Teagle Gives Lakers a New Wave

HONOLULU —  In a pastel-hued hotel room high above Waikiki, Terry Teagle munches a hamburger. A year ago, he was stuck in a stadium under jet planes descending into Oakland International Airport, but now his view stretches from Diamond Head to paradise. He’s wide-eyed. He’s in awe.

He’s a weapon. In this slight body, beneath this soft-spoken demeanor, a bomb set for opening day ticks inexorably. He offers no hint of it, however. He doesn’t herald his arrival like World B. (nee Lloyd) Free, nor does he have a catchy nickname like the Microwave. But what those masters of disaster have, this 6-foot-5 guard possesses, too.

Ask the Lakers.

“I think,” Byron Scott says, “I’ve guarded Terry on a couple of occasions where he had hit six, seven (shots) in a row--it was like one of those coach’s decisions: ‘OK, Byron, you got him.’

“You just can’t do anything about it. He has a great turnaround fallaway jumper. I’ve seen guys 6-8, 6-9 who couldn’t block it. He has great jumping ability. He gets great lift off his jump shot and he falls back and he has the ball behind his head, almost. He has a World B. Free-type shot.”

Says Magic Johnson: “There’s nothing you can do. Nobody. Big men, little men, anybody. He just gets unconscious.

“I remember a lot of times when we thought we had him, but he was going so good, he just fell away. We’d foul him. Once he was in a groove, it didn’t matter. You could foul him, smack him. hit him. I mean, he’s a Vinny Johnson-unknown, that’s what he is.”

Magic Johnson’s enthusiasm is real. He gave back $100,000 of his $3.1-million salary so the Lakers could get enough room under the salary cap to deal for Teagle. They then sent next year’s No. 1 draft choice to the Golden State Warriors and landed a fast gun.

How did a 30-year-old, mostly overlooked, twice-waived, ex-survivor of the Continental Basketball Assn., Warrior reserve acquire such value?

One jump shot at a time.

A No. 1 pick out of Baylor in 1982, Teagle was part of the pre-Ralph Sampson/Akeem Olajuwon Houston Rockets, the pre-championship Detroit Pistons and the pre-respectability Warriors. He ran into coaching changes--Del Harris drafted him for the Rockets, Bill Fitch cut him the next season--and quick auditions--he played five minutes in Detroit, took two shots, made one and was cut.

He was part of the pre-luxury CBA, too. Cut by the Pistons in ‘84, he played a half-season with the Detroit Spirits, where dues were paid in discomfort.

“Then it was a bus league,” Teagle says. “Now it’s, like, glamorous for those guys because they get to fly. We would have to take nine-hour van trips--to Cincinnati, to Wisconsin, in the snow. It was difficult. It was like culture shock.

“But that was my way of getting back in the (NBA). If I wasn’t going to pursue my dream, I would have given it up after I was released from Houston. But I knew I was good enough to play in this league.”

Lots of young men say that, but Teagle was right. Signed by the Warriors in ‘85, he got into 19 games, averaged 9.1 points, shot 54% and found a home.

If a funny one. In ‘88, Don Nelson arrived to assume the wreckage of a 20-62 ruin and began his tiny-lineup experiment that became a one-season sensation, though it lasted two seasons.

Guess which 195-pounder began finding himself lining up against power forwards and centers? Teagle said he wanted to round out his game. Nelson took him at his word.

Last season against Utah, Teagle spent an entire game guarding Mark Eaton or Karl Malone--and scored a career-high 44 points.

“Their thing is, it’s a man’s game in that hole,” Teagle says. “You can’t back down. I was small and I was outsized every night, but hey, that’s the nature of the business. You’re not going to play someone your size every night.

“You’ve got to look at Don Nelson’s philosophy. We didn’t have a lot of big people. You couldn’t forfeit the games. You had to play with somebody.”

In their first season together, Nelson abruptly benched Teagle and kept him on the sidelines for 13 games. A year later, Nelson traded him, even running the risk of sending him to a power within his own division. Laker Coach Mike Dunleavy, a Nelson disciple, says the Warriors were simply backlogged with 6-5 players (Chris Mullin, Mitch Richmond, Sarunas Marciulionis) and eager to get another No. 1 pick.

“When Nellie talked to me after the deal, he said, ‘You’re going to love him. He’s your type of guy,” Dunleavy says. “He’s going to play real hard and he can score.’ ”

Just what the Lakers needed: A gunslinger emerges from a career in the shadows, and they have a place in their posse just for him.

Laker Notes

The Lakers hired Bill Sharman, former coach and general manager, as a special consultant. Sharman served as club president until retiring in 1988.