Tall Order Cook
The place is sweltering and Jason Kapono is hard at work. Arms flying, feet shuffling, he displays impeccable timing and just enough quickness to keep from getting burned.
There are no timeouts in this game, he reminds himself, wiping his hands on an oil-splattered apron.
A ticket’s up for the party of eight at Table 6: two calamari starters, four Caesar salads, four clam chowders, two steaks medium, one rare with a char, another well done; two crab-stuffed Chilean sea bass specials, a salmon filet on a bed of spinach and, oh, one order of pot roast, don’t overcook the carrots please.
The thought of 40 minutes of basketball is like a cool breeze at Club Med about now, Kapono says to himself.
Yet he comes back for more, five days a week for three summers, slipping into his kitchen whites and tall chef’s hat--he always did have a thing for headgear--beginning another grueling shift as prep cook at Phil Trani’s Fine Food and Spirits in Long Beach.
Some athletes are pampered. Some take summer jobs rolling out the balls at a rec center. Some even get paid for doing nothing at all.
There are no slackers in a full-tilt restaurant kitchen, though, and Kapono has the stove blisters and knife nicks to prove it. He might talk like a surfer and dress like a Dr. Seuss character in his goofy hats and brightly colored pants, but UCLA’s top scorer is happiest working up a sweat amid chaos.
He gets into a Zen-like state of mind, living in the moment and loving it. It’s the same way on the hardwood. Unable to jump the highest or run the fastest, the 6-foot-8 junior forward is in constant motion, setting screens, shaking a defender, touching the leather and letting his trademark three-point shot fly.
“He’s a grounded guy, for all the stuff he’s experienced, very down-to-earth,” said Jason Flowers, a former Bruin and Kapono’s closest friend. “He’s very composed and mature for his age and comfortable with who he is.
“People don’t realize how hard he works. I’ve told him, ‘You work more than any player I’ve been around.’ The positive things he gets, he deserves.”
And the negative? Kapono is stressed and unfulfilled these days, perplexed at his team’s uneven play, dissatisfied with his own performance and acutely aware that the looming NCAA tournament is UCLA’s Last Chance Saloon.
“Obviously, you want to leave here tagged as a winner,” he said. “There are a lot of pro players who are great but they never won a championship.”
Neither has Kapono, who tries not to think about whether to leave UCLA for the NBA. Once the season is over, he’ll do what he did after his freshman and sophomore years and make two lists--call them the pros and college.
Then he’ll follow his heart, which is currently under the 24-hour watch of Ashley Cline, a UCLA sophomore from Danville, Calif. Kapono met her two summers ago in the restaurant kitchen, where her brother worked as well.
On Valentine’s Day, 2001, he made her dinner from scratch: halibut stuffed with crab, chicken Parmesan with rice, broccoli and carrots.
“She’s my one true love,” he said. “She’s great for me. She likes to hang around and watch games; she’ll even go to watch a high school game. Then vice versa, we hang out with her family, go shopping.”
Ashley has a vote on whether her boyfriend stays in school. So does Kapono’s occasionally outspoken father, Joe. Bruin Coach Steve Lavin can weigh in.
Will the cat in the hat come back? Ultimately, the choice is his alone.
“You only have a small chance of getting to the pros,” Kapono said. “There are only 330 roster spots that go to all the kids playing basketball. So you have to choose what time is best for you.
“Right now, I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I’m not going to worry about that, because if I do, it’s going to creep into my mind when I’m playing.”
And he understands that an unfettered mind allows him to get into the spontaneous flow so important to a scorer. Lately, it has been elusive.
Kapono has made three or fewer baskets in five of the last eight games and his scoring average, 16.7 points, is the lowest it has been all season. He’s shooting a glittering 46.4% from three-point range and 86.7% on free throws, but it has been increasingly difficult for him to get open shots.
Is he tiring? Does UCLA’s new motion offense, with its absence of screens and emphasis on athleticism, make it difficult for him to shake a defender?
He doesn’t want to consider any of it. As they say at the restaurant, if you can’t stand the heat ...
“I’m fine; the team’s fine,” he said. “We’ve played our best ball during times like this, when we are being counted out. It’s just about all of us playing well, up to the level we’ve shown at times, and sustaining it.”
UCLA’s only winning streak--a nine-game surge in December and early January--coincided with Kapono’s playing point guard. Freshman starter Cedric Bozeman was sidelined by a knee injury after the Bruins’ 2-2 start and Kapono seized the opportunity to display the ballhandling skills he’d developed during the off-season.
There were a few shaky moments--seven turnovers against Georgetown, one-for-eight three-point shooting against Washington--but Kapono proved he is more than a one-dimensional player and laid to rest any suspicions that he is a selfish gunner.
“I’m not a guy who is worried about his stats,” he said. “I’m a team player, I want scouts to know that.”
But he’s also cognizant of his climb through the UCLA record book. And that’s one for the “college” side of the ledger, scribbled below Ashley, a degree and a championship.
Kapono has scored at a remarkably consistent rate. He averaged 16 points and made 82 three-pointers as a freshman, averaged 17.2 points and made 84 three-pointers as a sophomore. He is 84 for 181 from long range this season and with 250 he has made 53 more three-pointers than any other Bruin.
He ranks 15th on the school’s scoring list, and in one more season would be almost certain to move up to No. 3, passing such former players as Marques Johnson, Gail Goodrich, David Greenwood, Bill Walton, Ed O’Bannon and Reggie Miller, and could challenge Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at No. 2.
“It doesn’t mean that much now because I am still playing,” Kapono said. “You think of all the great players who have gone through this program and you don’t even think of yourself as part of that group.
“But later on in life, sitting with the wife and kids and saying, ‘I was one of the top five scorers,’ that means a lot because this is the greatest program ever. Our record book is a who’s who of basketball.”
Kapono sends signals about returning. Lavin recently spoke to the team about next season’s lineup during a bus ride to the airport and left out Kapono, who quickly raised his hand and said, “What about me, Coach?”
“He’s teasing me,” Kapono said. “That’s his way to get a read on me, count me out and see how I react.”
In a rare moment, he’ll catch himself dreaming of playing for the Lakers, who could use a spot-up three-point shooter. Just the other night, he and Ashley calculated there is a 7% chance of an NBA team from California drafting him.
The glamour and accompanying temptations of NBA life don’t seem important to him. Ashley says he has never taken a drink, and he likes nothing more than spending a quiet evening with her or his parents.
“His relationship with his family is unique,” Ashley said. “He goes home every week and talks to his parents every day. He’s always wanted to settle down.”
And spend time in a kitchen.
“He’s a really good cook,” Ashley said. “We’ve talked about, after he retires from playing, whether it’s overseas or here, he’d open a restaurant, somewhere his family can hang out and visit.”
That’s when the mantle of “UCLA’s third-leading all-time scorer” might bring value. But Kapono has learned what’s most important.
“Just like basketball is about winning,” he said, “a restaurant is about the food.”
