This Way, They’re All Winners : Lakers: Larry Drew didn’t want to play for a loser. L.A. wanted a backup guard. Together, they’re helping each other.

Larry Drew is no longer a loser. Personally, he never was, but he had always played for losing basketball teams. That can make a person, even someone as confident as Drew, start to wonder if he had been somehow responsible.

Worse, it can get to the point where one tries to slough off defeat, keep quiet, collect the twice-monthly paychecks and simply exist as a desensitized member of one of the dregs of the National Basketball Assn.

Drew, who for eight seasons was a point guard on pointless teams such as the Sacramento (nee Kansas City) Kings and the Clippers, had seen that happen to players too often. And besides, having turned 30, he did not have time to try to help build a winner out of young players, has-beens and never-weres.

So, tired of losing after the 1987-88 Clipper fiasco, Drew scraped his self-esteem off the hardwood and emigrated to Italy. His only real demand, other than fair compensation, was the chance to play for a winning team.

He found it playing for Scavollini Pesaro, one of the Italian league’s better teams. Drew averaged 23 points and five assists a game as the team won the league championship, thus finally quenching Drew’s thirst for success.

It was as if Drew’s first experience with winning convinced teams that this man does not have “Born to Lose” tattooed on his forearm.

Now, relatively late in his career, Drew finds himself back in the NBA and experiencing success as the newly acquired backup point guard with the Lakers.

The Lakers, in need of aid at that position, are counting on Drew to provide ballhandling and some outside scoring when Magic Johnson rests or shifts to small forward. They are expecting Drew to help the Lakers continue winning big into the 1990s.

More than happy to oblige, Drew still seems unaccustomed to the sensation of winning. But perhaps he appreciates his good fortune more than players who, say, began their careers with the Lakers and don’t know the despondency that comes with habitual defeat.

“When you are associated with losers so long like I was, mentally, it can break you down,” Drew said. “You can get a label like you had something to do with it.”

Drew made a really good living at basketball, but he wasn’t exactly happy in his work.

NBA teams employing Drew had a combined 231-425 record. He played for six coaches in eight years. His losing streak began in his rookie season when he played on the Detroit Piston team that stumbled to the franchise’s second-worst record, 21-61, in the last 25 years. His slump hit its nadir in 1986-87, when the Clippers went 12-70.

After the 1987-88 Clipper season--they, uh, improved to 17-65--Drew certainly seemed branded. He was a free agent but found no interest even from mediocre teams.

His only NBA choices, grim ones to be sure, were to return to the Clippers or sign with the slightly better New Jersey Nets, who finished 19-63 the previous season.

“To me, going to New Jersey would have been like going back to the Clipper situation,” Drew said. “It was something I did not want to do.”

The only other option was Italy. It could have been perceived as a risky move. Most 30-year-old point guards would go to Europe and not come back, finding that the NBA had moved on without them or forgotten they existed.

But Drew’s revived play for Scavollini Pesaro gained the NBA’s attention even during last season. The Boston Celtics, looking for guard help last December, called upon Drew, who turned them down but told them to check back over the summer.

“I chose to stay over there and play because I liked it,” Drew said. “We were winning. Italy really helped me, because I was associated with a winning team, which was something I hadn’t experienced in my career.

“True enough, it wasn’t the NBA. But more than anything, I looked at it as a confidence-builder. I really had to get the confidence back in my game I knew was still there. I think it gave me a more positive attitude for basketball again.”

When his Italian excursion ended, Drew felt more like a winner and wanted to play for one.

The Boston Celtics, who had lost Brian Shaw to Il Messaggero in Rome and were seemingly phasing out aging Dennis Johnson, needed a guard. And, with Larry Bird’s scheduled return, they figured to be winners again.

Just before Drew signed, however, the Lakers entered the bidding and, in Drew’s words, gave him a better deal. It didn’t hurt that the Lakers had won five NBA titles in the 1980s and are a contender again this season.

“I was like this from signing with the Celtics,” said Drew, placing his thumb and index finger close together. “Then, I heard from Jerry (West, the Lakers’ general manager). I preferred the Lakers.”

The Lakers’ acquisition of Drew will also allow Michael Cooper to be a swingman again rather than play out of position as Johnson’s replacement.

Laker Coach Pat Riley said Drew has quickly adapted to the team’s offense, as well as to the mentality of playing on a winner, and needs only to refine his role before the season opener against the Mavericks at Dallas on Nov. 3.

“Larry has been hesitating a little bit on his own shot,” Riley said. “He has almost been looking to pass too much. I’d like to see him play a little more aggressively offensively. His role is to come in for a short burst and make an impact.”

Drew knew he would have a limited role with the Lakers, while he probably would have been challenging for a starting berth had he signed with Boston.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Drew said. “But I picked here. At this stage of my career, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to win. That’s the bottom line. It doesn’t matter to me. Some nights, I’ll play 30 minutes. Some nights, I’ll play three minutes. The most important thing is to win.”

Drew has yet to lose as a Laker. The club won all eight of its exhibition games, which means almost nothing to everyone else. But already, Drew is enjoying it.

He has talked about the drastic change in play and attitude with his new team, the things other Lakers take for granted.

“Everyone is so unselfish,” Drew said. “I’ve never experienced that with any team like I’ve experienced it here. These guys give (the ball) up. And it shows in their record. They enjoy playing with each other. Nobody worries who scores the points. Somebody makes a pass to somebody, and they always acknowledge it (afterward). Those kinds of things.

“They play the game the way it’s supposed to be played. You’d think other teams would pick it up, but they don’t. I don’t know why they don’t.”

If the Lakers’ decade-long success continues, Drew might also have the new sensation of playing basketball in May and even June. That certainly would be alien to him. Drew’s teams have only advanced to the playoffs twice and were swept both times back in the days of the three-game, first-round miniseries.

“It’ll feel good playing somewhere that people are in the stands,” Drew said. “Even going on the road, when you’re the visiting team, people come to see you. Me and my wife have joked about it.”

For a refreshing change, the team on which Drew plays is not the joke.