What Will Be Next for Mr. Doo-It-All?

You never knew what Doo would do. You never knew what Doo was worth. You never knew where Doo would go. You followed the vagarious basketball career of Bob McAdoo with never-ending fascination, because you never knew whether you were watching one of the game’s greatest players or one of the game’s greatest mysteries.

Both, probably.

And now that McAdoo is on the loose again, now that the NBA champion Lakers no longer want him, the mystery continues. An executive with the cross-town Clippers says he would like very much to have Doo on his side--”I’m a Bob McAdoo admirer,” he says--on the same day that an executive with the Denver Nuggets describes McAdoo as having diminished to a 3 on a scale of 10.

A month ahead of his 34th birthday, McAdoo apparently has been abandoned by the Lakers to make room for Maurice Lucas, a man of approximately the same age and height but considerably more grit. Comparing McAdoo to Lucas is like comparing Furillo to Belker on “Hill Street Blues.” One guy gets the job done with grace and style. The other gets it done by calling you dirtbag and yanking you by the neck.

What Doo will do next is anybody’s guess--and always has been. One year he is wonderful, next year not. One year he is worth three first-round draft picks; next year he and Tom McMillen together are worth John Gianelli and cash. One year he is playing for Vincennes Junior College in Indiana; next year for North Carolina. One year he is averaging 34 1/2 points a game for an NBA team; less than two years later he is playing for some other team.

Hard to say what happens next.

Jerry West, general manager of the Lakers, said: “Bob won’t be back with the team.”

Carl Scheer of the Clippers said Tuesday: “We’d have some interest. McAdoo would be a steadying influence on (Clipper forward) Michael Cage, and he could come off the bench to give us scoring, which we desperately need.”

Asked if he intended to make an inquiry to agent Bill Madden about McAdoo, Scheer said: “Oh, yeah.”

General Manager Vince Boryla of Denver, though, said: “Bob was very effective a year ago, but his capabilities and abilities slipped quite drastically last year. On a scale of 10, he was a 3. They’re picking up a 7 or 8 in Lucas. He’s not as one-dimensional as McAdoo. Maurice is one tough s.o.b.”

McAdoo is a walking contradiction. Whatever NBA team he takes up with next will be his seventh. No one too popular would get dumped on so often. And yet, his Laker teammates found him good company as well as a good player. To see their good-natured banter was to understand just how well Doo was liked by the other Lakers, and how much he will be missed.

They will miss his Uzi jump shot, an automatic weapon. They also will miss his deep-veined competitiveness, both in and out of uniform. If ever lived a man whose personal theme song should be, “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better,” it is this one. Anything anybody could do, Doo could do better.

There was no game he couldn’t or wouldn’t play. One day with the Lakers, he and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were arguing softball, McAdoo claiming that he was clearly the better first baseman. The subject changed to tennis, and McAdoo immediately said he could whip any man in the room, leaving Magic Johnson, Norm Nixon and James Worthy wondering whether they should conduct a little tournament and find out.

It was at this point that somebody mentioned bowling.

“I don’t bowl,” McAdoo said.

Simultaneously, the astonished Johnson and Nixon said: “Doo don’t bowl!”

“Give me two weeks and I can bowl 300,” McAdoo offered.

In his real line of work, Bob McAdoo has been perfect, or close to it, more than once. Four times in NBA games he has scored 50 or more points in a game, and he even got 50 in a playoff game once. He is one of the top 20 NBA scorers of all time, even though it has been a long time since he regularly appeared in anyone’s starting lineup.

McAdoo could see this coming. After the Lakers were blown away in the opening game of this year’s NBA championship series with Boston, McAdoo could see the writing on the wall. “If we don’t win, I’m gone,” he said. His contract, calling for $979,000 for the 1985-86 season, was not guaranteed. Neither was his health.

Said Scheer: “The only reason I would be reluctant (about acquiring McAdoo is because of his propensity toward injuries. We can ill afford to have a player sit out 15 or 20 games. The Lakers have that luxury.”

Scheer said that getting Lucas was “a terrific deal for the Lakers,” adding that if the team had an Achilles’ heel, it was probably a slight power shortage in the front court.

“Hell, they haven’t got any problems,” Denver’s Boryla said. “You should see some other teams’ problems. Tell Jerry (West) I’d like to have his problems.”

Many teams have tried to solve problems by getting McAdoo to wear their uniform. The Knicks did it, getting him from Buffalo, but Doo wound up hurt a lot. The Celtics did it, giving up three first-round draft choices because owner John Y. Brown wanted to tickle his wife, Phyllis George, who thought McAdoo was really neat.

Detroit wanted Doo so much that Dick Vitale gave Boston two No. 1 picks and threw in M.L. Carr. New Jersey took McAdoo off Detroit’s hands--briefly. He was constantly injured. After the Lakers acquired him and took him to Detroit for a game, Leon the Barber, the Pistons’ notorious court-side heckler, heard Jack Curran announced as L.A.’s trainer and shouted: “You’re gonna need two trainers--one for the team and one for McAdoo.”

In four seasons with the Lakers, McAdoo was not exactly as solid as a rock, but he contributed greatly. He picked up a couple of championship rings, and he earned them. When the Lakers needed points, Doo gave them points. Just as he gave them those constant reminders that whatever they could do, he could do.

“If you do it,” Magic Johnson once said, “Doo do it.”

He will be doing it with someone else next season. Either that, or bowling 300s on the pro tour. You never know. Adieu, Doo.