How do you take a softball feel-good story and turn it into comical drivel? Why, your name is Gene Wojcicsfshchjcski, that's how.

This is another totally pointless pick-apart of a Gene Wojciechowski column. (Sorry, I've become obsessed with destroying this man.) It equally makes fun of Gene and the column's subject, Kieth Van Horn--though really, it's not actually Kieth Van Horn himself, but rather, the semi-fictional version of Kieth Van Horn that only a Gene W. column can fabricate. If that makes any sense. Here goes.

On Halloween night -- the same evening the NBA season began -- Keith Van Horn wore a costume that still causes some team executives and fellow players to do double takes.

Oh lemme guess...a vampire! No wait...a Storm Trooper!

Van Horn went dressed as a husband and father.

Oh, that's just lazy. That's not even worth a fun-size Milky Way.

...Ohhh! now I get it! You're too clever for me, Gene.

At the very least, the outfit will end up costing Van Horn about $5 million, which is about how much he would have received as a midlevel salary exception on somebody's roster this year.

I woul've felt very bad for that "somebody."

Then there's his Nike endorsement deal. Right now, you can find Van Horn's action photo on the company's Web site,

Total hits on that page: 9 (since June 1997)

complete with his preference of kicks (that's shoes, for the hoops impaired).

Hoops impaired people--the obvious intended audience for a hoops column about a guy who plays hoops.

Next week, who knows whether he and his Air Uptempo Pros will still be featured.

Good job, Nike, on featuring Kieth Van Horn for the shoes with the name least befitting of Kieth Van Horn.

That's because Van Horn, the No. 2 selection in the 1997 NBA draft, isn't playing this season -- not because he's injured or because, like numb-above-the-neck Latrell Sprewell, he can't support a household on a multimillion-dollar salary. Nope. Van Horn is sitting out the year because he wants to spend time with his family.

That's one theory. Another would be that he doesn't like stealing money.

Of course, good luck trying to get him to talk about it. Van Horn is laying lower than the bent grass greens at Augusta National. So is his agent, David Falk.

Sure, why not throw in a completely-out-of-place golf reference? Makes sense to me!

Meanwhile, the rest of the league doesn't know whether to applaud or request that Van Horn undergo a CAT scan.

"I think there's probably a little bit of both," Denver Nuggets coach George Karl said. "I'm sure there's some players saying, 'Wow, why would he want to turn down that money?' "

"some players" = "all players"

Ah, money. You know how pro athletes always say it isn't about the money ... but it always is? In Van Horn's case, it really isn't about the cash.

Right. He doesn't like stealing.

If it were, he'd probably be in a Nuggets uniform when Karl's team opens its season at the Staples Center on Thursday night against the Los Angeles Clippers. And home games wouldn't have been a problem; Van Horn lives in a pricey foothills neighborhood just west of the Denver skyline.

The Boston Celtics also were interested, so he could have made his season debut Wednesday at the TD Banknorth Garden. Had he signed a free-agent deal with the Celtics, Van Horn would have become the team's resident historian of the Atlantic Division. The guy has spent more time on the Eastern seaboard than Tony Soprano.

What that last paragraph should have read:

"The Boston Celtics also were interested, so he could have made his season debut Wednesday at the TD Banknorth Garden. Had he signed a free-agent deal with the Celtics, Van Horn would have...uh, never mind...it's a bad joke. Nah, seriously, it was really dumb. You'd think it's dumb. Forget I said anything. Nah, for real...I'm serious."

Philly drafted him in '97 but traded his rights to the New Jersey Nets. The Nets later traded him back to the Sixers, who later traded him to the New York Knicks.

In all, Van Horn has played nine seasons, and for five teams in the past four years. Twice he was traded during the season, from the Knicks to the Milwaukee Bucks and from the Bucks to the Dallas Mavericks. He found out about the Knicks-Bucks trade as he was taking one of his daughters to Walt Disney World for a birthday party with Cinderella.

And someday, that little girl will be a rich princess too. Maybe Daddy should've taken that $5mill.

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah that.

Song of the South is probably the most un-Cinderella-like Disney reference Gene could have made there. Worse, it makes no sense.

As always, the money was mind-boggling (his $15.7 million salary made him the highest-paid Maverick last season),

The money and the contract, both.

but so was the realization that he and his family would have to start all over again this fall.

So, Van Horn said enough was enough. He was tired of moving his wife and four children. He was tired of seeing his life played out in the Transactions section of the sports agate pages.

