Before Current Reign Of NBA Clowns, Bullies Like X-Man Served Purpose

Back before Dennis Rodman, NBA toughs were more than just punks. They actually served a useful purpose. They were policemen and, in a large way, they rid the game of the rampant crime that has, in their absence, retaken a foothold in basketball.

Back in the day of Gus Johnson and Paul Silas, dissing youngsters such as Allen Iverson would find themselves in emergency rooms. ChromaDome Rodman would be replacing his scalp, not coloring it. And if Shawn Kemp tried swinging from the rim after a slam, he himself would be slammed.

That's what Wilt Chamberlain meant recently when he said Michael Jordan and his airborne, lane-piercing ways wouldn't have had it so easy during his era. There was an implied decorum in the NBA. A certain amount of flashiness was tolerated, but for the most part players didn't show up their opponents, they just played.

Some elements of the old days remain. Charles Oakley in New York is one. Xavier McDaniel in New Jersey is another.

Of the two, McDaniel really is a bridge player, one who taps both into yesteryear's playground sensibilities and today's MTV, fast-forward, where's- mine generation. Though his ethics often were pure, you see, his hair-trigger temper on occasion betrayed him.

I have a poster hanging in my office at home that reminds me of this every day. It is one of the great sports photographs of our day, by the Times' own Harley Soltes. It captures McDaniel, in a blind rage, trying to choke the bejeebers out of Wes Matthews, then a Laker. Matthews' eyes are bulging from the throttling. Even more jarring is the look of horror on the faces of people at the scorer's table and in the stands.

That night, McDaniel just lost it. Most nights, he kept it. Most nights, he was an old-school policeman.

And he played it up, though not the way ChromaDome does.

He had the perfect moniker - the X-Man. And he was among the first to shave his head, giving him that villainous mien. He kept his fingernails long, the better to rake an opponent's back and discourage him from blocking out around the boards.

Though he was wiry at best, no one wanted to mess with the X-Man.

McDaniel didn't front on people. If you squared with him, you'd better be prepared to throw down because he was. That guaranteed action actually served more as a deterrent than invitation to violence.

Recently, McDaniel tangled with Washington's Juwan Howard and somehow ended up putting the throat squeeze on the Bullet forward. Washington Coach Bernie Bickerstaff, who ushered McDaniel into the NBA, was heard to tell Howard, "Don't mess with that guy."

People usually don't.

"I still won't back down from a (expletive)," McDaniel said last week, his language still as colorful as that employed by anyone in the NBA.

He used to love to talk about playing against a woman friend at a playground in his hometown, Columbia, S.C. McDaniel would cut her no slack. He would pound her into the pavement, woman or no woman.

And he wasn't joking. I used to play short games of one-on-one with him after practice and he would beat me up as if I were James Worthy.

"Don't take it personal," he once told me after a particularly physical encounter. "I don't let up for anybody."

It wasn't like the X-Man to prey on the weaklings of basketball - the Joe Wolfs and Eugene Amoses - the way ChromaDome does.

While McDaniel was making his way back home - he has a five-bedroom house in Lakeridge - for a Friday game against the Sonics, I wondered if anyone still recalled the X-Man legend. He played last season in Greece, where he made more than $1 million in salary. And though he has been starting for the Nets, and his long-troublesome knees have been sound, his best days clearly are behind him.

Then something happened at the end of the Nets' loss in Portland. McDaniel squared off with Blazer forward Gary Trent, one of the latest wave of NBA granite bodies. Not much came of the clash, but it was enough to spark discussion in the locker rooms afterward.

"My boy can take care of himself," the Blazers' Kenny Anderson said of his teammate, Trent. "But the X-Man, he's got the experience in these things. It's tough to bet against him."

It's too bad that we ever have to, especially when the alternative has become clowns like ChromaDome.