He Has Fared Better Than in Farewell Season

Earvin (Magic) (Buck) Johnson, an athlete so great he has two nicknames, one for his public and one for his peers, told me the other night about something that happened between him and Kareem (Cap) Abdul-Jabbar while they were taking a shower last Tuesday night, after the Lakers had lost--on the road, of course--to the Sacramento (ugh) Kings.

According to Magic, Kareem came up to him and asked: “Buck, what’s wrong with me?”

Magic gave him a straight answer. “Cap,” he said, “you just ain’t been aggressive. You’re not hungry like you used to be. You’re not attacking. You don’t go after the ball. You don’t go after your shot. You’re not yourself.”

Role reversal was hereby complete, like a parent in a nursing home relying on the child he or she reared. The 41 3/4-year-old king of the court, oldest player and greatest scorer in National Basketball Assn. annals, now turned to his 29-year-old student prince for advice. So deferential is the elder-respectful Johnson that he never would have volunteered any advice to Abdul-Jabbar, but he was happy to be asked, because he worships the old man.

Abdul-Jabbar had, in his own coach’s words, “gone stale.” He was half the player he used to be. His points and minutes were down. His right knee was badly bruised, and so was his ego. His contribution to Laker successes was becoming negligible. He was 23rd among NBA centers in rebounding. He had attempted 50 free throws, or fewer than 2 a night. The same man who, as recently as 1987, had scored in double figures in 787 consecutive games has, as of today, reached double figures 10 times in 27 starts.

Pat Riley felt compelled to call his center aside at Friday’s shootaround and suggest that if Kareem’s play did not improve over the next couple of weeks, he would bench the man who has started more than 1,500 NBA games, use him strictly in reserve. Kareem, the coach said, consented to this arrangement.

Riley either was remedying his problem by being realistic, or by attempting to motivate Abdul-Jabbar by appealing to his pride, or both. One thing he was sure of: There had been such a groundswell of “undue criticism” toward Kareem that some of the Lakers were beginning to be affected by it. Then again, that’s a handy scapegoat; when something has gone wrong, blame those who dare say it has gone wrong.

True, it was getting nasty out there. More than one Los Angeles columnist had called for Kareem to take early retirement. On an ESPN talk show last week, columnist Bill Conlin of the Philadelphia Daily News called Abdul-Jabbar “worthless, totally worthless . . . a zero on defense, like a barber pole.” New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica wholeheartedly agreed. “This guy has stayed too long at the dance,” he said.

Riley called a private meeting with Abdul-Jabbar and a second meeting with the entire team. “I wanted to clear the air, clarify our statement about our center position,” Riley said. “It’s just been hanging there like a big cloud, and it was counterproductive. All the critics wanting to force him to retire, it, well, it created a burden on our club. Sometimes you, as a club, begin to wonder if everybody else is right when they say stuff about you. It seeps into your thinking.

“So, I want to make it clear right now: This is our team. Kareem’s on it. He’s here. He’s gonna stay here. He’s still a force, and I believe in him. For the next few weeks, I’ve asked him to go as hard as he can. If, in 2-3 weeks, things haven’t changed, we’ll probably experiment with Kareem coming off the bench. And he’s open to that.

“The guy has carried us for 14 years. Fourteen years! We’re all wearing rings because of him. The way I figure it, we’ve gotta back him up. We owe him that. We owe him respect,” Riley said.

I wondered what Kareem thought about all this.

A couple of hours before Friday night’s game against Cleveland, I was able to get Abdul-Jabbar off by himself for a while, to hear his side of things. So many others had been speculating on his play, on his current worth, on his future, I wanted to hear from him for a change, see what concerns, if any, he had.

We went into a room not much larger than the man himself, with a doctor’s reclining chair, a little table and little else.

“What do you want to know?” Abdul-Jabbar wanted to know.

Question: Well, let’s start with that road record. Eight straight defeats away from home. Is that a source of unusual aggravation?

Abdul-Jabbar: Oh, definitely. The whole team’s disappointed in our inability to be consistent and play up to our level. If we just went out and played as well as we could and coordinated our efforts, we’d be better--not that we’re that bad now, as far as our position in the standings--but it would be a lot more satisfying.

Q. Can you get a handle on what’s gone wrong on the road?

A. I don’t know. You’ve got a team that’s played so well for so long and finally achieved what we wanted most, that being back-to-back world championships, something no one else has done (since 1969), so I don’t think anybody here would question whether we’ve had a kind of collective, uh, relaxation. The fact that we’ve maintained such an intense state of concentration and preparation, for years and years and years, helps explain what’s happened to us mentally. I know that’s the case for me, personally.

Q. Would you say you are satisfied or dissatisfied with your own play this season?

A. Definitely not satisfied. I think the injury really got to me right at the point where I was coming around. That was a setback.

Q. Ever regret at all having come back for one more season?

A. No, I don’t have any regrets. I just wish I had prepared better. But it was very hard for me to do that facing what I was going to be facing this year. I just had a tendency to focus on that and not getting physically and mentally in the shape I should have been in when the season started.

Q. Can you contrast your play with last year’s?

A. I’m not playing well on either end of the court. (From the start) I wasn’t moving well. I just wasn’t in real good condition to play basketball. I was in good condition to be a human being. I just wasn’t in good condition to do my job.

Q. Hadn’t you trained extremely hard during the off-season the last couple of years?

A. Yes, and it really served me well. But this past summer, I, well, I did stuff, but the fire just wasn’t there. I suppose I was taking a breather from the whole ordeal of the past several years.

Q. Just to be certain, is there even a remote chance of your coming back next season?

A. No.

Q. Any chance of your not finishing this season?

A. Nothing foreseeable. Of course if I get injured, it could finish me, but other than that, I’ll be out there.

The farewell tour of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar continues. To those who say he is already done, he simply says, wait and see.

“The Lakers can still be a dominant team, with the people we presently have,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “We at least deserve the benefit of the doubt, myself included.”

After Friday’s 21-point cakewalk over the Cavaliers, everybody in the Laker locker room was talking about how much better Kareem seemed, how good he looked out there. Magic said it first. Riley said it next. They saw some of the old Abdul-Jabbar out there, they said, and even Kareem, while conceding that he has “got a ways to go,” acknowledged that it was nice to make a contribution to a Laker victory.

He had scored 6 points.

Life with the Lakers had certainly changed. The simple fact that their regal old center had finally made his presence felt, had shown some of his old zeal, had snatched several rebounds and done more than taken up space, had been enough to inspire hopefulness, had been so encouraging that it disguised, to some, the actual news of the day, that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, king of the court, had just been told that he had to start playing better or else he would have to be benched.

With luck, that day won’t come.

Have a nice season, I told him.

“I’ll try to do that,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said.