Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty ofthe 1980s

by Pearlman, Jeff

  The Lakers fined Jones $150 for every skipped physical rehabilitation session. For three straight months, Jones failed to show up. “Because Josh and I didn’t make much money, Pat would take all the fine money from the year and that’d be part of our playoff share,” Rosen said. “Earl Jones got fined so many times he made us practically rich.”

  “God bless Earl Jones,” added Rosenfeld. “God bless him.”

  • • •

  Jones, however, was only one half of the season’s second greatest extraordinarily tall person experiment. In Houston, Rockets coach Bill Fitch was pairing Ralph Sampson, the 7-foot-4 reigning Rookie of the Year, with Akeem Olajuwon, the 7-foot number one pick out of the University of Houston. They would be known as the Twin Towers.

  In Los Angeles, something out of a warped parallel universe was unfolding.

  Because Abdul-Jabbar was, in all likelihood, wrapping up his career, West turned over every stone in search of a capable replacement. That’s why the team added Nater, why they drafted Jones. And why, on August 22, they signed a 7-foot-5, 217-pound extension ladder who was uniquely unskilled in all phases of the game. Los Angeles, meet Charles Goodrich Nevitt.

  “Everyone,” he said, “called me Chuck.”

  Houston’s third-round draft pick in 1982, Nevitt played four seasons at North Carolina State, averaging (you are not about to misread this) 3 points, 2.4 rebounds and 0.2 assists in ninety career games. When he appeared in six games for the Rockets that season, he became the tallest player in NBA history. Over the next two years, he aimlessly bounced from team to team and camp to camp. “People always ask me if I’m a basketball player, and I say I am,” he once cracked. “Then they want to know who I play for. So I say, ‘This week or in general?’”

  The Lakers spotted Nevitt in a Los Angeles summer league. He was long and gangly and as pale white as a quart of whole milk, with the high socks and bushy mustache only enhancing the image. Unlike Jones, Nevitt happened to be a hard worker and, as an electrical engineering major in college, quite intelligent. What he lacked in talent, he made up for in likability. “You won’t find a nicer guy,” said Rosenfeld. “But Chuck used to hurt people all the time, because he was 7-foot-5 with these really sharp elbows. I remember when Mitch [Kupchak] came back from tearing up his knee, and Nevitt got him with an elbow one day. He needed forty stitches over his eye. Chuck felt awful.”

  NBA teams either keep players or don’t keep players. Nevitt, however, was a special case. Though he outplayed Jones, Nevitt was the final cut in camp. But instead of letting him walk, the Lakers hired Nevitt to assist Rosen with promotions. “Most of the time I was in the gym, working out, lifting weights, doing conditioning with a running coach from UCLA,” said Nevitt. “But if there was an appearance they’d need a player to go to, they’d send me.”

  This, of course, resulted in an inevitable scene being repeated (in one form or another) more than once:

  Step 1: Excited basketball fans arrive at supermarket opening, anxious to meet a real Laker.

  Step 2: Excited basketball fans dream of Magic Johnson or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or James Worthy or even Larry Spriggs.

  Step 3: Announcement is made: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are honored to welcome Clark Mivett. . . .”

  Step 4: Awkward silence.

  “It was funny,” said Rosen. “Chuck was a great guy, but a bad player. Jerry West wanted him to stay in basketball shape, so he asked me to bring him along to play pickup games with me and my friends. He’d show up and, can I tell you, he wasn’t the best guy there. He was really tall and really sweet, but we were pretty ordinary players—and so was he.”

  Nevitt wound up appearing in eleven games for the Lakers in 1984–85, enough to earn a solid paycheck and to convince West that the organization absolutely needed its star center to play as long as possible.

  On October 14, Abdul-Jabbar told the Los Angeles Herald Examiner that the odds were “50-to-1” against his return.

  On October 22, he signed a contract extension through the 1986–87 season.

  • • •

  When he was thirty-seven years old, Wilt Chamberlain was one year into his retirement.

  When he was thirty-seven years old, Bill Russell was three years into his retirement.

  When he was thirty-seven years old, Willis Reed was six years into his retirement.

  When Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was thirty-seven years old, he was elite.

