Cassell Stirs Bucks and Restarts Career

Sam Cassell is a fascinating talker. He treats a conversation like a performance, alternately firing staccato bursts of dialogue and dropping his voice to a guttural growl to make a point.

These days, Cassell has a lot to say. He wants you to know he lost 15 pounds while working out this summer. He wants people to remember his two championship rings and his breakout season two years ago, when he averaged nearly 20 points a game with the New Jersey Nets.

This season, he wants to realize the full potential of a career that has been limited by injuries, and enough trades to put him among the league leaders in change-of-address forms. He wants to make his mark in Milwaukee, a city and a team that could use a little bit of big talk.

“Without a doubt, I’m taking the attitude that this is my team,” Cassell said. “I’ve got to be a leader on and off the court. This season is my big opportunity.”

Cassell’s distinct voice and exuberant personality made him a popular talk-show guest during the years he won back-to-back championships with the Houston Rockets. Since then, however, he has bounced around the NBA like the pinball his shaved head resembles.

After stops in Phoenix, Dallas and New Jersey, he landed in Milwaukee last March with the talented but untested Bucks, who lacked his championship experience and steady point-guard play.

“Wait and see the change on the court when we’ve got Sam out there,” said forward Glenn Robinson, who could be in for a big season with Cassell getting him the ball. “Sometimes, this has been a team that lacked leadership on the court. Sam is going to give that to us.”

Coach George Karl built the Seattle SuperSonics’ game plans around Gary Payton, perhaps the prototype of the two-way point guard who can beat teams with smothering defense or unexpected bursts of offense. Karl wants Cassell to jump-start Milwaukee’s sometimes stagnant offense the same way.

“Last year, we got a personality of a jump-shooting team, too much standing around,” Karl said. “Sam will help us with that because he doesn’t stand around. He’s in motion constantly.”

Karl also sees Cassell as a bridge between the two distinct factions on his roster: the talented core of youngsters (Robinson, Ray Allen, Tim Thomas, Robert Traylor) that makes up most of his starting lineup; and the veterans (Danny Manning, Dale Ellis, J.R. Reid, Haywoode Workman) who will play almost all of the backup minutes.

“There’s the young guys, there’s the old guys, and then there’s Sam,” Karl said with a smile. “He’s getting old, but he still acts like a young guy. He’s the one who meets in the middle.”

Players as talented as the 29-year-old Cassell normally don’t move around the league the way he did starting in 1996, when the Rockets shipped him to Phoenix in a package for Charles Barkley.

The Suns kept him for 22 games before moving him to Dallas in a six-player trade involving Jason Kidd. He was with the Mavericks for 16 games before Dallas and New Jersey swapped nine players in February 1997.

With the Nets, Cassell unexpectedly became an offensive star. Though he was always known as a deadly 3-point threat, he showed off a slashing, penetrating style of play with the Nets and became the team’s leading scorer, averaging 19.6 points a game in the 1997-98 season.

But as they usually do, the Nets faltered on the court, and Cassell became the de facto fall guy. The Bucks acquired Cassell in a deal with Minnesota and New Jersey last March that sent point guards Stephon Marbury to the Nets and Terrell Brandon, who never clicked in Milwaukee, to the Timberwolves.

Cassell had a severely sprained ankle when he was traded, and he played in just four regular-season games for Milwaukee. He spent most of his first weeks on crutches, but he was in the starting lineup when the Bucks made their first trip to the playoffs since 1991.

The Bucks were swept by the Indiana Pacers, but Cassell turned heads by averaging 15.3 points and 8.7 assists in the three games. He also looked like the kind of floor leader that could straighten out the sometimes aimless Bucks.

He spent the summer scrimmaging and working out in Houston, and he reported to training camp in Milwaukee early, minus the 15 pounds he put on during the time he couldn’t exercise because of the ankle injury.

“I know I was slow last year during the playoffs,” he said. “I won’t be slow again.”