Divac’s Quest Leads to West and the Lakers

Vlade Divac has everything going for him, except an unfortunate set of initials.

Let’s face it, this is a guy whose monogrammed towels you wouldn’t want to borrow.

Otherwise, the first-round draft choice of the Lakers is a happy pro basketball camper.

He is part of our foreign-exchange program, in which a student from the United States goes to Europe, and vice versa. This year, we got Divac from Yugoslavia and sent a Duke kid to Italy.

The Big V signed a contract Monday with the Lakers, who promptly sent him off to their summer camp for privileged youth.

Vlade has a few things to learn--like English. Of course, same goes for many National Basketball Assn. rookies, thanks to America’s popular student-athlete scholarship programs.

Now that he has signed his contract, Vlade is playing tourist this week, carrying around his “How to See California on $5,000 a Day” guide.

The Lakers hope to turn Big V into the next Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. They don’t expect to get 21 years out of him, but then again, by the year 2010, maybe they’ll be giving him a new Rolls-Royce and calling him Cap.

The Americanization of Vlade has begun. Give him a year or two and he’ll be sitting next to Joan Rivers in a “Hollywood Squares” box.

Vlade is just now feeling his way around the Forum, getting ready for November, the usual. He shocked teammates by showing up for his news conference with goggles and a shaved head with styling mousse on it, apologizing later by saying: “I thought this how everybody look.”

Magic Johnson, meanwhile, has been busy this summer taking Berlitz lessons in Serbo-Croatian, trying to learn how to say: “Watch out for this pass, big fella, before it hits you in the face.”

The whole Laker gang has been explaining some of the basics to Divac--like, oh, you know, how every home game will begin with Randy Newman’s recording of “I Love Zagreb,” followed by renditions of the American and Yugoslav national anthems by various guest artists.

Vlade got very excited when he heard that Tito had season tickets at courtside, until he found out they meant one of Michael Jackson’s brothers. Vlade has a lot to learn about Hollywood celebrities and the Laker Girls and all. He still thinks Paula Abdul is a Saudi oilman.

Only 21 years old and already 7 feet 1 inch in his stocking feet--although, somewhat confusingly, only 6-11 in his shoes--Divac is a former member of the Yugoslav Olympic team who remains very impressed with American coaching, despite having seen John Thompson in action.

Big V even made a joke Monday, through his interpreter, that the reason he chose Laker uniform No. 12 was that he found out it was Coach Pat Riley’s number in his NBA days. Now that he’s under contract, the next number he wants is Riley’s tailor’s.

Vlade said he wanted to play pro basketball in America as soon as he heard that Los Angeles drafted him, and as soon as he heard which Los Angeles.

At NBA draft headquarters in New York, just to be safe, Vlade asked his old friend from international basketball circles, Danny Ferry, whether it was true that it was the Clippers that had chosen Ferry and the Lakers that had chosen him.

“No speak-a da English,” Ferry replied.

Funny how Ferry got picked second from the top and Divac second from the bottom. This must have confirmed everything Vlade had heard about America, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Vlade is very excited to be working for the Lakers, and is working on a few English phrases, including:

“Throw me ball, Ma-jeek, over here, you bet!”

“Get out my face, Lam-beer, you no damn good you!”

“This game in refrigerator close door make popcorn!”

“I go set pick for A.G. Creen now, OK?”

“Oh hello, Mr. Joker, I thought sure Batman kill you!”

“You guys from media just make up quotes, you dirty pigs, get out my locker!”

Mychal Thompson will probably teach him a few more. You know Mychal, always serious about his work. Mychal probably will tell Vlade that in America, rookies have to scrub the floor after practice.

It should be great fun having the Serbo-Croatian Sensation on the squad this season. The Lakers have gone from world champions to world travelers. When they and their Yugoslav meet up with the Golden State Warriors and their Soviet, the referees had better be Earl Strom and Henry Kissinger.

We don’t know how Divac will adjust to life in the NBA, but we do know that no matter what nasty things get yelled at him in Detroit or Boston, he won’t let them bother him. Because he won’t know what they’re saying.

We only hope that when Riley orders him to “Go in for Orlando,” Vlade understands that he means for Woolridge, and not for the Florida expansion team.