  Granted, he wasn’t the Kareem of old, averaging 30 points and 16 rebounds while carrying a team on his back. But as younger, stronger, faster centers entered the league, all branded “game-changing” and “new wave,” the Laker captain continued to play at a high level. Against all odds, he averaged 22 points and 7.9 rebounds in 1984–85, leading the Lakers in both categories and bettering his totals from the previous two seasons. He also became the NBA’s all-time scoring leader, surpassing Chamberlain with his 31,420th point in a game at Utah on April 5, 1984. “I guarded him in practice all the time, and he was still awesome,” said Nevitt. “Too often everyone wants to be the power dunker, to make these amazing moves. Great. But once your knees and legs go, what you can bring to the team falls apart. With Kareem, as old as he was, he could always shoot that damn hook shot. He just perfected different aspects of his game. And no matter how I guarded him, he was unstoppable.”

  Yet as their teammate aged, many Lakers found him to be exasperating. On the court, Abdul-Jabbar was a 10,000-pound fast-break anchor, slowing down Showtime and often stopping it altogether. Earl Jones was awful, but he could (when he tried) dart down the hardwood. Abdul-Jabbar, in contrast, was an old leather boot. Johnson, Worthy and Scott all longed to sprint. Abdul-Jabbar wouldn’t. And couldn’t. “Earvin actually told me at one time, ‘Man, I can’t wait for that guy to leave, because then you’ll see the real Magic Show,’” said Steve Springer, the longtime beat writer. “A bunch of the players even had these matchbook covers printed up that read TRADE KAREEM. There was a lot of resentment toward Kareem. Really, he brought a lot of it upon himself.”

  Off the court, Abdul-Jabbar remained as detached as ever. Before big games, players pumped one another up with motivational words. Abdul-Jabbar, meanwhile, sat quietly, reading a book and dismissing the bluster as moronic bellowing. “He was a man who always saw the cup as half empty,” said Springer. “He was rude to a lot of people when he didn’t have to be.” Following the 1983 fire that destroyed his house, there was a brief span when people raved about a kinder, gentler, happier man. That turned out to be short-lived. Abdul-Jabbar confused teammates with his eternally shifting moods and demeanors. One moment, he could crack a joke across the locker room. Other moments, he could walk past you without saying a word. He baffled teammates by waiting until everyone was done with their showers—then simultaneously turning on all twelve heads and strolling through one time before drying off.

  Josh Rosenfeld, the longtime media relations director, recalls the Abdul-Jabbar who shunned one journalist after another but spent nearly an hour with two quirky reporters from a Finnish radio station. “CBS Sports got nothing from him that day,” Rosenfeld said. “And the Finland guys are having a blast. Why? Because they asked him about jazz, not basketball.” Abdul-Jabbar famously maintained a blood feud with Rich Levin, the veteran Herald-Examiner beat writer who had also played basketball at UCLA. In 1978, Levin wrote a piece that criticized Abdul-Jabbar for agreeing to fulfill a charitable request only if he were paid five thousand dollars. “I’m never speaking to you again,” Abdul-Jabbar said—and he kept his word. If Levin entered the elevator, Abdul-Jabbar exited. If Levin waited around the center’s locker for a post-game quote, Abdul-Jabbar wouldn’t talk until he left. “I don’t think Kareem is a bad man,” said Levin. “But he was difficult and moody. He was supposedly cerebral, but I’m not so certain. . . .”

  Teammates watched Abdul-Jabbar blow off fans enough times to tire of the
act. Maybe they could defend the way he treated the press (In his book, he described reporters as “wheedlers, little guys who derived great satisfaction from tweaking the tiger’s whiskers”), even when he seemed to intentionally swivel his body midway through post-game interviews so that his bare buttocks would be in the faces of reporters. But his public persona was downright nasty. On September 29, 1984, Abdul-Jabbar was driving his black Mercedes-Benz 500 SEC down an alley from Junior’s Deli to Midvale Avenue when he collided with a Motobecane ten-speed bicycle. The rider, a thirty-two-year-old TV Guide writer named Andy Meisler, wound up sprawled across the hood with a bruised thigh. “A big man gets out,” Meisler recalled, “and he’s not happy. I just reverted to the school yard and said, ‘Hey, it’s my fault—I’ll pay, no problem.’”

