Now a Starter for the Lakers, This Green Looks as Good as Gold

It is more exclusive than any club in Hollywood. You can’t buy your way into this establishment. A flashy reputation won’t get you a second look. Fame is no passport. A name turns no heads, and an invitation gets you only as far as the door.

Talent is the only ticket, and even that doesn’t guarantee admission.

What are the chances of belonging? Probably no worse than becoming a dance partner for Baryshnikov, a backup singer for Prince, or an adviser to the President. It simply doesn’t happen every day. More like every half decade or so.

But on the night of Nov. 25, 1986, this most private of inner circles--the starting lineup of the Los Angeles Lakers--was penetrated by a 23-year-old newcomer.

Along with the introductions of the regulars--Magic and Kareem, Worthy and Scott--came this name: A.C. Green. Simple as that. Not Alexander Cornelius Green or Alonzo Carver Green. Just A.C., like his father.

Get used to the name, because early indications are that it’s here to stay.

That first night, against the Atlanta Hawks, Green scored 19 points and pulled down 7 rebounds. The next night, against the Clippers, identical numbers.

The third game, there were a dozen rebounds against the Chicago Bulls. Still to come was a 26-point night against Portland, and two games of 16 rebounds apiece.

In the 20 games since he replaced Kurt Rambis as the team’s starting power forward, the 6-9 Green is averaging 13.4 points and 8.7 rebounds, and has led the team in rebounding in 13 of those games.

The numbers will only get better, according to Laker Coach Pat Riley. And so will A.C.

“I think A.C. could be a 15-and-10 a night player,” Riley said, referring to points and rebounds. “And there are nights he’ll score 30 because of his versatility.

“He could be in the class of a Buck Williams or a Charles Barkley. He’s maybe one level away. He just needs the total

confidence of knowing he can just shoot the ball.”

Jerry West, the Laker general manager who made Green the Lakers’ No. 1 draft pick from Oregon State in 1985, is equally effusive.

“He has a chance to be a super player,” West said. “He’s 6-9 and so damn quick, so active--and wait till he gets that thing (the cast) off.”

It came off Thursday in Portland, and Green scored 19 points and grabbed a team-leading 9 rebounds in 32 minutes. On Friday against Phoenix, he scored 18 points and had a dozen rebounds.

“Every game now,” West said, “he does something else a little differently.”

Mere Laker hype? Well, consider the words of the living anti-Laker, one Arnold (Red) Auerbach, president of the Boston Celtics.

“I’m still kicking myself that we didn’t do a better job of scouting him,” Auerbach said recently. “He’s going to help the Lakers.”

That, of course, was the idea when the Lakers drafted him a year ago last spring, the 23rd player chosen overall. But few rookies make an immediate impact with the Lakers. And, besides, the Lakers had just gone out and traded for Maurice Lucas to be their enforcer inside.

“This is a hard team for a rookie to come to,” said Mitch Kupchak, who was a Laker forward until his knee and back problems caused him to take early retirement and a position in the Laker front office as an assistant general manager.

“The players here--really, the core, which is Magic and Kareem--evaluate players by very harsh criteria. Laker rookies don’t have the luxury of playing a year or two, getting thrown into it and playing and learning.

“This is a set team. Anybody who comes in has to break into the lineup, which is a hard thing to do. Guys on this team judge players harshly, and you have to measure up.

“If you don’t measure up, you’re eventually weeded out. This team doesn’t have time to wait two or three years for a player to develop. That may not be fair, but this isn’t an eighth- or ninth-place team.”

What with Kupchak, Lucas and Rambis, there weren’t enough minutes to go around last season for Green, who shone early in the season with a 17-point, 16-rebound game against Dallas, then saw his playing time eventually taper off to less than a dozen minutes a game in the playoffs. He didn’t play at all in the Western Conference finals against Houston.

“There was never a lot of time budgeted for him,” Kupchak said. “He was kind of subdued last year. He kind of sat in the background.”

But last fall, when Kupchak and a number of other pro players gathered at UCLA to play some pickup games before training camp began, Kupchak noticed a big difference in Green’s play.

“He was impossible to keep off the boards,” Kupchak said. “He really shocked me with how much more aggressive and persistent he was.”

