No Changing of This Guard : At 34, Threatt Is as Quick as Ever and Doing Whatever It Takes for Lakers

He had no qualms about being a traitor, considering the only option was defeat.

So what if it was only a scrimmage? Sitting on the bench in a near-empty Forum last week, Sedale Threatt looked at the scoreboard and saw that his team, the Purples, was losing to another set of Laker teammates, the Golds. Threatt made his move.

He reversed his jersey.

George Lynch gave him a bad time for abandoning the cause and suddenly siding with the soon-to-be winners. In truth, though, the switch could not have been much of a surprise, not for someone so renowned for being competitive, even in practice.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I’m very competitive. I always want to get the best of you. And then I kind of want to laugh at you.”

In cards, pool and, mostly, basketball. Threatt is in his 13th NBA season, 34 going on 28 and still providing the Lakers with valuable play at point guard as the backup for Nick Van Exel and at shooting guard as Eddie Jones and Anthony Peeler take turns being injured.

He is averaging 23.8 minutes, even when it means being undersized at 6 feet 2. He recently had a stretch of nine turnovers over 207 minutes, a span of nine game. His assist-to-turnover ratio of 3.3-1 is better than that of Van Exel (2.4-1) or even John Stockton (3.1-1). He and Houston’s Sam Cassell are the only players in the league to average at least 10 points and four assists without starting a game.

Then there are his other qualities. His coach, Del Harris, said Threatt “loves to play as much as anybody I’ve ever seen.” And Harris also said Threatt has such a good understanding of the game--despite that moment a few days ago when he ignored Vlade Divac posting up on Indiana guard Mark Jackson to launch a jumper--that he is a good candidate to become a coach.

Threatt isn’t so sure he wants to go down that road. Besides, why think about retirement?

“It’s kind of scary to be my age and to still have these types of hands and legs and quickness,” he said. “It kind of catches me off-guard sometimes.”

His career has been helped, oddly, in that he wasn’t good enough to be a regular starter,thus keeping his minutes down and increasing longevity. In Philadelphia, which drafted him in the sixth round in 1983, there was Maurice Cheeks. In Chicago, Michael Jordan. Seattle, Dale Ellis, then Gary Payton.

The Lakers got him from the SuperSonics in October of 1991 for three second-round picks and expected to plug him into the same role. Then Magic Johnson unexpectedly retired. Threatt started the next two seasons, more of a shooting point guard than a true distributor, then gave way again in the fall of ‘93, this time for Van Exel.

It all has also enabled him to learn from some of the best. On offense, he struggled with his shot in three-plus seasons as a 76er, then became a consistent threat after time with Jordan and Ellis. He shot no better than 45.3% the first four seasons after playing at West Virginia Tech, but has never fallen below 48.2% in the eight since.

Cheeks is the NBA’s career steals leader and Seattle had Bob Kloppenburg, a defensive specialist, as an assistant coach, so Threatt became an underrated but dangerous defender. Blessed by talent and fate.

“I always felt he had the quickest pair of feet and the quickest pair of hands in the league,” said Larry Drew, a former guard who played against Threatt and is now a Laker assistant coach.

“You rarely find guys with feet like that, that can really move them as quickly laterally as you can going straight forward. But he’s good at it. I think that’s one reason he’s lasted so long, because he hasn’t relied on his offensive abilities to keep him in the league. He’s done it on the defensive end.”

And still does.

“Every time I think he’s slowing down, I see him do something and wonder, ‘How in the heck did he get there?’ or ‘How did he get his hands on that,’ ” Drew said. “I still see him as just as quick as he was seven, eight years ago.”

Woe be the opponent unprepared for battle. Even in a one-on-one or two-on-two, sometimes with assistants Drew, Michael Cooper and Kurt Rambis before a game, Threatt is notorious for being cutthroat.

He makes up rules as he goes along, lest the opposition start to pull too far ahead. If he touches the ball on defense, it’s automatically his ball. If you shoot in the lane during a one-on-one, it’s his ball, a guideline at least for the guards. Phantom fouls. And when a young player questions the calls, he tells them to respect his stripes.

“Things like that,” Peeler said, laughing. “Things you never heard of.”

Peeler is one of several young Laker guards learning under Threatt, though that supposedly does not include how to officiate pickup games. Likewise, Van Exel and Jones give Threatt credit for their development.

“He has such a good grasp for the overall game,” Harris said. “It’s hard to find players who understand what everybody on the court should do and even what the bench players should do.”

Mostly for what he should do.

“I want to be a winner,” Threatt said.

Whatever it takes.