“The good teams adjust with the times,” said Cooper. “The bad teams hope a good year carries over, without doing anything to improve.
“We were the Los Angeles Lakers. We always adjusted.”
CHAPTER 11
THE DEPARTED
One of the worst spans of Norm Nixon’s life began with a newspaper headline. It appeared in the June 16, 1983, Los Angeles Times—seven simple words no professional athlete ever wants to see.
LAKERS’ NIXON PLANS APPEAL IN PATERNITY SUIT
Despite a blood test that showed a 98.95 percent chance that Nixon had fathered a child with an Oakland woman named Elizabeth M. Fuller, and despite detailed testimony about the two meeting in Los Angeles when he was a basketball star and she a flight attendant, Nixon remained steadfast. “This is something that has almost become inevitable for the single, professional athlete,” he told United Press International. “You can expect two things—a paternity suit and to be traded.”
For those reading the article in the Lakers’ executive offices, it was almost as if the words jumped off the page and lingered in midair. . . .
. . . to be traded.
. . . to be traded.
. . . to be traded.
Nixon had never been traded. Not once. Oh, Jerry West often fantasized of a world without his whining and moaning and insistence that he was the greatest player in the history of basketball. But, when push came to shove, Nixon gave the Lakers the best chance to win. If Magic Johnson was the NBA’s top guard, Nixon was not especially far behind.
In the aftermath of the Philadelphia bloodbath, however, a seismic philosophical shift had overtaken the Forum. For the first time since Paul Westhead’s dismissal, panic trumped certainty. Had the Lakers dropped a close seven-game series, perhaps the team could remain largely unchanged. The finals, though, were embarrassing, and served to reveal Riley’s club as flawed and a bit old. “We needed to reassess,” West said. “That’s what it came down to.”
The Lakers weren’t going to rid themselves of Abdul-Jabbar (he was a free agent, but re-signed for $3 million over two years), Johnson or Worthy. At age thirty, Jamaal Wilkes’s game was slipping, as was his market value. Kurt Rambis interested no one. “It made sense to look into dealing Norman,” said West. “He was a terrific player. I’ve never said he wasn’t. But we were lacking balance, and we needed someone in the backcourt who didn’t need the ball all the time, someone who was a better defender and a better shooter.”
Put differently: Nixon was a pain in the rear, approaching his twenty-eighth birthday, struggling with tendinitis in his knees and not quite as explosive as he had once been. Plus, Johnson was tired of him.
The Lakers reported to Palm Desert for training camp on the final day of September, and when the talk wasn’t of Worthy’s rehabilitated limb (“Worthy has enough hardware in his left leg to make a salvage operation thinkable,” wrote the Los Angeles Times’s Richard Hoffer), it concerned Nixon’s future. The guard wasted little time irking West and Co. by arriving a day late—sans excuse or explanation. He pulled up on a Friday night, casually exiting his white Mercedes-Benz. “What’s going on?” he asked reporters in the hotel lobby, strolling past.
The following morning, Nixon sat down with the team’s beat writers and listened to the rumored trades. He was going to Golden State for Joe Barry Carroll. To Boston for Kevin McHale. To New Jersey for Albert King. West had offered Nixon and Eddie Jordan to Indiana in exchange for the draft’s number two pick, Missouri center Steve Stipanovich. The guard shrugged. “It’s inevitable,” he said. “How many players play with just one team their whole career? I’m not saying I want to go—it would be great to spend my whole career in L.A. But it’s inevitable. Everyone gets traded.”
That night, however, Nixon’s mood darkened. He was sitting in his room at the Ocotillo Lodge, stewing over the gossip, when he called Lon Rosen, who worked as the director of promotions. “We’ve gotta talk,” Nixon said. “You tell the man I want out of here.”
“What do you mean?” Rosen asked.
“I’m done,” Nixon said. “I don’t want to be here.”
Rosen immediately contacted West and relayed Nixon’s desire. “OK,” West said. “We’re going to make a deal.”
