In the NBA, the generation gap approaches absurdity. The old guys are 30. The young upstarts–Iverson, Shawn Kemp, Isaiah Rider, Chris Webber–are 25, or maybe 20. Everybody’s a millionaire. And the self-appointed voice of maturity can be … Charles Barkley. ““This league is full of rappers and wanna-be movie stars,’’ he says. ““Everybody wants to do everything else except play the game.''

Magic Johnson got a sour whiff of the gap last season, after he came out of retirement. In the playoff drive, one teammate–Cedric Ceballos, 27–went AWOL for five days, and another–Nick Van Exel, 26–got suspended for shoving a ref. By the end of the year, Magic had retired again. ““I came in the league with the attitude of winning, with nothing else mattering,’’ says Johnson, 37. ““That wasn’t the attitude when I came back.’’ Now, he says, ““I am worried about what happens with the NBA, because people pay to see you work. These new players want the glory without the pain.’’ Anfernee Hardaway, 25, sees a change in the league even since he started three years ago. For many young players, he says, ““it’s about “what can you do for me now, and if you can’t get me what I want now, you’ll be sorry’.''

Basketball has asked for this. Through its growth in the ’90s, the NBA marketed itself on street grit and rebellion. Jordan raised trash-talking to new levels; Barkley once spit on a fan. Any competition less brutal was simply baseball. Though Iverson has been bad-rapped as an arrogant kid who travels with a posse and was jailed in high school after a fight, he is in some ways just a sneaker ad come to life.

But for all the attention given to bad boys, many of the top young stars–Hardaway, Grant Hill, Kevin Garnett–are as all-American as their elders; they just do it with a hip-hop flavor. Hill has become the poster child for the ““good’’ new jack. He, too, mixes Dr. Dre with his Dr. J. Anyone who takes offense had better get used to it. ““The [hip-hop] culture is real,’’ he says, ““and it’s on the court. The league is going to reflect the larger society one way or another. Be that good or bad.''