Family Business : Los Alamitos’ Ali Ton, Son of Turkish Pro Coach, Dazzles Opponents With Quicker Than-the-Eye Play

To watch Ali Ton zero in on a basketball is like watching a smart bomb approach a building.

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The wide eyes narrow, the body tenses with anticipation. The unsuspecting target--an opposing guard trying to dribble to the front court to set up a play--is about to give away where he’s headed with a careless turn of the body or a dribble that’s a split-second too slow.

That’s when Ton, a senior at Los Alamitos High, is ready to pounce. With hands like a pickpocket’s, he strips the ball away before the other guard can turn and asked what happened.

Ton has done it to many of the best guards in Orange County. Sonora senior Sergio Hernandez was a recent victim, as Ton snatched the ball away from him from the backside in mid-dribble.

“In his three years here I had never seen anybody do that to Sergio,” Sonora Coach Mike Murphy said.

But Ton does more than steal. He is also an extraordinary passer, and is competing against Calvary Chapel’s Kevin Falconer, Foothill’s John Brittingham and Tustin’s Doug Gottlieb for the county assist title. Entering Sunset League play this week, Ton had 179 assists in 19 games, an average of 9.4. Both figures lead the county.

“He has this great ability to find the open man,” Griffin Coach Steve Brooks said. “Another attribute is he makes everyone else better. We don’t use that phrase lightly, but it fits him. He picks up everyone’s game.”

Ton, a native of Turkey, got his basketball indoctrination early. His father, Necmi, coaches a professional team there. Ton was the team mascot, starting at age 5. But Necmi, worried about his son’s slight physical build and seeing the skills he was developing on the soccer field, did not want to teach him the game.

It was already too late. Ton said he was hooked on basketball early.

“Before I could read and write, I knew the rules of basketball,” Ton said. “When I would go to my dad’s practices, I would try and do everything the players did. When they stretched, I stretched; when they played on the court, I tried to mimic them.”

Athleticism is in abundant supply in the Ton family. Ton’s older sister, Zeynep, was an outside hitter on Penn State’s 1993 national champion volleyball team.

But when Brooks first saw his future point guard--who came to Los Alamitos (and the United States) three years ago--there was still plenty of refining to do.

Ton was ineligible to play his sophomore year because he had come to this country without his parents and was required to sit out a season. He spent the first year living with an uncle, and is now with a family friend who is his legal guardian.

“He had played a more finesse game in Turkey, and it’s a more physical game here,” Brooks said. “He had to adjust to that.”

Ton agreed.

“When I started playing here, I found the players were much more athletic,” he said.

Still, his hardest adjustment was learning to make friends. There was a language barrier--”My first six months I didn’t talk to anybody except basketball players because I was unsure of myself,” Ton said--and an ethnic barrier, much of it built by Ton.

He had no idea how Americans would accept him. “Whenever I see my name in the paper or something, it’s like I’m there for my country,” Ton said. “For many people I know or have met, I’m probably the first Turkish person they’ve met. Whatever I do or how I act, they will think that of Turkish people because they don’t know them.

“One time I heard a teacher say Turkish people don’t like Americans. I said, ‘We love every kind of people.’ I’m learning a lot from Americans and I’m trying to give them something too.”

It’s one reason he is so keen on passing rather than scoring.

“For me, the assists mean my teammates have to score,” Ton said. “I have a good corps of players playing with me, so I have the opportunity to contribute with assists. Sometimes I’d rather see my teammates happy. When they score, they are happy. I like to pass and I like it when it’s been a good play for them to score. It makes me happier than when I score.”

Indeed, there are times when Ton can be too unselfish. Brooks said he has pleaded with Ton to shoot, and opposing defenses are usually geared to cutting off his passing lanes and enticing him to fire jumpers instead.

His reluctance to shoot hasn’t cooled interest from colleges. According to Brooks, Eastern Montana, Wyoming, Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State and Tulsa have been making steady inquires about Ton. “(Tulsa Coach) Tubby Smith told me in Phoenix last summer that (Ton) is as good a point guard as he’s seen,” Brooks said.

College is important to Ton, basketball or otherwise; he plans to return to Turkey once he completes his schooling.

“I want to play on our national team, represent my country,” Ton said. “Maybe an Olympics, playing (the U.S.) Dream Team IV or V. That would be the ultimate for me.”