Van Horn Shows His True Colors

What if I told you about a basketball player who can shoot the three-pointer or take you off the dribble and score inside?

What if I told you his picture in the media guide shows him dunking with two hands, his mouth wide open and his legs spread?

What if I told you that, like so many other first-round picks, he already had two kids when he came into the NBA (although at least in this case he was married)?

What color would you think he was?

Now listen to some other people talk about him.

New York Knick Coach Don Chaney called the player “an upscale Tom Chambers.”

New Jersey Net General Manager John Nash said he was a mixture of Tom Gugliotta and Detlef Schrempf.

The guy gets Larry Bird comparisons all the time.

Now guess what color he is. All of a sudden it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

There’s a not-so-subtle pattern here. All of those other players are white. So is this player, New Jersey Net rookie Keith Van Horn.

“Any time a player comes in the league, they want to compare ‘em to somebody,” Van Horn said Friday night at the Pond before the Nets played the Clippers. “I think it only seems natural they’re going to compare me to a white guy, I guess.”

It’s natural. It’s easy. It’s lazy. It’s wrong.

It’s the same narrow-minded thinking that rules in football. Any time a black quarterback can run, he’s like Randall Cunningham. Any time a white quarterback is mobile, he’s like John Elway or Steve Young.

But people aren’t prepared when someone like Keith Van Horn comes along. He doesn’t fit into the old stereotypes.

All I know is, I love Van Horn’s game. When I lived on the East Coast I would stay up late to catch his college games at Utah. It was worth the lost sleep.

He’s a unique talent, a 6-10 guy who can beat you inside or outside. As soon as he recovers from the torn tendon above the right ankle that has delayed the start of his season (chances are he’ll be ready to go when he returns to Salt Lake City to face the Jazz on Monday) he’ll take his place among the league’s top rookies.

When he was growing up in Diamond Bar, he loved to watch Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Bird and incorporated a little bit from each into his game. Yet somehow when people look at Van Horn all they see is Bird or some other white player.

“I noticed that too,” Van Horn said. “If I was black, I don’t think they’d be saying that. I’ve tried to deny it all the time, say, ‘Oh, I want to be myself.’ But people keep saying it.”

Net center Jayson Williams doesn’t limit himself to one race when he talks about Van Horn. He even goes so far as to invoke the name of His Airness, calling Van Horn the “best rookie to come out since Michael Jordan.”

“Everybody compares him to Larry Bird because he’s white,” Williams said. “He doesn’t play like Larry Bird. Larry Bird is Larry Bird. There’ll never be another Larry Bird.

“Keith Van Horn, he’s a light-skinned black guy. He can play.”

Clipper guard Brent Barry encountered the same comparisons when he came into the league two years ago. “They went back to the old school,” Barry said. “They compared me to Pistol Pete [Maravich], guys a little bit before my time.

“But a guy who I’d like to emulate and play like and a guy who I respect is a guy like Scottie Pippen, who’s out on the floor and is able to do a little bit of everything: Score and run the floor and use his athleticism and do things like that.”

Kids don’t look at color when choosing a favorite player. Why does everyone else?

We need guys like Van Horn, just like we need people like Barry. It helps even things out.

Outside shooting is supposed to be the white man’s specialty, but black players have won five of the 12 three-point shootouts at the NBA’s all-star weekend.

Barry has had to go it alone; when he won the dunk contest in 1996 he became the first white player to do so and hopefully dispelled the notion that white men can’t jump. There’s a danger in those old phrases like “white man’s disease.”

It’s a cop-out, diminishing the accomplishments of African Americans. And it leads to more ominous assumptions. When people think African Americans are born better basketball players, it’s too easy to flip around the belief and think that white people are born better doctors.

Enough practice can make anyone an NBA player, just like enough studying can make anyone a lawyer. Race has nothing to do with it.

Yet the limited comparisons continue. “That’s just the way the world is,” Williams said. “My mom is white and father’s black, so I see both sides of it.

“It’s just like in boxing. Every time you get a white guy who’s a great boxer, he’s the next Great White Hope. It’s easier that way. When you get the next black guy coming up [in golf], he’ll be compared to Tiger Woods.”

So can we have a little more creativity please? When you see Tim Duncan’s footwork and up-and-under moves, try comparing them to Kevin McHale’s. Watch Rex Chapman heat up and think back to Vinnie Johnson.

And what comparison does Van Horn use for himself?

“I’d like to be a well-rounded player,” he said. “Whatever that is, that’s what I am.”

Good enough for me.