Character Driven (25 page)

I found a three-bedroom apartment in Marina Del Rey through the help of the Lakers and a real estate agent. I needed the three bedrooms because my best friend, Clarence, and my cousin Anthony were to live with me. Clarence was my age, but he hadn’t gone to college and was still trying to figure some things out. Anthony had just graduated from high school. He and I had been close and I was a kind of big brother to him. He hadn’t settled on a path for himself either. My aunt Christine and my uncle John were a bit concerned about his moving away, but I talked with them and assured them I would be on top of things and that he’d get himself into school out there. They agreed, and the trust they put in me meant a lot. Having those two guys with me also helped me. That little bit of back home would help keep me steady and in check. Making it possible for Anthony to experience life outside Little Rock and enlarging his vision of life’s possibilities was something I was glad to do.

It was amazing living in the Marina City Club right on the water with a city view from my eleventh-floor apartment. I got to furnish it once I got there, and going out and buying all those things plus a home-entertainment center and a pool table was a lot of fun. Not many guys from the team lived nearby, but I didn’t consider that a priority. What was great was that it was close to Los Angeles International Airport and to our practice facility at Loyola Marymount University. I decided early on that I was going to take advantage of what Los Angeles had to offer, and being in a big city for a prolonged period was a first for me. I think we got to meet just about every carry-out deliveryman and most of the hosts at restaurants in our first few years there. I was mostly anonymous at the beginning, and that was okay with me. I had enough going on in my life not to worry about whether enough people were recognizing me when I went to clubs or parties.

Getting to know the Lakers was a bit easier than getting out and meeting people in a big city such as L.A. Interestingly, almost from the beginning, my teammates seemed to understand the type of person I am. In most every professional sport, rookies go through hazing at the start of the season and sometimes throughout the entire season. The Lakers made you get up in front of the whole group and perform something they asked you to do. Some guys had to sing their school fight song, some had to dance. At our first official training-camp practice, I was told to get up and recite as many lines as I could from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Instead of having me do something silly or funny, the guys asked for, and got, a serious rendition of a milestone oration in American history. I had been a speech communications major in college and had to do a lot of speaking, and I knew most of the speech’s important and most memorable lines. What struck me then is that the guys keyed in immediately, even before they knew me, that I was a pretty serious person. The coaches were also all there, and I sometimes wonder if it was their idea to have me say that piece.

A number of guys were in camp competing for one of the precious spots on the roster. I was assured of being on the team, but whether I got any playing time was another matter. Nick Van Exel had been the starting point guard, and Rumeal Robinson was also in the mix. Just before our preseason opener, I got word that Coach Del Harris wanted to see me. I wasn’t too concerned, we weren’t going to be making any cuts or releasing guys that early, but I was curious to hear what he had to say. He asked me to sit down, and he said what I already pretty much knew—Nick Van Exel was going to be starting at the point. I wasn’t as prepared for what he said next: “And you’re going to be the number two behind him.” I thanked him and said I appreciated knowing where I stood. A lot of times coaches don’t want to let you know where you are in the rotation because they’re afraid you might get complacent. Well, that wasn’t going to happen to me.

That was wonderful positive feedback and the kind of open communication that I had always hoped I’d get. I wondered if this was how all professional organizations ran, and this businesslike approach of “Here’s the reality so you don’t have to guess what’s going on” was great. That eliminated any anxiety I was feeling, but on opening night at the Great Western Forum, my system was flooded with nervous energy. Again, things could not have gone better for me during my first regular-season NBA game. Instead of my having to sit around most of the first quarter worrying and wondering and getting cold, Nick Van Exel picked up his second foul a minute and a half into the game. I was inserted into the lineup and finished the game with 11 points and 3 assists. Not a spectacular performance, but a very, very solid one. Getting those positive strokes from Coach Harris really helped, and I was determined not to let him down and to show that he was right in trusting me. They let me know what was expected of me, set a goal or standard that I needed to achieve, and I went out and performed at that level and higher.

