Solid, Game ‘Big Man’ Feels Pain of Drugs in Dazzling Young Talent

When he looks around the room now, a decade’s worth of locker rooms hidden behind his eyes, the veteran can see that not much has changed. There’s a game on the television. The trainer is wrapping ankles in white. A teammate sits on the floor, staring at the ceiling. As it was, so it will always be. This is how it is. Men getting ready for the game.

Still, James Donaldson senses something different, too. A new attitude. A shift. He looks around now, and there are people he spends most of his life with that he can’t trust. He nods across the room at the two tall men who wear ties now. He trusts them. But they don’t play with him anymore.

“I’m a throwback to 10-12 years ago when I first started playing, and I was surrounded by an old veteran team up in Seattle who were the way the guys used to be,” said Donaldson. “Guys like Clifford Ray and Garfield Heard. Those are the kind of guys I broke in with. Guys who were serious about the game, who may have not been the most talented players. But they were cerebral and they wanted to win. They had a great desire to win.

“Nowadays, you almost throw your hands up. Because if you’re in a situation with a team that doesn’t have that character, that doesn’t have that desire to win night after night, there’s only so much one player can do. I go out and play as hard as I can, but if the rest of the players aren’t on the same wavelength, frustration is definitely a big part of the game.”

Donaldson is the starting center for the Dallas Mavericks, a team that has always promised much and delivered little, a team with a 43-34 record that will be no one’s pick to win the NBA championship. A big reason for that is Roy Tarpley. Tarpley is the young and dazzling talent who remains, more than anyone, the future of this ballclub. And he is the man Donaldson trusts least of all.

Last season, Tarpley checked into drug rehabilitation, the first in a long and ugly string of incidents involving drugs or drink. He is the league’s finest pure rebounder, and he is just one bottle of bad urine away from being banned from the NBA for life. Last week, he missed a practice and--though he wasn’t found with drugs in his system--he found himself suspended for two games.

“I put myself in this position, and I just have to learn to live with it,” says Tarpley. “I don’t get any satisfaction out of proving everybody wrong. Everyone expected me to test positive. It’s no fun. The damage is already done. They all say I do this and that, but now I’m not. But the damage is already done.”

No one was surprised by the incident. Few cared.

“When it comes to dealing with a teammate like a Tarpley . . . the first couple times, you’re so emotionally attached to it,” said Donaldson. “You go up and down when he does. But after those first couple times, you try to detach yourself emotionally from it, so you don’t go up and down, so you don’t believe every word he tells you until you have some facts and tests to prove what he’s saying. And that way you’re not affected by it. That way, if he’s not here, it’s not a crushing blow.”

Donaldson, an intelligent man with wide, calm eyes, considers himself a trusting person. But what has happened to Tarpley has affected more than just Tarpley. “Now I guess I have an attitude toward Roy--and it’s nothing personal, and I think he understands it--but it’s more of a ‘Prove-It-To-Me’ attitude, a ‘Show-Me’ attitude,” said Donaldson. “I want to believe him, but I don’t allow myself to believe him until I know for sure. That way I won’t be betrayed or hurt.”

But no matter how much he tries to protect himself, Donaldson knows that Tarpley can hurt him just by being Tarpley--a mobile, fluid big man who can run fast and jump fast and average something like 14 rebounds a night. No matter how hard he works, no matter how clean he lives, Donaldson will never be able to do any of that. His high school coach at Luther Burbank, Chuck Calhoun, said that when he first saw him, the 7-foot-2 Donaldson “could not reach over and take a dime off the floor without falling over.”

But he has drilled, practiced and pushed himself into becoming a solid professional big man. He averages nine points and nine rebounds. He played hard in the Mavs’ 140-133 win over the Golden State Warriors Thursday, finishing with eight points and a rebound in 17 minutes. Tarpley--a bit out of shape and still not completely in sync with his team--totaled 27 points and 15 rebounds.

“For me, looking at him, sometimes I’m envious of the talents he has,” Donaldson said. “And the way he’s just determined to abuse them sometimes. . . . I’ve worked so hard to get where I am, to put myself together to be a basketball player. I look at a guy like him--and I’ve seen many, many guys like him throughout the years and the league, who rely solely on the talent they have--and maybe it’s just youth or experience, maybe it’s just ignorance, but I think there comes a time when those physical talents will go downhill.

“One day--and I think it’s happening now--people’s patience will wear thin. He’s still a great talented player; he’ll still get out of those situations because he’s a basketball player. But as life goes on, he’ll start getting into situations where talent is not what’s it’s all about. It’s about, ‘What have you done for me today? And what will you do for me tomorrow?’ No more of this ‘Potential’ talk. No more of this ‘Great Talented Gift’ talk.”

Donaldson isn’t the only one saying no more. Derek Harper and Rolando Blackman have also publicly complained about Tarpley. “It hurts us when one guy’s missing,” said Tarpley. “I’m sure there’re couple guys who have confidence in me and I know there’re some that don’t. . . . I feel bad. I don’t want to let them down.”

But it’s too late for that now. The veteran has thrown his hands up. He has no more time for Great Talented Gifts.