Is Worthy Playing on Last Legs? : Numbers Are Down, but He’s Not Giving Up

His good days are fewer and less predictable, and the question no longer is how many points will James Worthy score, but how much does he have left to give the Lakers now that age and injuries have eroded his speed and verve?

“The lift is missing from game to game,” Worthy said of his left knee, which was cleaned of debris in arthroscopic surgery last March. “I knew at the beginning of the season it might be like this, so it’s nothing new, but sometimes I wish it was better.

“I still feel I have a ways to go to get back the strength I had--or will I get it back at all? I’m not sure I’ve had enough time to figure that out. Right now, it’s 88 to 90% and I’m trying to get it back to where it was a few years ago.

“This is the first year I’ve experienced anything like this. The frustrating thing is, I’ll be feeling good three days and you never know when you’re going to have a bad day. As soon as it feels like I’m making progress, I have a bad day. It’s just a matter of adjusting.”

Most of his adjustments have been downward, from playing 31 scoreless minutes Jan. 10 at Miami--his first shutout since Nov. 24, 1987--to seeing his shooting percentage decline for a third successive season, to 42.8%. His 14.5-point scoring average is tied for

second on the Lakers with Byron Scott, behind Sedale Threatt’s 15.3, but it’s Worthy’s lowest since 1983-84, when he scored 14.4 points per game in his second year out of North Carolina. It’s also well below the 18.6-point average for his career.

But if he has lost his shooting touch and a step of his speed, Worthy hasn’t lost his dignity or determination.

He needs 19 points to become the 63rd player and fifth Laker to score 15,000, following Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson. Getting there has been a painful journey, but Worthy isn’t ready to rest.

“It’s not something (in which) I sit down and before every season or before every game (and) think what my personal goals are,” he said. “It’ll be nice after the fact, but I’m not thinking about it as a major, big deal.”

His major concern is forging a new and useful role for himself in a season marked by struggles for him and the Lakers.

“It’s not disappointing. It’s not overwhelming. It’s just a fact, and I think understanding that and not trying to be in a state of denial is important,” Worthy said of his declining production. “You deal with it. I think most athletes know there’s going to come a day when they begin to notice it’s not quite where you’d like to to be. You can’t stay the same forever. If you could, you’d be in this business a lot longer.

“I know how this game goes, and you progress through it. I understand where I am. It’s not like it was eight years ago, no, but I think I can still contribute. . . . I’m sure when Jamaal Wilkes came into the league it was the same thing, and when Julius (Erving) came into the league. Everybody has to go through the same process. Marathon runners get passed by new marathon runners. Things don’t stay the same. I just think it’s that simple.”

Once, the game seemed so simple. Pat Riley, his coach in his first eight Laker seasons, called him “the fastest man of his size in the NBA. . . . In terms of finishing the fast break creatively and swiftly and deceptively, no one else compares.”

Raved Riley in “Show Time,” his book about the Lakers’ 1987 championship season: “If you used a computer to design a prototype NBA small forward, it would create a picture of James Worthy.”

Measured against that standard, he can only fall short now, with 10 days until his 32nd birthday and 11 seasons’ mileage on his creaky wheels.

“You know what you can do and what you used to do and what your standards were,” said A.C. Green, Worthy’s teammate for eight years. “With a guy so blessed with talent as he is, and his having played so well, it’s really a burden you place upon yourself. That’s what you get for being so good.”

Said Sam Perkins: “If anything, he’s just a step slower. Other than that, his game is still there. You play in this league so many years, people adapt to your game and know what you’re going to do. But someone playing against him for the first time wouldn’t know how to stop him. And as you go on, you use your brain more, and the more you think, the more clever you get. I’ve seen some rookies who didn’t know how to stop him.”

Measured in terms of his refusal to wallow in self-pity and his ability to find new ways to make an impact, Worthy hasn’t failed.

Never the greatest rebounder, he grabbed nine Feb. 4 during a 114-110 victory over the Utah Jazz. And his average of 3.8 assists per game, which includes a team-high, 12-assist game Dec. 9 against Portland, is better than the 3.08 average for his career.

“I look at 11 years, and I say, ‘I had 10 pretty good years, and maybe one that’s not been as good as I’d like it to be,’ ” Worthy said. “I’ve seen guys who have had a lot less success and luck than I have.”

Even so, his streak of seven consecutive All-Star game selections ended this season, and he has scored 20 or more points only 11 times in 48 games, compared with 33 times in 54 games last season.

“I look at it as a year of adjustment,” Worthy said. “I look at the overall picture, and it’s not the type of year I thought it would be like, but it’s not over. There’s more to think about than just your own game. The team deserves more focus than just your own game.”

Just as he hasn’t given up on himself, he hasn’t given up on the Lakers’ season.

“There were spurts where we showed that this team does have potential,” he said. “I think we’ve been in a transition period, where we’re maybe trying to create an identity for this team with this particular group of players. It hasn’t been conjured yet, hasn’t been developed to its fullest. And (they’re still) recognizing that this team is not the same. Even though it’s still the Lakers and we have the Laker tradition, it’s not the same team.

“I think we still like to run the basketball (like Riley’s championship teams). Show Time was a name given to us. As far as we’re concerned, it was playing old-fashioned basketball. We’re a good team, and we’re recognizing that there is parity in the league and this year, particularly, has been the toughest year. Last year was an adjustment year and this year is a little tougher, but we do have the second half of the season.”

Whether they will have the same roster after the Feb. 25 trading deadline is uncertain because West, the Lakers’ general manager, is trying to deal for youth. Worthy ignores the rumors, as he ignores the claims of some observers that the team must be broken up for it to improve.

“I’ve heard of this person ‘some’ for 11 years and I haven’t met him yet. Or her,” Worthy said. “I’m really not concerned with that. I’m a player and I’m not going to be the one on the phone, trying to see what the future is. When the ball goes up, that’s what I do. That’s my aspect of the business, to go out and play the game.

“Other people, they control other aspects of the game. I don’t have the experience with that, and I don’t put myself in the position to even think what needs to be done. I have confidence in the guys in this (locker) room, and that’s about as far as I can allow myself to go with that.”