House of Mirrors : Images Projected by Drexler Often Aren’t What They Are Alleged to Be

The Portland Trail Blazers’ locker room at Memorial Coliseum has a unique layout. There is the usual horseshoe setup of dressing cubicles, but in front of one of the lockers, a few feet from the back row, there is a square stone pillar, each side measuring about a yard.

It is in front of Clyde Drexler’s locker.

Drexler rarely strays, figuratively, from behind his shield, the one he dresses behind or any others. He is usually more matter-of-fact about, as he puts it, “not cheesing up” to people, than game analysis, when he is polite but rarely says much. Even to teammates who joke that he grabbed that spot in the locker room because of the big mirror that faces him, the location of the barricade is symbolic.

“I think it is,” said teammate Buck Williams, one of Drexler’s closest friends. “He should have a bigger wall than that in front of him because it’s the life he’s sort of leading.”

Every now and then, glimpses come from around the corner, even if Drexler and those who know him well say that some views are distorted: Drexler in the early years as an undisciplined player, even wild; Drexler and his much-publicized rift with Mike Schuler that ended with Schuler being fired as coach; then, during the same season he finishes second to Michael Jordan in the MVP balloting, Drexler not being among the 10 players originally chosen last September for the 1992 Olympics.

Images.

“When I was in Boston and Sacramento, I had a great deal of respect for him as a player,” said Danny Ainge, a Trail Blazer since 1990. “But the impression that I had gotten from the media and from things that I had heard--mostly through the media, again--was that he was kind of a coaster and turned it on and off. A good player, but just didn’t play hard at all times.”

Unfair images?

“I found out how false that statement is,” Ainge said. “There’s no question that Clyde plays harder sometimes. There’s not a player in the world who’s played the game who does not have real intense spurts, but Clyde plays harder than any player I’ve ever played with and does more.

“He plays defense, he rebounds, he blocks shots, he sets up his teammates and he scores. He does all the things very similar to what Michael Jordan does. And I don’t know how you could do all those things in a game on a team that has been averaging 60 wins for three years and not play hard.”

So it goes, Drexler saying that criticism is not worth getting bothered about. Maybe that approach is natural for the 6-foot-7 guard, who was only the 14th pick in the 1983 draft--even being passed by the hometown Houston Rockets at No. 3 in favor of Rodney McCray.

Clyde glides?

“You guys see it like that,” Drexler says. “I’m going, ‘If I make this move, my ankle’s going to kill me, if I make this move my knees may bend wrong.’ I’m out there struggling. But I’m trying so hard, before you know it, the play’s made. It’s like something you’ve done a million times before, so you just let it happen.

“I’m thinking if the defensive guy gives me an angle, I’m taking it. Those are my thoughts: ‘He’s too far left, so I’ve got to go right,’ ‘It’s an opening and I’ve got to make it.’ By the time you make it, you have landed and are looking upcourt. ‘Where’s my man?’ You never have time to think, ‘I’m just going to glide.’

“When you jump up there that high, you go, ‘Uh-oh. Where do I land? Where are those cameras?’ There’s never a feeling of like, ‘Hey, I’ve got it made.’ You’ve got to be kidding.”

He doesn’t feel the poetry everyone else sees--the upper-body contortions while surging down the lane to avoid the reaching defenders, the sleek-but-ferocious dunks to finish a fast break, even though he has been associated with such moves since the days of Phi Slama Jama at the University of Houston.

Others are amazed by the brilliance, often based on raw athleticism. Drexler? He is amazed only because he is the one doing it.

“I think Clyde Drexler is the fastest in the first five or six feet of (acceleration) any athlete I’ve ever seen,” said Jack Schalow, an assistant coach for the Trail Blazers in seven of Drexler’s nine NBA seasons.

“I’ve seen many, many times when he’s here, the ball is about six feet away and there is a defensive player halfway between them. And he will beat the man to the ball and get a layup at the other end. It’s amazing, the acceleration.”

Donnie Walsh, Indiana Pacer president, said of Drexler: “He can win games by himself and play above the defense. There aren’t many players in the league who can do that. You can defend a guy and he can jump over your head and he’s going to score or he’s going to get fouled. Jordan does that, and I’d say Clyde is right behind.”

Said Ainge: “I think Clyde plays harder than Larry Bird or Kevin McHale. I honestly believe that. He has to work a lot harder to get his baskets, with the style of play on this team. I’ve seen Clyde be 20 feet behind a guy on a turnover and catch him from behind. Works hard in those respects.”

And he is a leader.

“He’s a person who’s not afraid to voice his opinion, whether favorably or unfavorably,” Williams said. “He really demands a great deal from his teammates because he is such an athlete and does so many amazing feats out on the floor.

