A TALL TALE : After All the Humiliation, Eaton Finally Gets Some Appreciation for His Role in Sudden Rise of the Jazz

The Lakers and the Utah Jazz will rendezvous again tonight at what may be a crossroads in the careers of two former UCLA centers: One who has generally been acknowledged as the greatest ever to play the game, the other who has suffered the humiliation of being left home on the last trip of his senior year as a Bruin.

For Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Game 3 of this Western Conference semifinal playoff series poses the opportunity to quash the suggestion that arises whenever the Laker captain has a bad game--such as the one he had Tuesday night in a 101-97 loss to Utah--that at 41, he’s trying to do it with mirrors.

It’s the same rap Abdul-Jabbar has heard for much of the 1980s, most dramatically in Boston during the 1985 finals. The Lakers lost Game 1 by 34 points to the Celtics, only to have Abdul-Jabbar turn around and win the playoff MVP award. Perhaps his 3-of-13 shooting, 0 assists, 1 blocked shot and 6 rebounds against the Jazz Tuesday night will once again be recognized as an aberration, not an omen.

For Utah’s Mark Eaton, at 31 a decade younger than his Laker counterpart, a Jazz victory tonight, besides giving Utah a 2-1 lead in the series, would solidify his claim to credibility after a career of indignities, not the least of which was his treatment at UCLA. The 7-foot 4-inch Eaton not only has been unable to avoid the smallness of others, his very height has made him all the more vulnerable.

“I don’t think you ever forget those things--you just try to put those things behind you,” Eaton said Thursday, after being asked to summon the six-year-old memory of being left behind by then-UCLA Coach Larry Farmer for a freshman.

“Fortunately for me, it has worked out. Professionally speaking, that could have had a devastating effect on my career.

“No, I’ve never understood it. I just have to assume it was an upper-level decision. It was never explained to me, at least to my satisfaction. But that’s the way it is. It’s ancient history now.”

Current events would suggest that life has grown kinder to Eaton. He blocked seven shots, all in the first half Tuesday, and was widely credited with disrupting the Laker offense. But despite being the league’s top shot-blocker for the fourth time in the last five seasons, and a second-team all-defensive pick, Eaton remains a man without honor in his adopted city.

Utah Coach Frank Layden finds it almost scandalous that the crowds in the Salt Palace frequently clamor for Eaton’s backup, Mel Turpin. If the Ayatollah Khomeini was on the Jazz bench, Layden has said, they would prefer him to Eaton, too.

“It’s sad that he’s not appreciated here at home,” Layden said. “He’s appreciated more on the road. If you look at our team, we anchor our defense around him. But his shot-blocking and rebounding, for some reason, are not appreciated here.

“Someday, they’re going to boo him right out of this city. That’s a mentality I don’t understand.”

Maybe you have to be a 7-footer to do so. An appreciation of his game, Eaton said, is an acquired taste.

“Being the largest person on the floor, you become the focal point, just like Kareem,” Eaton said. “They expect you to do everything, to play the same type of game as Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson, just because you’re so visible out there.

“They notice every little thing you do, any time you screw up . . . and it’s so much more obvious than with anyone else. They’re much more critical.

“I take a great deal of abuse from the fans here. If I miss a hook shot, they boo me. I may just shoot five times a game and someone else on our team might shoot 3 for 17, but I get booed because I’m more visible.”

Since Utah beat Portland in the first round and split the first two games with the Lakers, Eaton said, the glad-handers have taken notice of his contributions.

“All of a sudden, people seem to be focusing on what I can do,” he said. “People are saying, ‘Isn’t it great? Isn’t is flattering to have all these people cheering for you and all that stuff?’ I say, ‘It’s the same thing I’ve been doing for the last six years.’ ”

But he’s doing it much better than when he entered the league as a fourth-round draft choice. At that time, well-traveled forward James Bailey said, Eaton couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time.

Layden said that Eaton’s biggest problem was that he wasn’t in shape, that he was carrying a great deal of baby fat and could barely make two round-trips up the court.

“We decided we’d find out what kind of will he had to make our team,” Layden said. “It turned out he wanted to make it really badly. He was just begging for someone to take an interest in him, to make a player of him.