Break the news to his wife, Amy. Sell the old house. Rent a new house. Find new baby sitters. Find new schools. Try to explain one more time why Daddy is making you leave your friends.

"Well you see, honey, I knocked up mommy in college. And remember that Cinderalla birthday you had? Well here's the thing..."

Leave them at their most vulnerable moment so you can catch up with the team in Sacramento.

"I don't think there's any question we cheat our family and our kids," said Karl, who will miss son Kobe's senior night at Boise State this season because of a Nuggets scheduling conflict.

You only have about three and a half months to find a way around that conflict, George. Yeah, you're right; that's probably not long enough to figure something out.

"There's no way you can give quantity to your kids."

Gah?

Karl knows Van Horn fairly well. I know Van Horn a little bit, which is to say I interviewed him when he played at the University of Utah, when he was with the Nets and when he agreed to write the foreword to Rick Majerus' autobiography (Majerus was Van Horn's college coach; I was the book's ghostwriter).

To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, maybe I'll find someone to ghost-read that one for me. (Here's a guess at that book's makeup: 1% - anecdotes from Majerus's Marquette playing days, 3% - anecdotes from his days as a Marquette assistant, 5% - anecdotes from his tenure at Utah, 91% - lame Gene-jokes eluding to Majerus's weight.)

The Van Horn I know is unfailingly polite, modest and, for years, was apparently unable to find a good hairstylist.

That's brilliant. I'm glad that's all you got out of three interviews. And by the way, who are you to criticize another dude's looks, Gene?

He married young. Had the first of his four kids young. But I'm not sure he has ever lived young.
His father died of a heart attack when Van Horn was a freshman at Utah. He had his first child, daughter Sabrina, when he was sophomore. In fact, during Amy's nine hours of labor, Van Horn sat in the delivery room and completed a take-home final exam in health education.

A) I can't believe "Amy" didn't dump his ass for that, and B) health education? That couldn't wait for his first-born?

Keith and Amy were married before his senior season.

[Gasp] Out of wedlock?!?! I can't believe that didn't get him kicked out of Utah. And I don't mean the school; I mean the state.

He could have declared early for the draft, but didn't. Van Horn used to drive a pickup truck with 101,000 miles on it, and his family lived in a plain apartment. He once told Majerus that he wanted enough money to put Amy through nursing school and to buy a Lexus, a house with a pool and a stroller Sabrina couldn't squirm from.

In that order of preference, no doubt.

Instead, he earned enough money to buy the company that makes the strollers.

A better line would've been, "Instead, he earned enough money to buy a new daughter that wouldn't squirm while still having enough leftover to buy Amy a forged nursing degree."

His last contract was worth $73 million, so we're not talking about a guy who eats Beefaroni for dinner.

But what if he does just because he likes it? Is this researched?

He's set for life. So are his children. And his children's children.
Van Horn is just barely 31 (his birthday was Oct. 23). He's a 6-10 forward who can shoot, run and pass.

Duh. He is a basketball player.

He can start or come off the bench and give you 20-30 minutes. He can help you win games.

That sounds like a $5million-dollar man to me.

Yet he walked away from the game he loves -- and the millions it could have added to his bank account -- for the family he loves even more.

"I think it's great ... admirable," Karl said.

"I applaud the decision," Majerus said.

"Keith Van Horn is far more than a basketball player," Mavs owner Mark Cuban said.

"What a fuckin' idiot," Every Other Active Player said.

This is true. Cuban watched Van Horn, who is working on his MBA, study industrial engineering on the team bus.

Industrial? Nerd. I hope he got really carsick from it.

He saw a guy arm wrestling injuries,

Wrestling arm injuries? Oh, I'm sorry--arm wresting injuries. How senselessly confusing.

...a series of tough trades and the trickle-down effect they had on his wife and kids. His decision to sit out, Cuban said, "shows someone who is in control of his future."

If only he were in control of his bowels. Gene neglects to cover that uglly side of this tale.

Van Horn will be back next season. At least, that's the plan. But so much can happen between now and then.

Like, every NBA team realizes he has almost no value at his price? That's only one thing that has to--and probably will--happen.

Who knows -- maybe he'll get used to the husband/dad costume.

Costume? Huh? Oh right, the Halloween lead that was really dumb. Also, there's nothing better than a slashed pair of words to give a column a nice, strong finish/close.