New York Import McDaniel Finding a Niche With Knicks

“Image is everything.” The TV commercials have popularized the slogan. It’s been that way for Xavier McDaniel for a long time, especially on the basketball court.

Back in 1979, when McDaniel was beginning his junior year of high school, he was heavily into image--specifically, the image of Julius Erving, whom he followed closely on television.

McDaniel tried to copy the flamboyance. For his efforts, Carl Williams, McDaniel’s coach at A.C. Flora High School in Columbia, S.C., rewarded him with a place on the bench.

“He wanted to get the shake-and-bake out of me,” McDaniel said. “He told me I had a lot of cockiness and a lot of showboating. That’s something he’s not into--the showboating.”

The ideal image, Williams told McDaniel, is the result of hard work. McDaniel did not buy that and rebelled. So Williams kicked him off the team. The only thing worse than hard work was facing his parents.

“My dad was like, ‘You’re going to go back, you’re going to apologize and you’re going to work hard,’ ” McDaniel said. “I’ve been working hard ever since then.”

He worked hard at Wichita State, where, as a senior in 1984-85, he became the first player in history to lead the NCAA in scoring (27.2-point average) and rebounding (14.8). Like Williams, Shockers Coach Gene Smithson believed you played as well as you practiced. And all was fair in love and practice.

“The only thing he wouldn’t allow us to do is argue,” McDaniel said. “He said, ‘If you’re going to fight, you can fight. But you’re not going to argue.’ But he made practice a war. He demanded that you work hard, and if you worked hard, you could play.”

McDaniel is in his seventh professional season, but he has not changed. His work ethic has been evident since he joined the New York Knicks in October. His passion for work and his NBA track record are reasons the Knicks have never panicked during McDaniel’s acclimation process. Knick Coach Pat Riley has criticized McDaniel for “deferring” to his teammates, yet Riley understands the doubts McDaniel might have after being traded twice in a year. That’s a tough and humbling experience for an All-Star-caliber player.

Actually, each time McDaniel was traded, it made sense for the teams involved. The Seattle SuperSonics wanted to give big-time minutes to younger forwards Derrick McKey and Sean Kemp, so they sent McDaniel to Phoenix. When the Phoenix Suns were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs last spring, they decided they had too many offensive options and needed more specialists. So they traded McDaniel to the Knicks.

McDaniel’s value has been considerable. He has been traded for a total of two first-round picks, two second-round picks, Eddie Johnson, Jerrod Mustaf and Trent Tucker. But when you go from being the heart of the team to being traded twice, it’s quite a shock.

“Anybody can get traded,” Riley said, “but maybe he was questioning himself and asking, ‘Why do two teams turn me loose inside of a year?’

“But he’s working hard,” Riley said. “He works as hard as anybody I’ve ever coached.”

McDaniel acknowledges he has been tentative. He knows the Knicks acquired him to add scoring and toughness. The Knicks hoped he would be an offensive force who would complement Patrick Ewing. Instead, he is averaging 13.8 points, a career low.

But he has been getting better and scoring more. He is beginning to look more like the player Knick center Tim McCormick knew in Seattle.

“When X came in as a rookie, he was out to prove to the world that he was the greatest scorer and the greatest rebounder,” said McCormick, who was McDaniel’s teammate on the 1985-86 Sonics. “He was going for MVP of the league, as naive as a rookie can be.”

McDaniel looked at the Sonics’ 31-51 record from the previous season and saw it as a reflection of their softness. He had no respect for that.

“The first practice he was there,” McCormick said, “he knocked out Frank Brickowski with one punch. Everyone saw right away that this guy obviously is a good player. But he also was a physical player, which is nice to have on your team.”

Before the week was out, McDaniel also popped teammate Reggie King. As King lay on the court, McDaniel stood over him and screamed something like, “Get up, (wimp).”

“If I had backed down my rookie year,” McDaniel said, “I’m pretty much branded a wimp.”

McDaniel quickly became the heart of the Sonics. He did not confine his attitude to practice. He was one of the NBA’s most spirited warriors. Anyone who messed with McDaniel or one of his teammates had to pay.

The list of players he has battled would fill several fat paragraphs. And McDaniel did not worry about names or affiliation. Whether it was his much-publicized fights with former teammate Dale Ellis, or the celebrated picture of him choking former Laker Wes Matthews, or his altercation with Charles Oakley (now a teammate), or even the time he jawed with Michael Jordan, McDaniel had the same unyielding approach.

“I was walking away from Michael and he should have been shooting free throws,” McDaniel said. “He kept saying, ‘You can’t stop me.’ I said, ‘Get out of my face. No one in the league can stop you.’ ” Jordan continued taunting, which infuriated McDaniel.

So he thumped him. Yes, thumped. Before Jordan could shoot a free throw, McDaniel walked in front of him and, with his finger, thumped Jordan on the forehead.

That side of McDaniel has yet to surface in New York. It’s partially understandable because of his newness as a Knick.

“What he’s doing now is trying to fit in,” McCormick said, “almost to a fault. The guys respect him and they want him to be more aggressive. But I do see him getting more comfortable all the time.”

“It’s difficult,” McDaniel said. “You don’t want to act like you’re coming in and taking over. You just want to play and adjust. The mentality is different. In Seattle, I could just go off on guys in practice, and Bernie (Bickerstaff, the former Sonic coach) wouldn’t say anything. But I’m trying to learn the guys around here. You want to be their friend, too. And so you just kind of step back. The aggressive type isn’t really there.”

The desire to fit in is a foreign condition for McDaniel. It also demonstrates another part of his personality. He may be a brawler, but he also is a nice guy.

“You have the shaved head, the nickname ‘X-Man,’ the toughness,” said Bob Whitsitt, president of the Sonics. “But he’s also the same guy that will sign every autograph for every kid when he leaves the building. He buys tickets for kids, he does a lot of sincere stuff. He’s a competitor, but he’s a nice guy. X is a guy who is pretty easy to like.”

And he wants to be liked by his still-new teammates--on and off the floor. Perhaps that has made him tentative, although it’s not as if he is playing that poorly. But he has yet to show Knick fans and teammates the classic X-Man who has been so prolific and so consistent throughout his career. Forget that McDaniel averaged exactly 20 points coming into the season. Probably his most impressive statistic is that in his first six years, he made 49%, 51%, 49%, 49%, 50% and 50% of his field-goal attempts. So far, he has made only 46.3%.

Riley, however, has confidence that McDaniel will find his touch and his niche, although he will play a different role than he did in Seattle.

“He was ‘the guy’ at Seattle,” Riley said. “The guy. That’s different.”

Yet Riley already sees signs of the McDaniel who refused to allow teammates to loaf in practice. He’s not quite as assertive as he was in Seattle, where it was not uncommon in a 15-minute period for McDaniel to have a couple of wrestling matches.

But it’s coming because attitude is everything, and McDaniel’s has not changed.

“Normally I don’t get into fights anymore because people know if they act like they want to fight me, they’ve got to fight me,” McDaniel said. “People say, ‘X has matured a lot.’ That’s not it. Everybody else has gotten wise, and that’s the key.”