“Now look at him. Look at the minutes he plays. I think he could play 48 minutes a night, the shape he’s in.”

Jerry Sloan, the Utah assistant coach and former star guard of the Chicago Bulls, used to room with another much-maligned center in the ‘70s, Tom Boerwinkle.

Boerwinkle, too, was not a scorer and was frequently awkward, which obscured, at least for most fans, his considerable skills as a passer and rebounder.

“Boerwinkle was booed a lot in Chicago, but the players and coaches knew his value,” Sloan said.

“And Mark is not what you consider a pretty basketball player. The things he does, he works very hard to make them happen. Fans don’t appreciate that. They expect him to have the same flexibility as a John Stockton (Utah’s point guard). That’s because most fans in the stands aren’t 7-feet-4. They don’t realize how tough it is for Mark to do the things he does.

“They look at Jabbar, and they think Mark Eaton should be Jabbar. He’s not Jabbar. I think he’s pretty, myself. A pretty player when he blocks shots and rebounds.”

Eaton has learned to accept the slings and arrows with equanimity. He’s certainly had enough practice.

“He’s such a laid-back guy,” said Jazz forward Mark Iavaroni, who frequently goes out with Eaton on the road. “Nothing upsets him, except missing a layup once in a while. He knows how the fans are going to react to that.

“And he’s used to crowds gathering in airports, staring and gawking at him. It’s nice for me, because when I’m with him, I no longer have people asking me how tall I am.

“He just says when they ask him, ‘Very tall.’ How tall? ‘Very tall. ‘ “

There’s no disappearing in crowds for Eaton.

“There’s nothing I can do about it, so I accept it,” he said. “I think I deal better with it than a lot of tall guys, at least from what I hear and have read. Look even at Kareem--his history shows he’s had some problems dealing with it.

“I get along with most everybody. Not too many things upset me, and it takes a lot for me to lose my temper. . . . One advantage of being tall is if people say or do dumb things, you can just look right past them. That, to most people, is the most indignant thing you can do.”

And when he gets worked up on the court, he can always swat a few shots away. This is how he describes his premier skill:

“It’s anticipating what a guy is going to do, cutting down his options, making him commit to a certain thing, then staying down on the floor during head fakes, which is a real hard thing to do. Most people think I’m just standing there, but that’s the best way to play it. If you’re jumping off your feet all the time, you’ll be in foul trouble.

“Also, it’s choosing when and when not to block a shot. It’s more important to try to alter a shot, make guys do what they don’t want to do, make them think twice while they’re shooting. Just that momentary lapse of concentration can make the difference between a guy making his shot and missing it.”

Eaton, for one, doesn’t expect that Abdul-Jabbar will be missing as often tonight as he did Tuesday.

“He’s not going to shoot that badly every night,” Eaton said. “His timing was a little off the other day. I just try to bother him as much as I can. Every year, I’m a little more effective against him, but you have to add in there that he’s 41, which amazes me.”

It used to give Eaton a special delight when the Jazz beat the Lakers.

“It provided a little extra incentive, to show people (in L.A.) that yeah, I’m really out here, I’m really doing it, I’m really making it.”

Like the memory of his snub at UCLA, that feeling has not gone entirely.

“I’m not a revengeful type of person by any means,” Eaton said. “But it’s satisfying.”

Notes

Utah Coach Frank Layden reacted with a mixture of amusement and annoyance to Pat Riley’s contention that the Jazz were playing an illegal zone defense. “Everything’s ‘Layden, Layden, Layden’ in your (Los Angeles) papers down there,” Layden said. “Maybe he wants to see a little ‘Riley, Riley, Riley.’ ” Layden repeated what he had said Tuesday night, that the Laker trap was a thinly disguised zone. Riley was just responding with a little gamesmanship, Layden said. “He’s trying to equalize it because of what I said the other day. I don’t care. We’ve been playing all year. They can interpret it however they want.” . . . An encouraging sign for the Lakers: Michael Cooper’s shooting slump may be history. Cooper had his playoff high 13 points in 26 minutes Tuesday and made 5 of 8 shots from the floor, 3 of 5 from three-point range. . . . The 23 blocked shots (14 Utah, 9 Lakers) was a total surpassed only three times in playoff history.