For all the good Earvin "Magic" Johnson has brought the LosAngeles Lakers by coming out of retirement to play again, his two topteammates have been trying very hard to nullify it and give him everyreason to go to another team, maybe even the Bulls, when he becomes afree agent this summer.
Magic, who wants dearly to win his sixth NBA championship,already has said he would love to play for either former Laker coachPat Riley, now Miami Heat coach, or with Bulls star Michael Jordan.
He has to question his chances of winning a championshipwith a Laker team led by immature, hot-headed and selfish youngstars.What I'd like to know now is, who is the captain of the LosAngeles Lakers?"I am," joked Los Angeles Times beat writer ScottHoward-Cooper. "Right now, they are a rudderless ship."Three weeks ago, it became half-rudderless when smallforward Cedric Ceballos, the team's top scorer and one of the twoco-captains, was busted of his stripes for deserting the team inanger over his team-high playing minutes being shaved.Ceballos was fined and suspended by the team.Then on Tuesday night, after starting point guard Nick VanExel, the remaining co-captain, was ejected from the contest againstthe host Denver Nuggets, he retaliated by throwing a punch at, andthen forearming, referee Ronnie Garretson onto the scorer's table.On Wednesday, NBA operations chief Rod Thorn fined Van Exel$25,000 and suspended him without pay for the last seven games of theregular season, costing him about $162,000 in pay.The hypocritical irony of all this is that when Ceballospulled his disappearing act, Van Exel joined the majority incriticizing Ceballos. He said Ceballos showed bad leadership andadded, "I wouldn't do that to the team."Well, as it turns out, what Van Exel did was worse. Hethrew a punch at, and physically assaulted, the son of the chief ofthe NBA officials, of all people.Surely, he had an idea of the severity of his actions.What he did was much worse than what Bulls star Dennis Rodmandid a month ago in head-butting referee Ted Bernhardt, who ejectedRodman from a game in New Jersey.Rodman was fined $20,000 and suspended for six games.Rodman's absence wasn't as costly to the Bulls, despite theabsence of injured star Scottie Pippen, because they still hadMichael Jordan, the best player in the game, and the league-leadingBulls already had a handy lead over everybody.But with the Lakers fighting to beat out the two-time,defending-champion Houston Rockets for home-court advantage in theirdestined best-of-five, first-round series in the playoffs, the Lakerscould ill afford his absence.He and the Lakers were lucky that he was not suspended forthe playoffs, too.Meanwhile, although Van Exel's actions were shocking andawful, and although they may have been the worst in the NBA, theywere not the worst in pro basketball history.I remember the March 7, 1980, game I covered in DePaul'sAlumni Hall, where coach Doug Bruno, coach of the old Chicago Hustleof the Women's Pro Basketball League, ran onto the court and punchedand fought veteran referee Mark Mano.Bruno already had been reprimanded for violent outbursts onprevious occasions.In one game, he slammed a folding chair to the court, in BobbyKnight-style, after being ejected for repeatedly coming out on thecourt to criticize the officials.In another game, after being ejected, he threw a folding chair30 feet across the playing floor at an official, almost hitting acouple of players.WPBL Commissioner Bill Byrne fined Bruno $1,000 (a lot ofmoney in that low-budget league) and suspended him for the remainderof the season.Bruno did apologize publicly to Mano and everybody else, rightedhis ways and resumed what continues to be a successful career.
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