Worthy Tipping Scales Toward Lakers

Now that the Lakers have restored a sense of order to the Western Conference final, they once again seem to be playing with that look of, well, a champion, as everyone has expected all along.

And at this point in the Lakers’ series with the Denver Nuggets, James Worthy is taking on a certain look, too.

“He’s absolutely terrific,” Denver Coach Doug Moe said.

“He’s truly a great player,” Laker Coach Pat Riley said. “He became great when he started wearing goggles.”

But is he a superstar?

Last season, when the Lakers lost to Boston in the NBA final, Worthy was sometimes a hero and other times a goat, but in between, he was often mentioned as the next great player at his position in the league.

Worthy found the comparisons to someone like Julius Erving a little unnerving, but they were also slightly premature. After all, Worthy had never even been in the playoffs until last season. A broken leg ended his rookie season the year before, when the Lakers eventually lost to Philadelphia.

Now, though, Worthy is older, wiser and, by all accounts, much better. If the Lakers, who lead Denver, 2-1, knock off the Nuggets this afternoon in Game 4, chances are that once again Worthy will be the deciding factor.

If that happens, there will be new talk of Worthy’s emergence as a superstar, and probably no one is going to be too surprised.

Not even Worthy. But first, a word of caution.

“We have two superstars on this team already,” he said.

One of them is the other Laker who wears goggles, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the second is Magic Johnson, who has not needed goggles to achieve status.

Worthy said he is not at all concerned with who notices him at what time and even goes so far as to insist that maybe this superstar thing isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

“In time, if it happens, that’s fine, but I think superstar status is something to try to stay away from,” he said.

This is not your normal attitude in the chosen sport of the egocentric and talented. But Worthy easily defends his views of what being a superstar can really do to you.

“It puts so much pressure on you, and people are going to say a lot of things, some of which are impossible or not true,” Worthy said. “All I want to do is be the best I possibly can. As a player, you can go out and get a big head pretty quick.”

In the Lakers’ scheme of things, Worthy ranks behind only Abdul-Jabbar and Johnson in order of importance. Set plays are called for him, which is an honor of its own on a team so full of offensive talent, right after Abdul-Jabbar, and many times before Byron Scott, all of whom receive the ball from Johnson.

Worthy fills the lane on the fast break, running the court with the type of speed that has made Moe lean back in his chair on the sideline and shake his head.

“Sometimes, it’s hard to tell how good he is because the Lakers are such a good team and he’s such a good team player,” Moe said. “On another team, he could probably do a lot more.

“The thing about him is that he plays so hard,” Moe said. “They say the same thing about Larry Bird, but it’s also true for Worthy, and that’s what gives players like him an edge on the other people.”

If importance to his team, his style of play and his mental makeup aren’t enough to make Worthy a superstar, than his statistics might. Worthy is averaging 20.1 points and shooting 65% in the playoffs.

He had 28 points Friday night against the Nuggets, a 136-118 Laker victory, which reaffirmed Moe’s thoughts of Worthy’s value.

“I don’t know where the Lakers would be without him, but from our standpoint, we’d like to find out,” Moe said.

Worthy had his best and worst moments in last season’s championship series with Boston. He averaged 22.1 points and set a final-series record by shooting 63.8%, breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s record of 62.5%.

But Worthy is also known for his Game 2 mistake of throwing the ball away in the last seconds of the fourth quarter, which allowed the Celtics to tie a game they eventually won in overtime.

Afterward, in the locker room, when Worthy met the crush of reporters who asked him how it felt to blow a game, Worthy answered every question. He did not shy away, no matter how badly he felt nor how tough the questions. Why, he even managed a smile.

“Last year gave me a lot of experience and confidence,” Worthy said. “I know everything’s not always going to go great, but you have to try to be consistent. That’s part of the game.

“As for being a superstar, the God-given talent I have is something I can’t explain. It’s just there.”

Laker Notes Tipoff for Game 4 is 3 p.m. PDT (Channel 2) in McNichols Arena before a sellout crowd of 17,022. . . . The Lakers and Nuggets worked out Saturday, but only briefly, because both coaches wanted to watch the Celtics and 76ers on television. . . . As he walked past Kurt Rambis, Danny Schayes was wearing a T-shirt that said on the front, ‘Fleet Feet.’ Said Rambis: “You obviously stole that shirt.” . . . James Worthy revealed his method of guarding Denver’s Alex English: “Say a couple of prayers before the game.” . . . The Nuggets are considering starting Lafayette (Fat) Lever in Game 4 if his knee is healthy enough . . . The Lakers’ Larry Spriggs has discarded his face mask to protect his broken nose. “I can’t play with it on,” he said. “I can’t see. It’s like looking through a tunnel in the dark.” . . . After today’s game, the best-of-seven series moves back to the Forum for Game 5, at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.