Jose Slaughter Is Taking One More Shot

The basketball scrimmage has just begun at Cal State Dominguez Hills, but Jose Slaughter gets right into it.

He swats the ball away from an unsuspecting rookie opponent, then quickly tosses it across the court to one of his teammates, who dishes it back to Slaughter, who slams the ball through the hoop.

“Way to go Jose!” shout his teammates as they follow down the court.

Enthusiasm fills the gym on this particular day, opening day of the Clippers’ rookie/free agent camp. Things are pretty loose.

Top pick Dwayne Polee of Pepperdine is showing his stuff to the coaches--he will later pull a hamstring--and so is seventh-round choice Johnny Brown of New Mexico.

Free agents Anicet Lavodrama and Gary Maloncon are eagerly waiting to get their hands on the ball. Last season’s top rookie, center Benoit Benjamin, here just for conditioning, is bumping heads under the basket.

Mostly, though, basketballs are flying between legs and wrap- around passes are being wrapped around. It is showtime at the camp, though it’s a slipshod showtime at best.

Don Chaney, the Clipper coach, and Elgin Baylor, the team’s director of basketball operations, observe quietly--when they aren’t talking golf and taking courtside practice swings.

Jose Slaughter is not so casual. He is reserved but determined.

He, too, is thrilled to be at this camp because it represents yet another chance at making it in the National Basketball Assn. For him, though, the routine has become all too familiar: drills in the morning and scrimmages in the afternoon. He knows, too, that few of those who are happy to be attending the rookie/free agent camp will be invited back to the team’s actual training camp.

Nevertheless, he is grateful to be here. “Right now there is nothing else on my mind except making this squad,” he says.

Almost 26, Slaughter figures that, although he is older than most here, this time he has sort of an edge.

“Most of these other guys are young, fresh and hungry,” he says. “But I think I have more experience.”

This is Slaughter’s fifth such camp and he has played lots of basketball in lots of places in between. “But I’m still tryin’ to show ‘em that I can play in this league,” he says.

The former Compton High School star--he was the Dapper Dan national all-star game’s most valuable player in 1978--has been trying to catch on with an NBA team since graduating from the University of Portland in 1982.

“I’m going to give it my all and do the best I can,” he says at the beginning of camp.

Too old? “No way! I still feel like I did when I was in college,” he says.

Slaughter, a 6-foot 5-inch guard, played well at Portland. He averaged a school-record 21.2 points a game as a junior, and 18 as a senior. He set a single-season record for field goals with 242, and career marks for most points with 1,940, field goals with 799 and scoring average with 17.6. He was voted the team’s most valuable player and named All-West Coast Athletic Conference in his junior and senior years.

The Indiana Pacers were impressed enough to pick him in the second round of the 1983 draft--43rd overall. But Slaughter soon discovered what he calls one of the requirements of making it in the NBA: “Being in the right place at the right time.”

Says Chaney: “I think making an NBA club, especially if you’re a borderline player, has to do with several things--the right place, the right time and just getting the breaks.”

Slaughter wasn’t in the right place, nor did he get any lucky breaks at Indiana.

His playing time was limited, since he was basically a fifth guard. Slaughter played in only 63 games and averaged just 3.6 points a game in an average of about 8 minutes of playing time. He had 68 rebounds and 52 assists.

“I didn’t have a terrible first year,” he says. “But I didn’t get enough playing time to prove myself.”

He was released in October 1983 and was signed by San Antonio May 10, 1984. But the Spurs already had George Gervin and Johnny Moore. Cotton Fitzsimmons, who became head coach after Slaughter had been signed, thought he had enough guards and sent Slaughter packing.

“It was another case of off-timing,” he says regretfully, insisting that he can compete with the best of them.

“We play the same position, true,” he says of Gervin and Moore. “But I know that in some aspects of the game, I’m capable of playing better. They’re great scorers and shooters it’s true, but I hustle more and play tougher defense.

“I was pretty down after being released,” he says. “But I couldn’t get all the way down. You know you’ve got to continue.”

He continued by bouncing around the Southern California summer league.

Disappointed but not discouraged, Slaughter made the best of his situation.

“I never felt like I wanted to give up or anything because I always had confidence in my game, and I knew I could play,” he says. “The only thing I could do is kinda’ grit my teeth and play hard and not worry about it.”

Out of real work, Slaughter did what many borderline players do.

“I got a call from the CBA. I went down there, and it was like starting over again,” he says. “I had to prove myself all over again.”

He seemed to do just that. With the Wisconsin Flyers of the Continental Basketball Assn., Slaughter played 43 games and averaged 16.5 points and almost 6 rebounds a game. His shooting percentage with the Flyers was .465.

He was first-team All-CBA, and his efforts there earned him a tryout with the Lakers last summer, a tryout that he knew was just short of being futile.

“They had just won the title the year before and they don’t make too many changes,” he says.

He was right, too. He didn’t make it to the actual training camp. In fact, he didn’t even wait to hear from Coach Pat Riley. “I got a pretty good offer and went to play in Europe,” he says.

To Belgium and England went Slaughter, a man without a real home, a traveling basketball player, a guard for hire.

“I don’t have a place of my own or anything like that,” he says. “I’m always off in another place. Then I usually come to L.A. for a good workout (the summer league).”

Slaughter played well in Belgium and England, but . . .

“You can’t compare (European players) with American players,” he says. “It was pretty nice in England, but there was a communication barrier in Belgium, and I couldn’t relate with anybody.”

In short, he was lonely, out of touch with his friends and family. He came home and drifted back into the summer league syndrome. Basketball is what he knows and it’s what he does best.

Slaughter also knows, though, that there are players who have risen above borderline situations such as his. Kurt Nimphius, for example, was released by Denver in 1980 after attending the Nuggets’ rookie camp. He played overseas that season, then attended the Dallas Mavericks’ rookie camp and earned a spot on the roster. Now he is a Clipper.

Slaughter hopes that he, too, will become a Clipper.

Chaney has kept tabs on Slaughter and thinks he deserves at least this look-see.

“I have a knowledge of Jose from the past, the teams he has tried out with and so forth,” he says. “I’ve seen him in the summer leagues quite a bit. Last year I wanted to invite him, but we were overbooked as far as guards were concerned. This year we’re hurting for guards. So I wanted to bring him in and sort of take a closer look.”

And?

“So far, I’m very pleased with his efforts,” Chaney says about halfway through camp. “But right now we’re playing with players who are not top-quality NBA players, so I don’t really know whether we’re going to bring him back to camp or not.”

Slaughter has been down this road before. He will hope for the best but expect the worst.

“I’m working hard and I know what I’m trying to do. I’m having a pretty good camp, giving it my all and just doing the best I can,” he says.

Apparently he has a chance.

Says Chaney: “He has a very good knowledge of the game itself, and I put a lot of emphasis on that because I want players who have a good feel for the game, and I think he has a good feel for the game.

“He’s a good defensive player. He has very good instincts. He has all the tools to make it in the NBA.”

But with what team and when?

“I’ll keep trying till my body says, ‘Don’t try anymore,’ ” Slaughter says.

As the camp draws to a close, Jose Slaughter is still playing his heart out, still hustling. This might be his last real chance to earn a spot on an NBA roster.

Slaughter says: “Guys like us, we just want to play basketball.”