All He Can Do Is Be Threatt

Sedale Eugene Threatt is small and bald.

His last name is pronounced “Threet.”

He is 30 and has been playing professional basketball since 1983, but he is hardly famous. He probably could walk around almost any shopping mall for hours without being recognized.

But you might as well get to know him.

After all, he is the man who must replace Magic Johnson.

He knows he can’t, yet he knows he must try. He knows nobody expects much, yet he knows everybody is expecting a lot.

It is not unlike Gene Bartow having to replace John Wooden as basketball coach at UCLA. Or like Robert Guillaume having to replace Michael Crawford as the Phantom of the Opera. He is qualified. In some ways, he is even superior.

But it is some tough act to follow.

Sedale Threatt is kidding nobody, not even himself. He says: “Look, you know and I know there is only one Magic Johnson. And there’s only going to ever be one Magic Johnson. He is one of a kind.”

Even so, as he is saying this, Threatt is catching his breath after doing the following as Magic’s understudy in the first game at the Forum since the Laker superstar’s retirement:

Twenty-seven points.

Fourteen assists.

Five rebounds.

Three steals.

There isn’t a night in Magic’s life he wouldn’t take those numbers as his own.

And the Lakers won, which, as we all know, was all Magic ever cared about, even if he had zero points.

So what was the first thing Threatt said after the game?

“I had four turnovers. I can’t be doing that.”

Actually, it was five, but the point is made. If Threatt can’t be Magic, at least he can be like Magic, try to think more like Magic, try to be more of a leader like Magic.

Threatt merely says: “He’s him, and I’m me. I’m just going out to play basketball. My game is so different. I can’t play his type of game because it isn’t in me. It isn’t in anybody. But I have my own way, my own style, and I’ll do whatever I can. That’s what the Lakers are paying me for. That’s why Jerry West got me. He got me to help out Magic Johnson and the Lakers, so that’s what my role’s going to be.”

He paused.

“It just wasn’t supposed to be this big a role.”

Once upon a time, Threatt spent his nights having to replace Michael Jordan, who was his teammate in 1987-88 with the Chicago Bulls. Nobody can say he hasn’t worked with the best.

He has something of a junior Jordan look, that slick scalp a la Slick Watts.

And besides being kind of the ultimate utility player, Threatt has helped his teams reach the NBA playoffs seven years running. The man is hardly a loser.

Not bad for someone who was the 139th pick of the 1983 NBA draft from someplace called West Virginia Institute of Technology.

In an annual scouting yearbook by Rick Barry, who is not afraid to criticize a player, there are nothing but rave reviews for Threatt.

As a shooter, compared with “No. 2 guards,” or shooting guards, around the league, Threatt is described as being “better than Jeff Malone, better than Jeff Hornacek, better than Reggie Miller, better than Reggie Lewis, better than Joe Dumars . . . “ better than every off-guard but Jordan.

Barry goes on to say that Threatt has “some of the quickest hands in the league . . . excellent anticipation . . . will play baseline-to-baseline (defense) . . . holds his own against the (John) Stocktons, the (Terry) Porters, the (Tim) Hardaways,” and, worth noting, “hurts after a loss . . . always plays hard.”

These are Magic attributes.

Still, it’s not all roses. The scouting report also calls Threatt the worst rebounder of any starting No. 2 guard in the NBA and says he doesn’t run the break very well.

So, in these respects Threatt will not be another Magic. Then again, they do not technically play the same position. Johnson is--was--a lead guard, a point man, not a shooter.

Either the Lakers must hire a new playmaking guard to work alongside Byron Scott or go with what they have. Whenever someone gets 27 points, 14 assists, five rebounds and three steals, your first inclination isn’t to bench him. But can the Lakers count on that night after night?

It all depends on the availability of other guards, to which Threatt says: “I’ll go where they put me. I’m here to play basketball, regardless of the position. I’ll be whatever the Lakers need me to be.”

Or a reasonable facsimile.