  Later on, when he received a five-hundred-dollar estimate, Meisler reconsidered. So Abdul-Jabbar proceeded to sue a man who made approximately one-two hundredth of his salary. He wound up winning $571.67 in small claims court, but there was no victory dance. The news was greeted by the city’s denizens with rightful derision—what sort of millionaire takes a poor cyclist for $571.67? “Just because someone’s riding his bike on the sidewalk doesn’t mean you can run him over,” said Barbara Pond, Meisler’s insurance agent. “I can’t believe the man is pursuing this.”

  Such was Abdul-Jabbar’s way. Though he contributed to causes and read extensively and was, along with Nevitt, the most intelligent of Lakers, he possessed the emotional IQ of a toddler. At the same time he sued Meisler, Abdul-Jabbar and his girlfriend, Cheryl Pistono, were renting a residence in Brentwood from a woman named Barbara Bergen. They were paying $3,800 a month to stay in the home where Bergen, a divorcée, had raised her two children. “It was three thousand square feet, and with my kids grown I didn’t need that space,” Bergen said. “Well, they ruined it. They had friends come over and park on my lawn. They dug up the master bathroom, painted the walls, stuccoed the den.” When Bergen confronted the couple, she said they were unsympathetic. So she sued for $20,000—then was shocked when Abdul-Jabbar’s attorney, John Gaims, portrayed her as a money-hungry hustler. “It’s a very typical and minor dispute,” he said. “The landlord upgrades everything tremendously and tries to charge it all to the tenant, alleging the damages were caused by the tenant.”

  The two sides wound up settling, but Bergen never understood. “What sort of person ruins someone’s home and takes no responsibility?” she said. “What does that tell you?”*

  Again, the lawsuit made Abdul-Jabbar appear three feet tall and—from the outside looking in—wasn’t worth the blow to his reputation. Yet that was how the basketball star behaved, and, behind his back, teammates bemoaned it. The Lakers were supposed to be classy and engaging and, above all, professional. Abdul-Jabbar was none of the above.

  Fortunately, he could play. Though the 1984–85 Lakers weren’t all that different roster-wise from the 1983–84 Lakers, there were three factors—along with Abdul-Jabbar’s excellence—that led to a Western Conference–best 62-20 record (they took the Pacific by twenty games) and made them a more dangerous team come playoff time:

  Byron Scott: As a rookie, Scott battled not only the typical NBA growing pains but teammates who blamed him for Norm Nixon’s departure. “It was tough for him last year,” West said. “People expected him to come in and be Norm Nixon right away, and you just can’t do that. It was a very emotional time for all of us.” By his second season, however, Scott was mature, confident and one of the NBA’s top gunners. He averaged 16 points for the Lakers, and led the league by hitting 43 percent of his three-pointers. Although Abdul-Jabbar was Johnson’s first passing option and Worthy his second, Scott became the point guard’s trusted security blanket. When all else was clogged, he knew Scott would be open somewhere. “I think he’s the best shooter in basketball,” Riley said. “From fifteen to twenty-five feet, there’s no more consistent shooter.” Scott also worked hard defensively, allowing Johnson to take the easier backcourt assignment. “Byron’s able to guard the great point guards other people have and hit his shots,” said Johnson. “He’s ready. He’s calm. He’s confident.” Scott started 65 games in 1984–85, at times showing his youth (his inability to drive to his left was a problem), but often proving the difference between victory and defeat. On January 25, 1985, the Lakers—29-14 at the time—hosted the Philadelphia 76ers at the Forum. Still blessed with center Moses Malone and forward Julius Erving (as well as a butterball rookie forward named Charles Barkley), the 76ers were 34-7 and the thinking man’s favorite to return to the NBA Finals. Scott proceeded to dominate, shooting 11 for 16 from the field and repeatedly embarrassing Andrew Toney, one of the league’s great defensive off-guards. “That was definitely a preview of what’s to come,” said Johnson.

  To the surprise of no one who had played with him at Arizona State, Scott wasn’t solely a spot-up shooter. As a rookie, he entered his third game, at the San Diego Clippers (the team that drafted him), to jeers. Bob McAdoo turned to him and said simply, “They booed you, boy. You gotta dunk on somebody now.” The first time he touched the ball, Scott bypassed an open jumper, drove the lane and slammed over Michael Brooks, San Diego’s 6-foot-7, 220-pound forward. It was a scene that, come season two, was frequently repeated. “He was just a fantastic athlete,” said Ronnie Lester, a reserve guard with the Lakers. “I think people missed that about Byron. He wasn’t just a shooter. He was a specimen.”