“He challenges us during games. He goes out, he plays at a certain level and he expects you to play at that same level.”

Said Schalow: “Every night, there’s one play during the game where I’ll say to John Wetzel (the other assistant coach) or he’ll say to me, ‘I can’t believe what he just did.’ This is seven straight years. I’ve seen this almost every game.”

Drexler has done everything but get the recognition.

Part of that is because he plays in Portland, a small market by NBA standards, far from the media centers.

Part also has been out of Drexler’s control, namely the Magic Johnson-Michael Jordan backcourt stranglehold on the annual all-league team.

And part is his similarity to Jordan in style of play, normally a compliment but in this case a redundancy. That’s partly how the committee from USA Basketball saw it in determining the makeup of the first Olympic team that would include NBA players. The committee decided that Drexler, who had a 20.5-point average and was a five-time all-star heading into 1991-92, would not be among the original 10 players chosen and that Chicago’s Scottie Pippen, who made his first all-star appearance a few months earlier, would.

“Some people did not focus on the 10 players we did take, they focused on those not taken,” said Walsh, a member of the USA Basketball selection committee. “Clyde was always among the top 15 or 16 players that we were trying to decide on. Jordan, I don’t think anybody could argue with that at that position. Basically because of the international game, Chris Mullin (was chosen because outside shooting can break a zone). Pippen was coming off a great year. And Pippen is very flexible, and I think we needed great flexibility from our players.”

So the backcourt seemingly was complete: Johnson, Jordan, John Stockton, former guard Mullin and Pippen because of his versatility at 6-7. The team’s final two spots were left open, one projected for a college player and later filled by Duke’s Christian Laettner.

“I’m sure it had some side effects, the fact that he wasn’t among the first 10,” Williams said. “He deserves to be there. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t get selected in the first 10. It was almost like you’re an alternate for a place on the Olympic team.”

Drexler said he was disappointed, but that he didn’t dwell it.

That’s how he played, too, carrying the Trail Blazers when Terry Porter and Williams struggled early. At midseason, he started in the All-Star game for the first time and got 22 points, nine rebounds, six assists and two blocked shots in 28 minutes, a show-stealer topped only by Johnson.

Down the stretch, as Portland held off Utah and Golden State for the best record in the Western Conference, Drexler averaged 25.8 points and 6.3 rebounds in April regular-season games.

By the end, Drexler led the Trail Blazers in scoring at 25 points and assists at 6.7 and was third in rebounding at 6.6. His three-point shooting, no longer cause for applause from opponents when he prepared to launch, improved from 26% in 1988-89 to a respectable 33.7%.

Hadn’t he earned a berth on the Olympic team?

“I think you could say that, mainly because we voted 10 players to the team and left a (professional) spot open to wait a year,” Walsh said. “Wait to see, A, about injuries and, B, who had a great year and that we would want on this year because it was a year later.”

Said Drexler, “I think the fans on the local level started the whole support system, and that was a great feeling. They were behind me all the way and they wanted to see justice done. The committee finally made a good decision.”

He smiled.

“You’ve got to understand, my position is I play for the Portland Trail Blazers, I do the best I can every night out, our team has been fairly successful and that’s all that really matters to me.

“I’ve always had recognition, coming out of college. The mega-mega-superstar recognition I haven’t had, and that hasn’t bothered me at all. I’ve got a lot of respect from people all across the country, get plenty of fan mail and that’s a lot. I’d hate to go to the next level, where you’re what I call a commercial superstar.”

Drexler is content in Portland, even if it means his only national endorsement is for one of the least-known lines of basketball shoes.

Someone trying to draw the contrast from the early years of Drexler’s pro career to now says he was once regarded as a wild player. Drexler does not interrupt, but his look speaks volumes.

The characterization of talented but out of control apparently bothers him, but he does not deny that he is a much more mature player now.

“I’ve learned over the years to calm my game down, to slow it down,” he said. “There’s a right time to do certain things. You’ve just got to pick your times. I don’t think my game was ever wild. Everybody makes mistakes. If you make a mistake going a hundred miles an hour or if you make a mistake going two miles an hour, it’s a mistake.”

His most notable feats are no longer the thunderous dunks. His game is complete now, and that is what is talked about.

“I’ve seen that,” Schalow said. “He’s under control. He catches the ball and looks and sees the situation, then he’ll make a play.”

And what he sees, on the court and off, is better than ever these days. He has a family--wife and two children--he will be on the world stage twice within 2 1/2 months with the NBA finals starting Wednesday night and then the Olympics, and he finally has the recognition, after finishing second to Jordan in the MVP balloting.

Basketball life hasn’t passed Drexler by after all.