One day later, West asked Josh Rosenfeld, the team’s media relations director, for a favor. “I need you to do something,” he said. “The Clippers are scrimmaging in San Diego, and I want you to go down there and get a video of it.” Rosenfeld was excited. A covert assignment! He had planned on dining that night with several of the team’s beat writers, but called to cancel. “Well, I never canceled anything,” Rosenfeld said. “That was a red flash for Mitch Chortkoff [of the Herald-Examiner]. He knew something was going on, and eventually learned that I’d gone to San Diego.”
In the meantime, Nixon called Rosen again. He had been optimistic about a trade to Houston, where he could join Ralph Sampson, the draft’s first overall pick. Now he was hearing San Diego—the place where good ballplayers went to rot. “You didn’t tell Jerry what I said, did you?” he asked.
“I did,” said Rosen.
“You know, I was just frustrated,” Nixon said. “I want to stay.”
It was too late.
On October 10, the Lakers and Clippers completed one of the biggest trades in the history of either franchise. Los Angeles sent Nixon, Jordan and a second-round pick 120 miles south in exchange for center Swen Nater and the rights to shooting guard Byron Scott, San Diego’s recent first-round draft choice out of Arizona State. Save Donald Sterling, the Clippers’ eccentric owner, nobody in the franchise’s front office was happy with the transaction. When General Manager Paul Phipps landed Scott with the fourth overall selection, he thought he had acquired a building block to place alongside star forward Terry Cummings. The Clippers finished 25-57 in 1982–83, 33 games behind the Lakers. They needed youth. “Byron would have been great, but Don refused to pay him,” said Phipps of Scott’s request for a four-year, $1.75 million deal. “It wasn’t like Byron was making crazy or unreasonable demands. Don just didn’t want to pay money. I don’t even know how to explain it.”
“I do,” added Pete Babcock, the team’s director of player personnel. “Some people said we’d drafted Byron too early and questioned the pick. Don never told us who we should take, but he asked a lot of people their opinions—whether it was a busboy or someone at a dinner party. And, after getting enough opinions, I don’t think he was enamored by the pick.” Sterling and Buss were friends, and the Clipper owner knew his colleague was shopping Nixon. San Diego suffered from Laker envy—Sterling wanted to have his own genre of Showtime, only without having to spend money. He called Buss without consulting Phipps or Babcock and finalized the transaction. “Don, we don’t want to do this,” Babcock told him. “Norm’s at the end of his career, and Byron’s going to be a very good player. We’ve done the research—Byron Scott is a good kid, great character, outstanding potential. With him we have the pieces to be a good young franchise. But not with Norm Nixon.”
Sterling paid Babcock no mind. The trade was completed, and at the same time Clipper employees were letting out deep sighs of resignation (“Our hands were tied,” said Phipps), the Laker gatekeepers were euphoric. In many ways, the addition of Scott paled in immediate scope to the glee brought forth by Nixon’s departure and Swen Nater’s arrival.
Yes, Swen Nater.
For far too many years, West had bemoaned the Lakers’ lack of frontcourt depth. The line of centers employed as Abdul-Jabbar’s backup was long and undistinguished, ranging from Jim McDaniels and Cornell Warner to Dave Robisch and Mark Landsberger. Ever since joining the ABA’s Virginia Squires out of UCLA in 1973, Nater had been one of professional basketball’s elite rebounders, averaging 12.6 per game. He even appeared on the January 25, 1975, cover of the Sporting News alongside the headline, MR. REBOUNDER.
There was also
a remarkable story to be told, one that explained the determination that helped a clumsy 6-foot-11, 240-pound Dutchman go from never having started a college game to being named a two-time ABA All-Star. Born and raised in Den Helder, Netherlands, Nater was three when his parents divorced, and shortly thereafter, his mother and stepfather left for the United States without him. At age seven, Swen and his sister, Rene, were abandoned by their father and placed in a Dutch orphanage. Of the sixty children at the orphanage, Swen and Rene were the only ones whose parents were still living. “Well, before the orphanage, first we were in three foster homes,” he said. “During that time my stepfather and my little brother said they were going to go to America, make money and send for us. That never happened.”
When Nater was nine, a strange, life-changing event took place. The producer of the American television game show It Could Be You learned of his family’s plight, and flew Swen and Rene to California to appear as guests. “It was like This Is Your Life,” he said. “My mom and stepdad were invited to watch the show, just thinking they were there as part of the audience. Then my sister and I came out of a windmill and surprised them. They were shocked.” The on-air euphoria expressed by his parents was but a performance. That night, driving home from the studio, Swen’s stepfather, Charles, glanced toward the backseat and said, in clear Dutch, “Now we have two more mouths to feed.”
