Nick at Nice : Van Exel Goes Into Fourth Laker Season With a New Peaceful Attitude

Wearing practice shorts but no jersey, Nick Van Exel sits on the first row of the retractable bleachers and leans back on the others that are still pushed against the wall of the gym. His legs are extended, feet flat on the ground. He stares straight ahead.

He looks alone with his thoughts. Except for that pit bull on his chest.

“My watchdog,” he says.

The Lakers’ 24-year-old point guard taps the tattoo, right above his heart.

“My life under here,” he says. “Protecting me. Protecting my life.”

From?

“From myself.”

He chuckles.

“From myself.”

From the emotions that at times have hindered a career that seemed on the verge of breakthrough to all-star caliber, that have brought into question his abilities as the team leader most recognized him to be even as a second-year player. The emotions that turned the last month of his 1995-96 season into a nightmare.

“From the incidents that happened last season,” Van Exel continues, “he watches over me. Makes sure I don’t do anything stupid.”

Man’s best friend cost $200 at Venice Beach, that and about two hours’ worth of pain. Van Exel walked into the tattoo shop, saw the pit bull as a basic option, then got a customized version, about four inches high and wide. A basketball was added, under the front paws. So, too, the numeral 9, his uniform number, at the front of the collar, like tags.

He got it about a month after the last of “the incidents” that came in rapid-fire succession, the end of the Laker season with a Game 4 playoff loss at Houston, when Van Exel, so frazzled by frustration and worn down by criticism, broke down and cried at a shoot-around, and then afterward took his bags off the team bus and skipped the charter flight home and season-ending meeting the next day. By then, that was simply the other shoe dropping.

In the weeks before, he had drawn a seven-game suspension, a $25,000 fine and branding of another kind with a forearm shove that sent official Ron Garretson onto the scorer’s table in Denver. That led to a Sports Illustrated profile detailing Van Exel’s alleged history of violence, a story devoid of any of the positives that have marked his climb from unwanted high school player to NBA starter.

Van Exel customarily snarls at reporters and says he doesn’t care what they write. But he was crushed by the piece.

“I sensed a lot of hurt . . . a lot of frustration,” said assistant coach Larry Drew, the former point guard who has worked closely with Van Exel since a bad reputation dropped the University of Cincinnati player into the Lakers’ lap with the 37th pick in 1993. “I’m sure he felt after the referee incident, after the Sports Illustrated thing, I guess he felt like everybody was against him. Total frustration. Just total hurt and frustration. It was kind of like being put out of your misery after we were eliminated from the playoffs.”

He spent some of the summer working out with friend and fellow point guard Sam Cassell, then with the Rockets, and a personal trainer. But mostly, he worked on problems within. That’s how he really got in shape during the off-season.

“That’s the good part about it,” said Cassell, now with the Phoenix Suns. “He knew he had to make some changes in his life.”

So he got some companionship--a watchdog--and did some soul searching.

“Oh, yeah,” Van Exel said. “A lot of soul searching. Saying I know I can do this, I know I can do that, I know I’m a better person than the way I acted in Denver and things like that.

“It wasn’t conversations. It’s like, I know the situation I’m in right now and I know that I have to make the best of it. Right now is a great situation for me to show everybody that I’m a leader, I’m a good person, and I can lead this team. That’s all I worked on in the summertime. Nobody really talked to me about this and that. It’s just, I know what I have to do.”

Not that he didn’t before, of course. But when the Lakers came together again three weeks ago for the start of training camp, the most improved player was the one who was already good enough for Charles Barkley to have tabbed as one of the game’s best young talents. It was as if the spring of his discontent had become the summer of his salvation.

“There was probably an awful lot of soul searching and people really encouraging him to do things that are going to improve him personally,” Executive Vice President Jerry West said. “You just can’t play this game angry all the time. You can’t be angry at everyone. I don’t know if those were ever factors, but there were times where there seemed to be kind of a wall around him. And I don’t see that now.

“He’s been terrific. He really has. I kind of see a jump to his step a little bit. I see a much more peaceful looking person. He took a pretty good barbecuing last year, and I think he’s a lot stronger for that.”

Said Drew: “He sounds like he’s really focused and he really wants to do the right thing this year. Of course, everybody’s excited about [Shaquille O’Neal] being here and the other new guys, but I see him smiling a lot more. And if you know Nick, it takes a lot to get him to smile sometimes. But he really looks like he’s having fun. He’s communicating with everybody. He’s talking to the coaches, he’s talking to the players, and that’s a very positive sign.

“That’s part of the learning process, I feel, of being a leader. There are going to be setbacks. A leader can’t be a guy who just leads when things are going good. He has to know how to handle adversity. So I think last year was a learning experience for Nick, with all the setbacks that took place. And I’m sure he’ll be the first to say he probably didn’t handle it well.”

So maybe it is early and there haven’t yet been any storms. But it’s also a step in the right direction.

Maybe it will turn out that the only thing erratic about Van Exel from now on will be his jump shots, a shortcoming the Lakers will gladly accept if maturity, finally, is the counterbalance.

“Last season, I was fighting myself, fighting the fact that the ball was being taken out of my hands,” Van Exel says, a reference to the return of Magic Johnson.

This season? Johnson is back in retirement, so Van Exel, who has averaged 15.1 points and 7.0 assists in his three seasons with the Lakers, doesn’t have to worry about him. It’s himself he has to worry about.

“I feel comfortable now,” the new Nick Van Exel insists. “I feel happy that we got Shaq and I’m throwing the ball into him. That’s the biggest thing. I’m happy to be playing and being able to handle the ball.

“I’m sure a lot of people are looking at me from what happened last season and a lot of people are saying, ‘It may happen again. He may blow up at any time.’ But I’m a different person. I learned a lot from last season. It doesn’t take much to learn, learn from your mistakes, and to understand what you have to do.

“I think I need to keep myself in check from the fact that sometimes I’m real emotional. I’ve got to control my emotions. I’m learning to control my emotions a lot more and just having fun at this game. This game is easy. It’s something I like to do. It’s my job. It’s my livelihood. For me to blow up the way I did in Denver, it doesn’t make sense when I look at it now. This is a sport I love. I’ve got a son and I need to keep him fed.

“I feel, basically, just to let last year be gone, focus on this season, have a great season, a positive season. With this opportunity I’m getting, to play with Shaq, Kobe [Bryant] and the new team in general, being able to thank Jerry West for keeping me, I don’t have anything but positive things to do now. Just stay happy.”

That’s all.