Ewing Gets Mad, and Gets Results

When the New York Knicks won the league lottery for the draft rights to Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing, a lot of observers were derisive. “What did you think they were going to do, let Patrick Ewing go to Indiana?” they asked scornfully.

The league needs New York, goes the refrain. Basketball has to have a top team in Madison Square Garden. It’s all very nice to have these Indiana Pacers and Dallas Mavericks and what-nots filling out the dance cards but New York is where the pocketbook is. If you can make it there, you make it anywhere, as the song says. And that’s the league attitude.

The theory goes, the league would be stupid to let a drawing card like Ewing go out to one of those movable franchises. They had made the mistake of letting Kareem Abdul-Jabbar languish in Milwaukee all those years. It was like putting the Queen Mary in a mud puddle. Stars play the Palace, not the sticks.

When New York’s general manager, Dave DeBusschere, pounded his hand down on the drafting table in great glee when he got Ewing, most people thought he was play-acting. The whole thing seemed to be a charade from start to finish.

By custom, the Indiana Pacers and the Golden State Warriors, with the worst records in the game, should have had first shot at Ewing. By ordaining a seven-team draw for his services, it appeared that the NBA was already trying to distance Ewing from the ribbon clerks.

For one thing, not many franchises could afford Patrick Ewing. The Knicks could have bought a railroad for what he cost them--$17 million in salary over six years, a figure that could escalate to $22 million, an option for four more years and an interest-free $5 million loan. A 10-year package of more than $31 million. The House of Rothschild should have that cash flow.

New York which had bought Manhattan Island for $24 worth of beads seemed about to sell it back for a bunch of baskets. Or personal fouls.

When the season started, Patrick Ewing was like a runaway truck. He amassed 17 personal fouls and 2 technicals in his first three games. He got thrown out for cursing the referee and was involved in three fights. The Knicks were 0 and 8.

When the season started, Business Week magazine, no less, had published a story with Ewing on the cover and a banner line “Thanks, Pat.” The story line: “Pro basketball was nearly bankrupt four year ago. Now it’s big business--and getting bigger.”

In New York, the improvement was not that noticeable. The fans began to bet not on how many buckets Patrick Ewing would get but how many rights he would throw, how soon he would foul out--or get thrown out.

“Did you hear that Patrick Ewing changed his name?” the gag went.

“Yeah? To what?”

“To Jack Dempsey.”

Others took to calling him Sugar Ray Ewing. The Manassa Mauler.

The Knicks themselves were less a team than a rumble. Even on their good nights they looked like the Golden Gloves semis. All their finesse players were hobbled with injuries and Ewing, hardly St. Patrick himself, was surrounded by refugees from European-circuit basketball, fourth-round draft picks and one guy who actually missed the backboard on a free throw.

It was no wonder Ewing wanted to punch somebody. His forehead looked like storm front. He began to feel like the ball in bumper pool. Despite his awesome configuration--7 feet 2 inches and 250 pounds--the word went out that the way to play Patrick Ewing was to antagonize him, get him in a mood to climb the Empire State Building and swat airplanes. With luck you could get him to foul out. At worst, you could have him on the bench most of the game.

When Ewing came to the Forum to play the Lakers this week, the elements were ripe for an eruption. The Knicks were the only team in pro basketball averaging fewer than 100 points a game. They had been held under 100 points 26 times.

They really didn’t need the basketball so much as they needed blackjacks. Patrick Ewing had fouled out six times and had 164 personal fouls for the season.

In the game that followed, the Lakers practiced the normal discreet mayhem calculated to get the Mount St. Helens of basketball to blow his top. A little shove here, an elbow there, a bump under the basket, a finger in the eye. Whenever Ewing struck back, a whistle shrilled. He got five fouls so quickly he spent exactly half the game (24 minutes) on the bench.

When he was in it, he wasn’t much more effective. At one point, he had missed 12 straight shots. He had a 1-for-9 half and was 2 for 16 down the stretch and within one of fouling out.

All the conditions were ripe for Patrick Aloysius Ewing to start hitting people, or eating the arena.

Instead, journalists sneaking a look over there found him sitting cheerily on the bench, smiling, laughing, waving his arms happily as his fellow muscle men were effectively keeping the Lakers off-balance and away from their fast-break game in a typical Knick slowdown.

With only a minute or so to go, Ewing came off the bench and made a key 15-foot jumper that put the game out of reach.

In the dressing room later, Patrick Ewing did not look like a man who had just played probably the worst game of his entire life--a nine-point night for a man averaging 21.5. He even cheerfully admitted to a bold sportscaster that it probably was the worst game-- personally.

“This is not a matchup between Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Patrick Ewing,” he pointed out. “This is between the New York Knicks and the L.A. Lakers. How did that come out?”

Someone wanted to know if he wasn’t angry at some of the foul calls.

“I don’t think they give calls to first-year players they give to players who have been around the league,” he said with a smile. “I think when they get to know me and I get to know them, the fouls will decrease.”

This was hardly the mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-anymore Patrick Ewing of legend.

In a way, this one is more frightening. As the character in an old Western once said: “Be ware the guy who smiles when he says he’ll kill you. He just may do it.”