“He was a bad man,” said Nater. “He beat us, he whipped us, I never went to the dentist until I was in college. I was so excited to come to America. I had ice cream for the first time on the plane ride over. Then we got here, and it was awful.”
Nater knew nothing of basketball before arriving in the United States, and played only occasionally, on the pickup courts of Long Beach, through high school. He attended Cypress College, a small junior college, and was eating lunch one day when he was approached by Tim Tynum, a member of the basketball team. “He asked if I was planning on coming out,” Nater said. “I was six-foot-nine and one hundred eighty pounds, and I couldn’t jump, couldn’t touch the rim twice in a row. But I was tall.” Nater joined the Chargers, appeared sparingly as a freshman, but spent his free time shooting 600–800 hook shots per day with Tom Lubin, a Cypress chemistry teacher and assistant coach. As a sophomore, armed with a deadly hook and a nose for the ball, he was named a first-team Juco All-American. His 39 rebounds in a game against Antelope Valley remains a junior college record. “I discovered myself,” he said. “I paid attention, watched the nuances, kind of figured it out.”
Nater enjoyed the uncomplicated beauty of the game. After years of being told by his stepfather why he was good for nothing, it turned out he was good for something—rebounding. Nater was recruited by 150 Division I programs, and picked UCLA because of the school’s winning tradition. Once there, however, he found himself stuck to the bench behind Bill Walton, one of the sport’s all-time greats. In two seasons in Westwood, he never started, averaged a mere 4.9 points and loved every minute of it. “Who can blame John for going with Walton?” he said. “He’s just great. But the coach never forgot about me. And thanks to him, I learned the ins and outs of playing center.”
Professional scouts drawn to campus to watch Walton were also impressed by the lad with the weird name assigned to guard him. Wooden told all comers that Swen Nater could have starred at most other colleges. The sentiment was proven during a ten-year, six-team career that included, until now, five wonderful seasons as a Clipper (backing up, coincidentally, Walton). “Yes, I loved being a Clipper,” he said. “I loved San Diego, my family loved San Diego, and I wanted to bring the city and fans a championship. When I found out about the trade, I was unhappy. I had to be convinced this was a good thing. Eventually, I figured out that this was a chance to win an NBA title. I couldn’t really complain about that.”
Nor, for that matter, could Scott. At the time, belonging to the Clippers was the NBA equivalent of a solitary confinement sentence. As soon as he heard that he had been selected by San Diego, Scott wished he could go to Milwaukee. Or Cleveland. Or Kuwait. Then, suddenly, his rights belonged to a team that had appeared in three of the last four NBA Finals series, a team that played twelve blocks from his childhood home in Inglewood. “Comparing the Lakers to the Clippers,” said Bob McDonald, his agent, “is like night and day.”
It was a dream come true—as well as a nightmare. Shortly after the draft, Scott was asked by a television reporter to assess his game. He reply would haunt him. “I think I’ve got the ability of a smaller Magic [Johnson],” he said. “I’m quicker and I can shoot better than Magic. I’m a crowd-pleaser. I’m a great outside shooter and I’m flashy.”
After the trade, Jim Dunlap, the Clippers’ media relations director, called Rosenfeld and insisted there was context behind the quote. “He said the writers asked Byron two or three times, and he refused to compare himself to anyone,” Rosenfeld said. “He finally made the Magic comparison, but as a joke. Well, no one on our team knew that.”
Despite Nixon’s faults, many of the Lakers were heartbroken by the trade—none more so than Michael Cooper. As soon as Cooper heard the news, he called Nixon and offered a tearful farewell. Riley pieced together a Norm Nixon highlight video and showed it to the team on a locker room television. “It was almost like a funeral for Norm,” said Ron Carter. That night, Nixon celebrated his twenty-eighth birthday with a heavyhearted dinner at Mr. Chow’s, the trendy dining hot spot. Five Lakers—Johnson and Cooper included—attended (as did Jack Nicholson, Lou Adler, Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager). Toasts were offered, tears were shed. Then, after being told of Scott’s comments, Cooper fumed. “He’s not going to be given that job,” he said. “I was always content with my role as sixth man as long as the two starting guards were there. Now, one of them is traded. The starting job is not something I’m going to let slip away.”
