Still 190 Pounds, but $188,000 Lighter

Having suggested long ago he wasn’t likely to learn much the easy way, headstrong Nick Van Exel learned this lesson the hard way:

Hit a referee, go to NBA jail.

It should have been a foregone conclusion, but Van Exel is young and these are tumultuous times for him. The Lakers’ dead-end kid, once called “180 pounds of attitude” (to which he replied he weighed 190), got in a clean hit on Ron Garretson and today, as far as professional basketball is concerned, is a bigger felon than Dennis Rodman.

Rodman got a six-game suspension for a light head-butt, based on a colorful previous record. Van Exel hit the big time with one caper.

A year ago, when Van Exel refused to enter a game at Portland in a tiff with Coach Del Harris, the Lakers wrote it off to a misunderstanding and kept his punishment secret.

This time, they blew Van Exel up for all the world to see.

“We agree with and support the league’s decision 100%,” Vice President Jerry West said in a prepared statement.

“I’ve dedicated 35 years--my entire adult life--to this game and this league and I think it is imperative that the NBA address the incredible number of incidents that are undermining the professionalism of this league. Personally, I am embarrassed and apologize to our fans.”

West couldn’t be reached for further comment, not that much was needed.

“I think the statement speaks for itself,” General Manager Mitch Kupchak said. “Some statements are more in generic form and sugar-coated to a degree.”

There has been a rising tide of outrageous behavior throughout sports in general and the NBA in particular, players assaulting referees as Rodman and Van Exel did, jumping teams as Cedric Ceballos did, missing shoot-arounds as Portland’s Rod Strickland did only weeks after returning from his own walkout, or missing planes as Seattle’s Shawn Kemp did, or getting ejected and refusing to leave the floor until ordered off by one’s mother, as Minnesota’s Isaiah Rider did.

The league is embarrassed but so far hoping it will all go away.

“I think this is the post-All-Star, pre-playoff dog days where the moon is full for us for about 40 days,” Commissioner David Stern said last week. “We all have those members of the family that we know about but don’t talk about.”

It isn’t only the young players. Rodman is 34. Strickland is 29. Kemp is a seven-year veteran.

It’s not only the players. Utah owner Larry Miller, whose courtside opponent-baiting leads to annual embarrassments, recently engaged in an angry argument with Vancouver’s Eric Murdoch.

For all his notoriety, despite his reputation, Van Exel is not one of the hard-case delinquents. Of course, the Lakers would never have come near him if he’d been better mannered. They got him at No. 37 in the draft when he made such a pain in the neck of himself in interviews with other teams.

He was cocky, intense, hard on himself, moody and often difficult with the press, but by his second season, at age 24, it was clear he was the Laker leader. He was genuinely interested in winning, as opposed to running up his own numbers. Magic Johnson could never have come back if Van Exel, who would have to sacrifice the most, hadn’t welcomed him wholeheartedly.

Van Exel is said to be contrite and will apologize at a news conference today.

“We would expect that,” Kupchak said.

It will take the rest of the regular season to actually square things. Johnson, who was supposed to ease up to rest a sore Achilles’ tendon, will have to play more. The team’s momentum is at risk again. Tiny actions can result in large consequences, Nick Van Exel learned this week.