 9. New Jersey (10); 10. Boston (unranked).