Bullets’ King Is Back on His Game

Bernard King is back among the NBA scoring leaders, his name looking so appropriately placed, it’s easy to forget the two years it took him to get there.

By reaching this elite group, King has, in the words of his surgeon, reached “uncharted waters” of success in his recovery from a devastating knee injury almost three years ago. This former NBA scoring champion expected nothing less.

“I changed my life for two years to make this happen,” King said. “The doctor (Dr. Norman Scott) did a tremendous job in terms of building the proper foundation with surgery and then it was up to me, along with my therapist, to see to it that I was able to come back from such a serious knee injury.”

King does not get emotional when he talks of what he’s been through. He speaks matter-of-factly, choosing his words carefully.

“No matter what I had to do, I was going to do it,” he said. “Anything was worth sacrificing. I honestly believe the way I treated that period of my life, it’s the reason why I’m playing today.”

King is averaging 20 points per game midway through his first season with the Washington Bullets and he has looked more and more like the player he was before the injury.

“I’m happy with where I’m at, but I’m not satisfied,” King said.

Two years 10 days after King underwent a partial reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, he returned to action, playing the final six games of last season for the New York Knicks. He averaged 22.7 points per game but the short stint was “not a long enough time to get the rust off,” he said.

After the Knicks chose not to match an offer sheet tended King by the Bullets, he joined the Bullets in time to play one preseason game.

It’s been a transition he described as “jumping on a treadmill that’s moving 60 m.p.h. as opposed to starting out at one or two and building your way up.”

It showed as King got off to a slow start, making just 20 of 62 shots in his first four games.

Slowly, his rhythm returned. In his first 16 games, he averaged 17.1 points per game and made 41.9% of his shots. Since then, he has scored 22.0 points per game and has shot 57.6% and has slowly moved up among the NBA leaders.

Over his last six games, King has averaged 26.5 points per game.

King said those statistics reflect his adjustment to his new teammates.

“It’s always an adjustment,” he said. “When you’re a key player coming to any team, then you’re asked to fit your skills into that team. It takes time.”

Said Bullets’ Coach Wes Unseld: “If we can get him the ball at a point on the floor where he’s comfortable, he can deliver.”

That was a problem for the team during the early going, Unseld added.

Considering that he missed almost two entire seasons, King said, “Things are starting to get a lot better. It’s what I expected.

“That’s why I said at the beginning don’t judge me after one game, judge me after the end of the season.”

Dr. Scott said he has performed more than 500 surgeries similar to King’s over the last 10 years.

“He is really the first basketball player to come back (from an anterior cruciate injury) at this level,” Scott said. “That says it all.”

King refuses to call this year his comeback season.

“In my mind I came back last season,” he said. “I’m back this year. It’s nice to think that I’ve come back from a serious knee injury. That’s wonderful, but I can’t let that befuddle my thinking when I go out on the floor every night.

“When I play, I never think about my knee. Period. The knee is totally, physically sound. There is no reason to think about the knee.”

He even has discarded the knee brace he wore for the first 16 or 17 games.

King is scoring less than he did with the Knicks for two reasons, he says. He’s playing fewer minutes and the Bullets “have two big guns in Moses (Malone) and Jeff (Malone),” King said.

King said he believed comparing his points-per-minute this year to his years before his knee injury has to provide the truest measurement of his comeback. The statistic doesn’t disappointment him.

In his nine NBA seasons prior to his injury King averaged 32.1 points per 48 minutes. This year, excluding his first 16 games, that average is 31.8.

He thinks his performance so far this season sufficiently answers anyone who questioned how he went about getting back to the NBA.

“I think that those people who are looking at my situation now are thinking back and saying, ‘Maybe he knew what he was doing. It’s being born out in his play. Maybe he was right.’ ”

King said he had to call on all of his NBA experience during his comeback.

“If I didn’t understand and know the game of basketball the way I do, there was no way I would have played again,” King said.

Knowing the physical and psychological demands of playing in the NBA, King set a goal for himself, “to come back and play at the level I’m playing right now.”

It took two years. Rehabilitation first, then the workouts, 6 or 7 days a week, up to 6 hours a day, in a tiny New Jersey college gymnasium. The lone interruption came in October, 1986, when he re-injured the knee jogging.

Finally, four weeks of practice with the Knicks before returning for six games last year.

“I didn’t want to return just to say I made it back and then sit on the end of the bench because I would have retired,” King said. “Most people said it was impossible.”

His two-year recovery was not all bad.

“For 5 or 6 hours a day I secluded myself,” King said. “Outside of that period, I lived a normal life.”

In fact, King went even further, saying, “That two-year period was the best two years of my life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. No question about it.

“I think I’m more resilient, a stronger person. I got a chance to do things during the two years that I otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance to do if I was traveling and playing with the ballclub, like spending time with family and friends and just enjoying New York a lot more.

“I think my friends have gotten to know me a lot more over the last two years. The challenge has been interesting. The two years, it was a challenge. It’s challenging now. That’s part of the fun though.”