Then the Lakers, who had watched Green excel in summer league play, made the decision that opened the door for A.C.: They released Lucas. He had been the team’s leading rebounder but might have been the one who wasn’t accepted by the core. He wanted to do things his way too many times and that might have been interpreted as a distraction.

Initially, Green did not know what to make of Lucas’ being waived. All he knew was that he was losing a friend, a man who had the reputation of a bully but who had taken the quietly devout Green under his wing.

“The first thing I did was call Maurice to see how he was doing,” Green said. “Maurice had helped me out so much, he had kept my head together mentally. A great friendship and bond had been created.”

By letting Lucas go, the Lakers were sending a message to Green, too, but he didn’t get it right away.

“The message wasn’t clear,” Green said. “It wasn’t on my mind. But Maurice said, ‘This could be opening the door for you to more playing time.’ ”

That’s exactly what happened. Riley decided to make Green a starter in training camp, and Green played superbly. Magic Johnson said that he looked like a completely different player.

Then, in the last exhibition game of the fall, Green became a one-handed player, tearing the ligaments in his left thumb. Three pins were inserted during surgery, and a large cast was put over the thumb.

“To this day, I don’t know how it happened, if I was reaching in on a guy or what,” Green said. “Bodies went together for a loose ball or a rebound, and I felt a little pain.

“At first I thought I had pulled my thumb out of the socket, but it wasn’t pointing in a different direction or anything, so I thought it was fine and I kept playing.”

Green had never been hurt--not in high school in Portland, nor in college at Oregon State. It wasn’t until the night before the operation, when he was lying in his hospital bed, that he accepted the idea he wouldn’t be practicing with the team the next day.

Riley kept him out of three games because of the injury, and the unwieldy cast made it virtually impossible to handle a pass or grab a rebound, never mind shooting. But when the smaller cast was put on, Green responded with his 26-point night against the Trail Blazers.

Kupchak noticed something else emerging besides Green’s shooting touch.

“He’s become a very emotional, extroverted player on the court,” Kupchak said. “Do you see the way, after he scores on a break, the way he pumps his fists and gives high-fives?”

Riley said that Green’s teammates respond even more demonstratively when he makes a good play.

“When he goes flying in on the break and jams it, he’s pumped and gives a quick five,” Riley said. “But the other guys punch him, and push him.”

When Green replaced Rambis in the starting lineup, Riley made sure not to step on Superman’s cape. Rambis, whose Clark Kent visage prompted the Superman comparison, was promised that he would still get 20-25 minutes to perform the dirty work--banging bodies, diving for loose balls, hitting the offensive boards--he can do as no other Laker can.

But in Green, the Lakers add another forward who can run the court, drill the outside jump shot, and do some banging of his own.

At times, though, Riley said, Green still has a tendency to defer to the veterans around him.

“He’s got to play with wild, reckless and controlled abandon every night,” Riley said. “I know that’s a contradiction--actually, I’d like to see him a little more out of control.”

Off the court, Green is a picture of self-control. How wild does he get? Well, after a game, he almost always gets a call from his mother, who watches the Laker games via satellite in Portland.

“She always thinks I’m getting hurt,” Green said.

And when Riley was looking for someone to counsel rookie Billy Thompson, the Lakers’ top draft choice, he turned to Green.

“I told him, ‘I want you to mold Billy Thompson, work with him, talk to him,’ ” Riley said. “A.C. knew how to be a rookie. He knew how to serve the veterans without being subservient, and he never complained.”

Green is very active in his church and shares an apartment in Los Angeles with a minister, but said it was important to him not to be “one of those flaky-talking Christians who said one thing and did another.”

On several occasions, he discussed religion with Abdul-Jabbar, a Muslim. “He was very open about it,” Green said. “We both shared our views and each other’s beliefs.”

It was difficult at first, he acknowledges, to be on the same court with players the caliber of Magic and Kareem. “You almost view them as something untouchable, the perfect kind of players,” he said.

But in time, the elite accepted Green as one of their own. When the credits roll, he’s now part of Showtime, too.

“The way I was brought up and the way my parents taught me, I’m never going to be the No. 1 guy, a loudmouth, an attention-getter,” Green said.

“I’ve always believed that actions speak louder than words. It’s also Biblical, in a sense. My whole attitude last year was to work as hard as I could, and hopefully I’d find myself in good favor.”

He did. Now he’s a member of the club.