All that sounds pretty simple, yet in sports and in business those simple things are too often forgotten. Adjusting to NBA life and the travel was somewhat difficult, but I was more concerned about making the transition to coming off the bench. I’d just spent four years getting the vast majority of the playing time, and when you start a game, you always know when you’re going to be expected to perform. You can set your routine by that, and I had to develop a new routine based on not knowing when I would go in or for how long. That transition was fairly easy since I’d spent a lot of my time in AAU ball as a reserve and not a starter. I drew on those past experiences. I looked at my situation as if I were an entry-level employee. I’d earned a job with the team, but I had no sense of entitlement. I knew that if I was going to move up, it would be based on merit. I liked that. I didn’t have to worry about if the guy ahead of me was playing just because his father was the assistant coach or any other kind of political stuff that had bugged me when I was coming up.

That’s not to say I was happy coming off the bench, far from it. I wanted to be out there, but I wasn’t expecting anyone to hand me anything. In a lot of ways, being on the bench was good for me. I could watch the game from a slightly different perspective—literally since I was sitting off to one side and was not directly in the action—and that allowed me to see things that I might not otherwise have seen. The flow of the game and some of the opposition’s tendencies were easier to spot than they might have been if I had been out there on the court with lots of other things to see and to do. As a result, generally when I went into the game, I was able to make a significant play of some kind—get a steal, deflect a pass to create a turnover, get an assist, take a charge—all because I’d been taking note of things while I was on the bench. As a point guard, you have more responsibilities than some of the other players in terms of leadership and running the team. You have less glamorous duties, but understanding your function and how you fit into the whole enterprise is an important part of success no matter what you do. Seeing the big picture from the point-guard position and being able to take advantage of the other team’s weaknesses and tendencies, and being able to put our game plan into motion, gives me a lot of satisfaction.

That first year was all about learning the ins and outs of the game at that level and recognizing that I fit in. I did belong there. I had enough game to compete with all these guys. I wasn’t at the level of a Michael Jordan; then again, who really was? I did have one nice exchange with him that year. We were playing in Chicago—I was a little disappointed that Chicago Stadium had been replaced by the United Center, just as I was that the Boston Garden had been by the Fleet Center—and I had been assigned to guard him. During a stop in play for a foul, he stood next to me and said, “You work hard. Keep it up.” I appreciated that small bit of recognition, and I think that was typical of Michael Jordan and some of the other veterans around the league. More than a few of those guys took seriously the idea that they were at the top but it would be for a relatively short time, then the next generation of players were going to come along and take over. We couldn’t really ever replace Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Magic, Bird, or the rest in one sense, but in a lot of others we could. Those guys had really helped build the league into what it was, and they didn’t want to see their work go down the drain.

I had a real appreciation for the league and its history, and I’m pleased that today a lot of the younger guys seem to have regained some of what was lost when people were talking about brawls and drug suspensions and all kinds off-court activities and scandals instead of the great game that it is. I’m probably more pleased that I see this happening in society. To me, one of the cool things about the recent election of President Obama was how he seemed to transcend generations and also recall the past. I heard younger people talking about Dr. King and Abraham Lincoln and how the near past and the distant past were linked. I’ve always loved the traditions in sports, such as the green jacket at the Masters in Augusta, and other things that span from the past to the present. In just about every town we played in, I’d think about what other NBA greats had been in that building before me—Willis Reed in Madison Square Garden, Dominique Wilkins in Atlanta, Dave Bing in Detroit. The list went on. I think that by knowing about that history and remembering it, I wasn’t losing sight of the here and now, but reinforcing the idea that I was part of something bigger. The game wasn’t about me.

I’ve been privileged to play alongside two of this era’s greatest players, Kobe and Shaq. I said before that Shaq and I had a good relationship, but it didn’t start out that way. Shaq loves to tell everyone the story of how we “met.” Before the Lakers had their own practice facility, we worked out at Loyola Marymount University, where the great college star Hank Gathers went to school. He died on the court, and later that year his friend and teammate, Bo Kimble, in one of the most moving acts of sportsmanship I can ever remember, shot every free throw in his NCAA tournament games left-handed in memory of Hank.

