THE RELUCTANT STAR : Unpretentious Jones Appreciates the Fuss Over His Celebrity, but He Doesn’t Fit the Part

The white Mercedes-Benz rounded the corner in Beverly Hills, gently pulled into the alley and stopped at a curbside spot that had been saved, allowing Eddie Jones either the convenience of avoiding the crowded valet parking structure for the arrival or the opportunity for a quick getaway. His wiry 6-foot-6 frame emerged from the driver’s side, his father, E.J. Thigpen, a man who would gladly trade metabolisms, from the passenger door. Together, they walked to the back entrance of the nearby building.

It’s four days after Jones has been named an NBA all-star for the first time and he’s here for an autograph session being sponsored by KLAC, the radio station that carries Laker games. Several hundred people wait, some for more than an hour, so he is escorted into Niketown, and then an elevator.

“I’ve just been told Eddie Jones is in the house!” Lance Jackson, KLAC’s director of sports marketing and master of ceremonies for the event, announces.

The crowd squeals, literally squeals, in delight.

The Laker shooting guard, his father and friends along for the ride, reaches the second floor, steps out and walks the short distance to a small VIP lounge. Snacks await--Jones goes for a glass of juice--but so do the fans. This is impossible to forget because the scene downstairs is being broadcast on the built-in wide-screen TV in the small room. And the sounds that break through the walls and up from the hardwood floors.

“Ed-die! Ed-die! Ed-die!” the faithful chant in familiar refrain.

“Hear your theme song?” asks Lowell Moore, president of Successful Marketing Group, the firm that handles Jones’ endorsements.

“Let’s do it,” Jones answers, impatiently.

Within seconds, he is ready to walk down the flight of stairs. Jackson goes into the introduction, noting how Jones starred at Temple, that he currently leads the NBA in steals, how he came to the Lakers as the 10th pick in the 1994 draft and how that “was a great day for L.A.!”

“Let’s go,” Jones says.

He sounds exasperated.

Stardom has landed on his doorstep and been greeted like it’s ticking. Of course, once Jones finally does make it downstairs, weaving through the crowd with the help of narrow passages cut by rope, and settles into a director’s chair next to Jackson, a couple of dozen children planted at their feet, things go well. He takes some basic questions from the audience, gives some basic answers, and they eat it up.

He can do this. He’d rather not, but he can do this.

“We fight all the time because he’d prefer to be home playing pool and watching TV,” Moore said.

“I had arranged a part for him on the show, ‘In The House.’ We fought two weeks prior to it, we fought about it three days prior to it. I’m like, ‘Eddie, it’s national TV. It’s great timing and will get you more national exposure.’ And after that, he found that it was kind of cool. It’s an interesting balance trying to keep him out there and also keep within his personality.

“We just had this conversation last night. I said, ‘Eddie, you know your life is going to be altered. You’re not going to be able to continue on a down mode. He said, ‘I know. But it’s not going to change me.’ ”

At least not much. Consider the project SMG is trying to line up now: Jones in a sports video with . . . the Olsen twins!

“I know I’ve got a battle coming,” Moore said. “But we’ve been together 3 1/2 years, so I know if he really hated it I wouldn’t still be here.”

On this day, that means near Jones’ side during the KLAC appearance. Thigpen, who came to Los Angeles for a visit from Parkland, Fla., can tell his son is nervous during the question-and-answer session because of the way he hurries parts of the responses into the hand-held microphone, almost stringing words together as one--”If wecontinue to grow, I cansee another championshipbanner in L.A.”

Otherwise, Jones is handling the spotlight this day brings. Just then, Jackson announces that portion is over, that Jones will move behind the table to sign autographs, and wasn’t it great he would take some time to speak to his fans first. The crowd cheers wildly. Jones’ chin drops into his chest.

Thigpen motions to his son.

“He’s got his head down so you won’t see the glow in his eyes,” the father said.

Jones may be known as a frequent flier on the court--dunks in transition or after beating his man off the dribble and then driving the baseline on his own, or with the steals that become a fastbreak basket for another Laker--but his personality is a contrast. Laid back. Chillin’ when he isn’t thrillin’.

“My time at Temple,” he explains later. “That started it. Coach [John] Chaney never likes high fives, never liked any big show of emotion. I guess that just kind of rubbed off.”

Permanently.

“I’m not really embarrassed,” Jones said. “I really appreciate it. I just don’t know how to handle it, I guess. People giving you things. All my life, I’ve had to work for things.”

In basketball primarily, because he never was much for other sports. The foray into football, when he was 9 years old, lasted such a short time it’s hardly worth mentioning except that one day after getting drilled, he dropped his equipment on the field and left. Just left it there, the stuff and the football career.

Though always associated with Philadelphia because of the Temple connection, Jones starred at Ely High in Pompano Beach, Fla., before joining Chaney’s tough-love system in college, complete with crack-of-dawn practices sometimes heavier on the talks about life and philosophy than actual practicing.

Jones lost his freshman year to Proposition 48, but took off from there, averaging 11.4 points off the bench as a sophomore and 17 points and seven rebounds the next season to help the Owls to the Elite Eight. Finally, as a senior, he reached 19.2 and was named Atlantic 10 Conference player of the year.

The Lakers got him next, Jones leapfrogging over Anthony Peeler to become the starting shooting guard. He played in the rookie all-star game and was named most valuable player. Coaches voted him to the all-rookie team at the end of the season, after Jones had finished sixth in the league in steals and become only the fourth first-year player in league history to be first in steal-to-turnover ratio.

Last season, he was eighth in steals and joined Magic Johnson, Norm Nixon and Sedale Threatt as the only players to lead the Lakers in that category in consecutive campaigns. Whatever visions as a rising star he gave off that season carried into 1996-97--”He always laid back the first couple years, trying to find his rhythm,” Sacramento’s Mitch Richmond said, “but with the acquisition of Shaq you can see him being more aggressive”--and Western Conference coaches eventually voted him into the all-star game, to be played today in Cleveland.

“His game is rather stunning, but he lets his game do his talking,” Coach Del Harris said. “And I think a lot of people appreciate that about Eddie. From that standpoint, he’s old school. I think that’s probably one reason coaches voted for him.”

But on this day in Beverly Hills, he’s getting the star treatment, big time. People wait for autographs--and to give him flowers or a box of candy. They take photos standing in front of the table he’s seated behind, except for the time when the baby wearing a Laker bib was handed over.

They get handshakes, though sometimes with the left hand so Jones can keep the black pen in the right (or maybe it’s permanently wedged in after the first hour), and signatures. Balls. Trading cards. Jerseys, the No. 25 he wore the first two seasons in the pros and the No. 6 he switched to this fall in honor of idol Julius Erving, a move necessitated because the Lakers retired the 25 in honor of Gail Goodrich. Jackets. Pennants. Photos. Caps. The cover that encases an Eddie Jones figurine.

Hundreds of autographs, a video taken of him giving an autograph, snapshots, handshakes. Babies. Exactly when Jones declared his candidacy is not known, but he wasn’t even aware of the strangest part until told about it the next day.

People were posing with the white Mercedes-Benz for photos.

With his car!

“They were doing that?” he said. “For real?”

For real.

“I’m amazed now.”

It’s your life. Welcome to it.