Tribute To Elmore : Clippers’ Spencer Has Gone Through Tough Times and Come Through Impressively

“Who was that masked man?” Clipper Coach Bob Weiss asked after watching 7-foot center Elmore Spencer dunk over Phoenix center Oliver Miller en route to scoring a career-high 18 points in a recent loss to the Suns.

After averaging only 2.4 points and 1.4 rebounds in 44 games as a rookie last season, Spencer has blossomed since replacing Stanley Roberts, who suffered a season-ending Achilles’ tendon injury on Dec. 5.

Spencer, the Clippers’ third-string center behind Roberts and Bob Martin when the season opened, has averaged 9.2 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.3 blocked shots in 13 games as a starter after averaging only 2.9 points and 2.9 rebounds in the first 14 games.

“He’s been a tremendously pleasant surprise,” Weiss said. “He’s done a terrific job.

“I think the biggest thing that I was impressed with was the way he kept up his hustle and kept ready when he wasn’t playing. I always tell the guys at the beginning of the year that the 10th, 11th and 12th men have the toughest job in the league because they’ve got to keep their mind and body ready.

“Obviously, I was happy that he stayed ready, but the surprise was the level of efficiency that he’s playing with right now. He’s worked hard on his individual moves and now he’s to the point where I feel comfortable calling a post-up play for him.”

The 25th player picked in the 1992 NBA draft, from Nevada Las Vegas, Spencer was ready when he got his chance.

Spencer, who has scored in double figures in six of the last nine games, has exceeded expectations and the Clippers, who considered trying to acquire another center when Roberts was injured, aren’t actively pursuing a trade.

“We’re still looking around,” Weiss said after Spencer had grabbed a then career-high 11 rebounds in a victory at Sacramento in December. “But nothing is imminent. Elmore has shown he can block shots and rebound at this level.”

Spencer, who didn’t play in six of the Clippers’ first 11 games, played well against Orlando Magic center Shaquille O’Neal in their only meeting, a 110-109 Clipper victory. Spencer scored 16 points and had a career-high 14 rebounds.

According to O’Neal, Spencer played an inspired game.

“He played aggressive,” O’Neal said. “But any time someone plays against Shaq, they play way above their head.”

Although O’Neal scored 31 points and had 14 rebounds, Spencer neutralized him in the second half as the Clippers overcame a 14-point deficit. O’Neal, who had 19 points and 12 rebounds in the first half as the Magic took a 55-52 lead, had 12 points and two rebounds in the second. O’Neal missed eight of 14 shots in the second half.

Spencer also had his best college game against O’Neal in UNLV’s 76-55 victory over LSU in 1991, getting 20 points and 12 rebounds, to O’Neal’s 28 points and seven rebounds.

Spencer has taken his recent success in stride.

“It would have been different if it were my first start,” he says of his game against the Magic, “but it was my fifth start and it was expected of me.

“My thought process is different now that I’m a starter. Things like that should be expected of a pivot man.”

Spencer’s play hasn’t surprised his teammates.

“We know he can play,” forward Danny Manning said. “We’ve known that all along.”

There was a time, though, when Spencer’s life took a turn into darkness. Spencer spent 36 days in the psychiatric ward of an Atlanta hospital in 1987 when he was 18 and was put on lithium after displaying symptoms of manic depression, which he said was triggered by the death of his mother, Marsha. She suffered a stroke during a phone conversation with a recruiter in 1986.

Spencer became an insomniac after his mother’s death and was arrested for reckless driving after leading police on a wild pre-dawn chase through the streets of downtown Atlanta. During the escapade, he drove by the Atlanta Constitution and Journal office and screamed about the coverage the paper had given him.

“I don’t know if it was a nervous breakdown,” Spencer, 24, said of his depression. “I will say this: Anybody who doesn’t suffer mood swings or depression with the loss of loved one, especially one like your mother, is going to have problems unless they’re an especially strong person or a person who’s out of touch with society.

“It just so happened that my criminal behavior and my social behavior became intertwined. It’s real easy to be caught up in something when you’re incarcerated or committed to a hospital. That wasn’t the first time I had run-ins with the police. They figured there might be something more to this and they turned me over to someone who could deal with it.

“About the only positive about the hospital was rest. I wasn’t fully diagnosed with manic depression, but readers, especially speed readers, only read the key words in a sentence or in a paragraph and I might have been stigmatized.

“And being young and stigmatized, you’re so apt to try to prove people wrong, so I felt like I was slighted. If I was diagnosed (as being a manic depressive), then I might feel bad or might accept it, but since I had symptoms and the treatment was only there and not as an outpatient, I just chalked it up as an experience.

“I won’t call it a mistake on their part or mine.”

Yet the scars of his mother’s death remain and have helped to shape his life.

“My life changed 800-fold after my mother died,” Spencer said.

“I saw how she slaved and put in extra hours just so we could have trivial things, so we wouldn’t be (laughed at) in school. I thought maybe if she didn’t work so hard, maybe she’d still be here.

“Her death put a lot of things in perspective. After her death, I sat down and came up with a way that I was going to live and from that point on, I started to live that way.”

His economy van, which doesn’t have hubcaps, looks out of place among the luxury vehicles in the players’ parking lot. Spencer prefers baggy jeans and sport shirts to the designer suits and custom leather coats his teammates wear.

Some of his teammates wear a new pair of shoes every game, but Spencer has used only two pairs this season.

Unlike some of his teammates, who hang out in trendy clubs, Spencer prefers to spend time with his wife, Gwendolyn, and his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Sheritta.

The Clippers, though, accept Spencer as a teammate.

“What is normal?” Manning asked. “Who defines normal? Everybody is unique in his or her own way. There’s nothing wrong with being unique. It shouldn’t be a factor. Dennis Rodman is unique.

“I think people don’t know Mo and assume. And Mo’s not even worried about it. He’s a very nice guy.”

Weiss agreed.

“He’s just different,” Weiss said. “He’s just a different individual. He’s very humorous. You never know what he’s thinking about. He’ll just come off the wall with something. He’s really fun to be around.”

Spencer, who was a practical joker throughout high school, no longer desires to be the center of attention. “Since becoming a pro I’ve mellowed a little,” he said. “I’ve tried to focus more on being an adult. But it seems that the higher the level, the sillier it gets. But I don’t joke around as much as I used to.

“I’ve evolved into a person at peace with himself. . . . Generally, when a person has a lot of troubling experiences in life and comes through them OK, they’re generally a person who can make good decisions and handle things right.”