  So how to explain the transformation from year one to year two? Acceptance. As the other Lakers came to realize that Scott was a Nixon-level player, sans selfishness and ego, they embraced him as one of their own. He never demanded the ball, never whined about playing time, never felt threatened by Mike McGee for minutes. One night, while on the road, he knocked on the door of Johnson’s hotel room and thanked him for guiding him. “He didn’t have to help me at all, but he did,” Scott said. “Telling me little things like taking the ball to the basket strong instead of flipping it up like I could get away with in college.” He also opened up. Teammates learned that Scott was a master impressionist (be it Mr. T or Eddie Murphy) with a sly sense of humor (while taking a tour of the White House, he scanned the presidential portraits and asked the guide, “Why are there only white people on the wall?”), a devoted family man (he met his wife, Anita, during the season, and married her within the year) and a dogged competitor. Most practices included $20-to-the-victor long-distance shoot-outs—three-pointers were worth three points, shots from out of bounds were worth four, and five points were granted to baskets made from behind the Forum’s courtside seats. Scott was a lock to depart with cash in his pocket. “The rest of us just kind of hurl it up there,” Johnson said. “Byron shoots jumpers.”

  Before long, Scott, Cooper and Johnson were inseparable. They went to movies together on the road, spent pre-games talking strategy, enjoyed late-night dinners in one another’s hotel rooms.

  “It took us a while after Norm left, but eventually Byron was beloved,” said Cooper. “He was family.”

  James Worthy: Over the course of his first two seasons, there were those around the league who questioned whether the Lakers had mistakenly used the number one overall pick on Worthy. The man selected directly behind him, Clippers forward Terry Cummings, was a dynamic low-post player who averaged more than 20 points and 10 rebounds per game. The man selected third, Hawks forward Dominique Wilkins, was a high-flying dunking acrobat who brought electricity to a dormant franchise. Worthy, meanwhile, was merely excellent. He had long arms and quick feet but couldn’t even beat out Kurt Rambis for a starting job. “There were certainly those who thought we made a mistake,” said Mike Thibault, an assistant coach. “Cummings was terrific, Dominique was terrific. But, at the end of the day, it was about fitting what we were doing. For all of Dominique’s talents, he needed the ball in his hands . . . needed to be the focal point. When you have Magic and Kareem, you don’t want a third focal point. It took time for James to
fit in, but, boy, when he did . . .”

  With McAdoo now thirty-three and fading, and Wilkes, thirty-one, out for most of the season with torn ligaments in his left knee, Worthy filled the void. In 80 games (76 starts) he averaged 17.6 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.5 assists, playing with an artistic flair that even Riley—a constant critic of his shortcomings—had to admire. Worthy gained early praise for his low-post moves, yet he bolted down the floor at breakneck speed. When Scott and Worthy played their best, Showtime clicked in a way it never had before—Rambis rebounding the ball, snapping it to Johnson, Worthy and Scott filling the lanes, Abdul-Jabbar taking up the rear. “Man, James could run like the wind,” said McAdoo. “If he got a step on you, you were dead and done. Watching him play was amazing.”

  Pat Riley: Now in his third full season as head coach, Riley was peaking as a motivator and game strategist. Early on, if Johnson had a suggestion, Riley felt compelled to take it. If Johnson wanted things done a certain way, Riley complied. “It was Magic’s world,” said Cooper. “He called the shots.” But as the roster slowly turned over and fewer players thought of him as Westhead’s replacement, Riley felt more comfortable being the man in charge. This was his team, and the decisions made were his alone. “Early on in his career, it was a lot of, ‘So, this is what I think—what do you guys think about that?’” said Rambis. “He was almost like one of the players, fitting in with everybody. But as time passed, he discovered his philosophy. You could see the change.”

  “Pat was born to teach fast-break basketball,” said Bertka. “He stressed and stressed and stressed lane recognition—as soon as we got possession of the ball, we’re pushing up the middle of the floor, with the lanes on both sides filled. Under Pat, we rarely had to call plays one, two and three. I mean, we had a play—‘Fist’—which was take the ball to the left side and throw it into Kareem. But, really, Pat believed in running with purpose and running with intelligence. When you had Magic pushing the ball, and Byron in the right lane and James in the left lane, running, and Kurt rebounding, well, it was as good as it could get. Basketball paradise.”