Before our training camp began, I went to do some work at Loyola. Coach Harris was there, then Shaq showed up. He was stretching while I worked on some things. Coach Harris wanted Shaq to run some pick-and-roll drills, so coach asked me to help out. Shaq just started doing his thing, basically not even acknowledging me, assuming that I was just some Loyola player. He had no idea who I was. When Coach Harris introduced us after the workout, Shaq was mortified. He didn’t let on much though, just saying something in the way that only Shaq could, “Oops!” and laughing nervously. Privately he told me he would make it up to me, and he did. The funny thing about it is, Shaq was the guy least likely to put his nose in the air around anybody. He was always a great teammate and didn’t treat any player any differently whether he was an All-Star or a free agent signed to a ten-day contract to fill out a roster.

Kobe and I enjoy a great relationship today. That didn’t develop instantly. Our first year, I was a little bit envious of the guy. Who wouldn’t be? He was our top draft choice in 1996. Still, I kept thinking, “How can a guy out of high school be more ready to play in the NBA than me?” Kobe exuded the confidence that he was not only good enough to be in the NBA but to be the most dominant player. He was refined in ways that I could never have been at age eighteen by virtue of his background. He seemed pretty aloof and didn’t hang out with the guys much (which I can see now was understandable given the age differences), but we were sometimes forced to interact because we were both rookies getting limited playing time. Because of that, the day after a game when the rest of the team had an off day, we went to the gym to practice. A few times it was the two of us, or maybe Rumeal Robinson or Travis Knight would join us.

One day in Milwaukee, Kobe, Corie Blount, Travis, and I went to practice. We shot around for a bit, then played some two on two. After Corie and Travis checked out, Kobe and I were left. We decided to play some one on one. After a bit, things got a little physical. Along with the usual bumping by the defensive player, Kobe kept using his off hand to hook me to get by me. I was used to defenders bodying me up and stuff, but I didn’t like what Kobe was doing. He’d been around NBA players for a lot of his life because of his dad, and he’d picked up a few tricks. But in my mind those tricks were fouls and the offensive man shouldn’t be putting his hands on me.

I told him he was fouling me and he didn’t say a thing, just looked at me with that Kobe glare. I was not going to back down, so the next time he tried to hook me, I fouled him—hard and with a push. He didn’t say anything, just took the ball out again. I fouled him again. Things went from heated to boiling. We got in each other’s face about who was pushing whom. Finally we were chest-to-chest jawing at each other, and even though Kobe is six inches taller than me, I was not going to back down. Besides, I weighed nearly as much as the skinny little dude. I’d had enough and I said, “You hook me like that one more time, and we’re going to go? Understand me?”

Kobe spat back, “Why wait? Let’s go at it right now. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Fortunately, it didn’t come to our punching each other. We let it drop, and I think we both looked at each other a little bit differently after that. We had tested each other and we’d both passed and earned each other’s respect.

I felt good about my first year. I played in eighty games including the postseason, averaging about twelve minutes and 4 points per game. We won fifty-six games that year (after winning fifty-three the previous year) and finished just as we had the previous season—second in our division and fourth in the conference. The play-offs were everything I’d heard they would be. The intensity was notches above what it was in the regular season. Fewer fouls were called, the guys were much more physical, and the electricity in Los Angeles and everywhere else we played was palpable. In the first round we beat Portland 3-1, and I got few minutes, but we stuck to the same rotation. I expected that would be the case in the second round when we faced the Utah Jazz. We’d lost in the first round of the play-offs the previous year, so advancing was good. I was really looking forward to playing against the Jazz, but then one of those down times had to come along. Throughout the year, the coaching staff couldn’t figure out what to do with Kobe. He wasn’t yet physically developed enough to match up well against shooting guards in the league. He wasn’t a true point guard either. During the regular season he’d averaged a few less minutes than me, but he hadn’t played at point guard.