NBA Nicks Lakers : This Was a Texas Too-Steep

‘I think it’s another start for me.”

--Nick Van Exel, October 1997

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The new start starts here.

Nick Van Exel wants to prove he’s 26 years old and all grown up?

He wants to show how he has thrown that chip off his shoulder with a no-look pass?

He wants bygones to be bygones?

Then he needs to take this latest beating like a man.

He needs to swallow the NBA’s dunderheaded two-game suspension and walk away.

The league was wrong Tuesday to make Van Exel leave the room for the rest of the week for simply shoving the ill-behaved Monty Williams on Monday in San Antonio.

Rod Thorn, the NBA disciplinarian, would not come to the phone to explain, but apparently he was punishing Nick mostly for being Nick.

Considering both missed games are against Dallas, it should be no big deal.

But considering this is Van Exel, and this is the time of year his blood boils, it is.

Van Exel lets this wrong get under his skin, that could lead to two wrongs, which don’t make a . . .

Well, fans in this town who have watched him implode during the last two springs are tired of doing the math.

He needs to lose the anger, transfer the emotion, use it on somebody like Damon Stoudamire or John Stockton in the playoffs.

For six months, the petulant one has been saying he has changed.

Beginning Sunday in the regular-season finale against Utah, we’ll find out if he really has.

Certainly, so far, he has proved he can.

There have been no fights with Coach Del Harris. There have been two technical fouls, nearly a dozen fewer than two years ago.

He has worked hard through knee surgery, willingly sat the bench while he recovered, now starts the game on the bench because he thinks it is good for the team.

He has been pleasant. He has been good in the locker room. Except for the occasional nasty look at a teammate or irritation at a curfew, he has been doggone Grant Hill.

Maybe it was the anger counseling, maybe it was the talks with Jerry West, maybe it is simply growing up, something all of us could stand from time to time.

Whatever, so far, it has worked.

But so far, it has been easy.

He made the all-star team for the first time, has been celebrated for the best assist-turnover ratio in the league, heard nothing but applause.

What happened Tuesday, this will be hard.

He shoved a guy in the middle of a physical game with the increasingly dirty Spurs, and he was sent home until Sunday.

One shove, not even the first shove, and a two-game suspension.

When Karl Malone gets one game for putting David Robinson in the hospital.

When Michael Jordan gets a technical foul for throwing a ball that hits Mark Jackson in the head.

A suspension seemingly based not on Van Exel’s behavior, but his personality.

One shove, two games, this will be hard.

For a player who admittedly struggles with an authority figures, this could be the big one.

This is worse than Harris pulling Van Exel out of a playoff game in the opening minutes.

This is like Harris grabbing a microphone and publicly reciting his faults while doing it.

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“Players go through processes, and hopefully [everyone] can understand I went through a process and it’s over with and I’ve moved on.”

Van Exel, January 1998

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Has he really moved on?

We’ll find out now, because late in the season has been Van Exel’s breaking point.

Tuesday’s suspension was five days after the second anniversary of his shove of referee Ron Garretson into a scorer’s table.

It was three weeks shy of the one-year anniversary of his playoff tiff with Harris,

Some of that old ugliness was evident after Tuesday’s incident, when he flashed the Spur fans an obscene gesture after walking back toward the court to yell at them.

For that, he was fined, and rightfully so.

It is hoped that he will not bring those looks home with him.

The fire, yes. He and the Lakers were noble in roughhousing with the Spurs. They showed that maybe, just maybe, they are willing to get dirty enough to win a Game 7 in Salt Lake City or Seattle.

The fire is good. An inability to contain it is not.

The Lakers remain hopeful.

“He has been doing great,” Harris said Tuesday.

Heck, a couple of weeks ago, Van Exel was even supporting P.J. Carlesimo, saying, “Players have to realize that coaches are coaches, and that each player must let his game do the talking.”

Now would be a pretty good time for him to walk that walk.

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“I would like people to know Nick Van Exel the person.”

Van Exel, October 1997

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Well then?