CHARLES BARKLEY'S BASKETBALL SEMINARS

@rule:
@body:One night, 90 minutes before the game, I sat in the empty stands watching reserve point guards Frank Johnson and Knight warming up together.

First, Knight would take the ball and attempt to dribble past Johnson to the basket. If he couldn't get past Johnson, Knight would pull up and take a jumper.

Then it would be Johnson's turn. He is smaller than Knight, but he has the rippling muscles of a weight lifter.

Knight has been injured for the better part of a year. His durability is in question, just as is KJ's. Frank Johnson, a first-round choice out of Wake Forest in 1981, was the 11th pick in the draft. KJ was a first-round pick of Cleveland and the seventh pick in the draft of 1987.

Frank Johnson has been playing in Italy the past two years. Before he went to Europe, he played for Washington, where he was one of the top rookies in the league. He is now going on 34 years of age, but has not seemed to lose a step. In the two games against Golden State in November, Johnson was the best point guard the Suns have seen to date.

Even against Chicago, Johnson bolted onto the floor and, at six feet tall, provided the most dogged defense against Michael Jordan displayed by any Suns player that night.

Once the fans know his story, they will come to love him. He is the quintessential underdog, the gutty overachiever everyone with athletic pretensions pictures himself as being. If KJ has reached a stage in his career where he is going to be hampered through every season by nagging injuries, Knight and Johnson will be the keys to the team's ultimate success or failure.

As the season unfolds, discussions will arise as to the wisdom of the trade which dispatched Jeff Hornacek, Tim Perry and Andrew Lang to Philadelphia for a franchise player like Barkley.

My mind is made up. How on Earth could Philadelphia make such a bad deal for themselves?