Will the real Nick Van Exel please stand up? - Los Angeles Laker player - Brief Article - Column

Dave D'Alessandro

It was all a misunderstanding, Nick Van Exel says now. "You've just got to get to know me," he explains, and by that, we don't think he means knowing him the same way Del Harris knew him, or the way referees knew him, or the way his teammates knew him in the Utah series.

He probably means the way his family knows him, the way his anger-management counselor knows him, the way his new Denver employers undoubtedly feel about him as their honeymoon begins.

"Sometimes I put myself in situations where people can make judgments about me like that," he says. "And then there are other times when some people--just because they have a pen and pad--they just go overboard with it."

We plead guilty, with a convenient excuse. We've seen the Good Nick, we've seen the Bad Nick The combination of the two is consternating.

Perhaps you're familiar with the Good Nick. He's the All-Star who can get you 20 points and 10 assists on most nights, a point guard who plays both ends with a supreme confidence and energy that resonate throughout his game.

Then there's the Bad Nick, which he says is the Old Nick, the guy who always seemed one misstep from rearranging his coach's face, the hot-tempered rebel suspended for engaging Ron Garretson in a bout of featherweight sumo, and the spaniel-eyed point guard who pulls up for threes during 2-on-0 fast breaks.

From the moment Van Exel entered the league, he was a stereotype in every scout's notebook a player who could dazzle you and crush you at the same time.

"Big-time talent," they say of these players. "Bad head." The same buzzwords are attached to Van Exel to this day, five years into what has and occasionally spectacular been a productive career interspersed by moments of dementia.

Now it's up to Nuggets G.M. Dan Issel and the next coach (probably Dan Issel) to figure out what makes this guy tick, and so far they're off to a very good start because of the mere fact that Van Exel decided to show up.

He did not overreact upon hearing the news at a Palm Springs Mexican restaurant on Draft Night that he had been traded, which is a promising start.

The Old Nick Went all of the next day ruminating on the consequences of not reporting to Denver. Then suddenly he was reincarnated as New Nick: "I thought that probably wouldn't be the smartest move for me," he concluded

He spoke with Issel, on Friday. He finally showed up on Sunday, telling everybody that he had experienced an epiphany.

The timing of Van Exel's shame was fortunate for Denver he was toast in LA from the moment the buzzer sounded in Game 4 against the jazz, if only because the loss represented the fourth straight game in which he independently decided the Lakers didn't stand a chance, and he played accordingly.

"I really like Nick Van Exel a lot," Jerry West said. "But I just think a change of scenery will be good for everyone. -- It's just a feeling internally sometimes you get that maybe you say the faces aren't good together."

Issel, meanwhile was glowing after his first trade, yet must not get ahead of himself.

"We can put a team on the Boor right now of Danny Fortson, Raef LaFrentz, Eric Williams, Nick Van Exel, and Bryant Stith," Issel said.

Right, so make your point.

"And we haven't spent a penny of our free-agent money," he added.

OK. It is a better lineup than the one Allan Bristow put on the floor, particularly if LaPhongo Ellis and Johnny Newman re-sign; better still if Dean Garrett plays bigger than last season and if a significant scorer (Cedric Ceballos?) is added to the mix. So what Issel really has is an All-Star point guard who can make the Nuggets a 30-win team overnight or set the franchise back even further than did the Antonio McDyess debacle

He has Nick. You say New Nick, we say Old Nick. You say Good Nick we say Bad Nick. Hell let us knew when he decides who he wants to be. Anything resembling a serviceable hybrid--minus the temper--will be the Nuggets' mother lode.

Dave D'Alessandro awes the NBA for the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger E-mail him at daved@sportingnews.com.

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