Threatt Has a Bit of Magic : Johnson Handpicked a Fill-In Guard Who Bails Out Lakers

Life is funny. One moment the Seattle SuperSonics are offering you around so they can keep someone named Dana Barros.

The next, Magic Johnson is on the phone, inviting you to be a Laker.

The next, you are Magic Johnson.

All this befell Sedale Threatt in the space of six weeks. Threatt, a dark horse all his life--a sixth-round pick in 1983, the lowest drafted player active in the NBA--an occasional point guard for eight seasons, has been thrust into a legend’s shoes and, against all odds, is thriving on the assignment.

How happy are the Lakers with Threatt?

Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, they aren’t even shopping for a point guard, just a backup for Threatt.

Where would they be without him?

They’d rather not think about it. Or as Assistant General Manager Mitch Kupchak said: “Thank God for Sedale Threatt.”

Or thank Bob Whitsitt, the Seattle president who dared to deal with a power in his own division.

Whitsitt is only the latest in a long line who couldn’t figure out what he had on his hands, from the day Threatt left high school in Atlanta and accepted a scholarship at a school in West Virginia. Not Jerry West’s West Virginia. Threatt was bound for West Virginia Institute of Technology.

Four years later, he was good enough to rate an invitation to the dark-horse ball, the postseason all-star tournament in Portsmouth, Va.

Of course, he played little at Portsmouth, but it got him drafted, barely, the 139th pick overall.

These days, with the draft consisting of two rounds, he would have been a free agent.

Those days, he became a Philadelphia 76er, sort of.

“I think Jack McMahon (76er assistant coach) had seen him at Portsmouth,” said Matt Guokas, now coaching the Orlando Magic, then a 76er assistant. “But Jack really didn’t have a good handle on him.

“In those days, the draft was so long, after the second round it got to be like picking names out of a hat.

“We had a summer-league team at Princeton. He came to camp. I remember the first drill, a fast-break drill. He comes down, hips going one way, knees another, his dribble up around his eyes. I said, ‘Whoa! Just come down and make the easy pass.’

“He calmed down but he barely made our little 10-man team. Franklin Edwards (a higher pick) was the starting point guard.

“About three minutes into the first game, Frank sprains his ankle and the rest is history. Sedale came off the bench and went for about 34 that game. He gets 36 the next game, 27 the next.

“We obviously invited him to training camp. At that time, we had Andrew Toney, who was extremely hard on rookies or anybody else who got in his path. The thing that really impressed was the fact that Sedale never backed down.”

Threatt embarked on a new career--backup to the stars.

“My whole career has been like that,” he said. “In Philadelphia, I played behind Andrew Toney and Mo Cheeks. In Chicago, Michael Jordan. In Seattle, Dale Ellis. Here, it would have been behind Magic.

“The only thing tough about it was when I watched a young player go into the right system and play and play well. That’s the only thing that bothered me over the years, because I just had to wait my turn.”

All but hidden from view in Seattle, Threatt was blossoming. A natural shooting guard, he was becoming decent at the point. And his shooting went from good to excellent. In four SuperSonic seasons, he was over 50%, despite shooting mostly outside jumpers, with a high of 52.9% last season. He was always a tiger on defense.

But the SuperSonics had four other guards clamoring for playing time and, thought Threatt, getting too much of his.

The SuperSonics were in a quandary.

Whitsitt had a chance to trade Threatt last spring for Washington’s No. 1 pick but couldn’t afford to sign two No. 1 picks.

By the start of camp, however, Coach K.C. Jones decided he wanted Threatt gone. Jones had enough problems motivating Benoit Benjamin, Derrick McKey, et al. Threatt wanted out, put his house up for sale and wasn’t bashful in communicating this to his coach.

Now Whitsitt could find only one taker--Jerry West.

The price?

Three No. 2 picks--in 1994, 95 and 96.

There was only one hitch, convincing Threatt that with Johnson, Byron Scott, Terry Teagle and Tony Smith already there, he wasn’t running into another logjam.

Johnson, yearning for a real backup, called Threatt and assured him that there was a role waiting for him.

As it turned out, it was Johnson’s own.

“I’m just going out and playing my type of game,” Threatt said. “We’ve got two different games.

“He’s won five championships, I’ve won none. He’s 6-9, I’m 6-2. He can look over the defense, post up, rebound. He can do so many things. I’m a little quicker, but outside of that, there’s no way you can replace him.

“I’m an old guy (30) now. If I was a young guy, my second or third year in the league, yeah, I think I might feel the pressure. But after nine years, all the experiences I’ve had and the guys I’ve played against and played with, you tend to know what’s going on.”

Threatt is still tenacious and very quick. He looks mellow off the floor but talks rapidly,with a habit of beginning answers with, “No question about it.”

What’s going on is that his number has finally come up.

No question about it.