Scott agreed to a four-year contract on Saturday, October 15, and reported to training camp two days later. He was a quiet kid, with a low Afro and a steely gaze. Teammates greeted him warily, and Scott responded in kind. Though he had likened himself to Johnson, they were night and day. There was nothing seemingly bubbly or lovable about Scott. He had been raised by a single mother in a gang-infested neighborhood, where the Crips and the Families ran things and the color of your shirt could determine whether you lived or died. “They admired athletes,” Scott once said. “You never heard about an athlete getting shot over just nothing. There was never any pressure on me to join a gang, although if I went up to the leaders of the gangs—and I knew them all in the neighborhood—they definitely would have invited me to join.” Scott’s brother, Jeff, was doing time in a Utah prison for burglary. One of his childhood friends, a boy known as Little G, was stabbed to death in a gang fight. Another boyhood pal wound up strung out on crack. One day he asked Scott for money to pay off a dealer. Scott declined—and the man was later shot and killed. “Byron was street smart and knew how to handle himself,” said Jay Humphries, his childhood friend and a future NBA guard. “When you grew up in Inglewood, it wasn’t always fun and games.”
If the veteran Lakers wanted to treat Scott like a ball of garbage, so be it. He wasn’t the one who decided to trade Nixon. And he certainly hadn’t intended to belittle Johnson. An interviewer asked a question—he answered it. Period. On that first day, Scott was given the silent treatment. He introduced himself to people, and was met with the sound of air. During a break in action, he poured himself a cup of water from a cooler. “You want some?” he said to Abdul-Jabbar. The center refused to look his way.
Throughout the first week, Scott was a bruise waiting to be punched. Every time he drove to the rim, someone—Cooper, Rambis, Wilkes, Johnson—hacked him. “It was like there was a fraternity,” said Riley, “the Laker Alpha Mega, and they made things a little rough. It’s not as if they strapped him to a tree and left him there in the dark, but he did have to pay his dues.” Yet Scott never complained. Not once. “We tried to break him,”
said Bob McAdoo. “But he wouldn’t give. He didn’t come in all wide-eyed, nervous about being with the Los Angeles Lakers of Kareem and Magic. Nope. He just played.”
“I always thought of myself, Norm and Magic as the Three Musketeers, and Byron broke that up,” said Cooper. “So fuck him. We didn’t talk to him, we hit him, we did everything to fuck him up. I saw Byron play a little bit in college, but he wasn’t so impressive to me. So when he came, he had to pay his dues. Well, he did. He took it all like a man.”
Johnson was the first to break what Scott termed “the sound barrier.” He treated the rookie to lunch and talked to him about expectations and NBA life and surviving a long run. About to begin his fifth NBA season, Johnson was the undisputed leader and kingpin of the Lakers. Shortly after the big trade, Riley had Ron Carter—the former Laker now back in camp with the team—playing point against Johnson during drills. In the midst of a particularly physical exchange, Johnson slapped Carter across the face. Carter, a graduate of the Virginia Military Academy, screamed, “What the hell are you doing?” and pushed back. Johnson threw a punch, and Carter pinned him to the ground—“It took me five seconds,” Carter said. The players were separated, and as he rose, Johnson waved toward Carter, smiled and said, “Bye-bye.”
“I got a call three hours later from the front office, telling me I was cut,” said Carter. “That was Magic’s decision. He wanted me gone—I was gone. He wanted Norm gone—he was gone, too.”
There was no point guard controversy, no debate over who would handle the ball. Abdul-Jabbar surrendered any power long ago. Most important, Johnson was—as always—the team’s most dogged worker. He reported to training camp in fabulous shape, then ran harder, longer, faster than the other Lakers. Although teammates were troubled by Scott’s cockiness, Johnson couldn’t care less. He was one to feel neither threatened nor angry. As long as the kid could play, he’d fit in just fine.
Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty ofthe 1980s Page 28