Trade Was a Bonanza for Bulls

The Lakers looked like a guy chasing a bus. Every time they got close, the bus speeded up. They should have just waved goodby.

Michael Jordan, as usual, played at his own level--which is about a thousand feet above everybody else. He just comes in for a landing and refueling now and then. He didn’t score many. The Bulls didn’t need many.

Of course, it was more than anyone else scored--28. But his teammates all had double figures. Normally, a Bull game looks like Jordan vs. the world--with four guys holding his coat.

But if his teammates comprise, as he puts it, “my supporting cast,” you could do worse than consider Bill Cartwright as his Gabby Hayes, or maybe even Hoss Cartwright.

You have no trouble picking out Bill Cartwright on the floor. First of all, he’s somewhere between 7 and 7 1/2 feet. He’s kind of slumped over. And he always has this worried look on his face. Bill Cartwright always looks as if he just had his wallet picked or just got a call that his house is on fire or the IRS wants him to call. Guys on Death Row seem to have a better outlook on life.

You figure maybe his feet hurt or his teeth ache. Guys sitting in dentists’ office don’t look any more pained.

Bill is only 33. Going on 60. He’s had a hard life.

A college star at the University of San Francisco, Bill had the rotten luck to be drafted by the New York Knicks in the days when they had a lousy team. I mean, Bill was part of a lousy supporting cast--and there was no Michael Jordan to play the guy in the white hat.

Being center on a New York Knick team that’s losing is about as much fun as going through Central Park after midnight in a tuxedo. Those aren’t fans in the Garden, they’re muggers.

Bill Cartwright got his worried look right there. After nine years in the pivot in New York on a bad team, you’d get a worried look, too. In fact, you might get the look of a guy in the electric chair.

Bill had a reasonable enough career. At first. He put in 21.7 points per game and 726 rebounds his first year, and 20.1 points per game and 613 rebounds the next. But he wasn’t Willis Reed and the New York fans, typically, took it personally.

When the Chicago Bulls traded Charles Oakley for Bill Cartwright in 1988, Cartwright should have been overjoyed. When you get out of the pivot in New York, any direction would be an improvement, including straight down.

But Cartwright has never looked overjoyed in his life. Going to the Bulls meant a career holding Jordan’s coat. They didn’t need players on that club, they just needed bodies.

Cartwright had broken his foot in 1985, which only increased the furrows in his brow.

But the Bulls needed someone to clog the middle for them and occasionally make the other guys work to keep up with Michael Jordan.

Cartwright always was an aggressive player. You could shave with his elbows. Now, he was a smart player, too.

He became a big part in Jordan’s becoming a well-rounded team. He threw in 12.4 and 11.4 points a game. He blunted fast breaks. He managed to do all this while looking like a guy standing in the rain waiting for a streetcar. You would think playing basketball was putting out oil well fires. Defusing bombs.

His free-throw technique almost sums up Bill Cartwright. He makes it as hard as building bridges. He looks like a guy on a torture rack. He raises the ball over his head and holds it in the air as if it were a baby he was trying to keep out of the reach of leaping wolves. How it ever gets to the backboard, never mind into the basket, is a mystery.

But Cartwright has found a home. And the Bulls--and Michael Jordan--are glad of it.

They gave him an unenviable task in this series--keep the bearded Yugoslav, Vlade Divac, out of the post and off-balance. Rotate off onto Sam Perkins. Get the rebounds and outlet them to Jordan.

It’s harder than it sounds. Divac has gotten 16, 16, 24 and 27 points. Perkins has gotten 22, 11, 25--and 3. Cartwright has weighed in with 36 points and 16 rebounds of his own.

The faithful sidekick is supposed to play it for laughs. Cartwright plays it for frowns. He stands, slumped in the posture of a man who expects the worst. Then he moves in like a cop busting up a crap game. The Lakers haven’t even been able to score 90 points in two games--and only a little more than 90 in the other two. Magic Johnson himself has referred to the Bull defense as “scary.” Sad old Bill is a big part of the scare.

He even had an unaccustomed role of peacemaker Sunday when Divac, punched in the eye, went looking for his tormentor, Horace Grant. Cartwright talked him out of it.

He is the “Old Folks” on the young Chicago roster. But he has played 127 minutes while his 10-years-younger replacements have played, 37 (Scott Williams) and 30 (Will Perdue), respectively.

The series--and the season--appears to be over. But don’t expect Cartwright to be doing cartwheels if it ends Wednesday. He will be the one standing in the middle of the floor looking as if he just heard Paris fell. Or wondering if he remembered to turn the water off in the bathtub when he left the room.