NBA Trends -- Double Cross

THE GENERATION X of basketball players is growing up with the move Tim Hardaway took to a new level in the 1990's: the lethal crossover dribble. While players in the '70s simply used the crossover to change directions, today's stars have mastered the art of beating defenders off the dribble.

Hours before game time, KeyArena is like a child waking from a nap. While people scurry about, readying the venue for showtime, NBA players also are in a state of preparation, drilling with assistant coaches. One player, Tracy McGrady of the Toronto Raptors, isn't even a full year out of high school.

Sonic Coach George Karl, still dressed in a sweat suit, drinks in the scene. He glances at the Raptors' end of the court and shakes his head.

"This is how much the game is changing," Karl says. "Tracy McGrady is down there practicing his crossover."

There is an edge of resignation in Karl's voice. He knows it can't be stopped. The clarion call for Generation X's move of choice was a night last season in Philadelphia, when Allen Iverson dribbled high to his left, jabbed that way, getting Michael Jordan to lean, then swept the ball to his right, stepped past the flailing Jordan and pulled up for a free-throw line jump shot.

It'll be in someone's NBA history book: The night Iverson crossed Jordan.

You know it's the flavor of the month, year and next millennium because it already has become a verb. Being "crossed" in

the '90s has little to do with betrayal. It's about being canceled out as a defender by a ballhandler who got you to bite left, then switched right and left you like the last bus stop.

"Basically we've all grown up with it," says Kobe Bryant, the Lakers' 19-year-old prodigy. "That was the move. It's a new generation thing, I guess."

The pervasiveness of the crossover is far more apparent at lower levels of basketball, where the move is the staple of high-school layup lines, and voices amid the din of college crowds plead, "Cross him! Cross him!" But basketball players, from grade school on up, are as usual taking their cue from the NBA.

As newfangled as it seems, the crossover has roots in recent NBA history. The '70s ushered in the era of the shake-and-bakers - jittering head, hip and shoulder fakes in combination with changes in direction. In old-school parlance, you "broke someone's ankles," or "shook" him, when you badly faked out a defender.

There were other, less prolific forms of ankle-breaking, of course. Earl Monroe had his defense-defying spin moves. Then there was Archie Clark and Chet Walker and their crude precursor to today's crossover.

For Clark and Walker, crossing was switching directions by changing the dribble from one hand to the other. Walker, who played in Chicago, begat Isiah Thomas, a Windy City native who mesmerized the NBA with his rapid-fire ballhandling ability. Watching carefully as he came up in Chicago's inner city was a brash hoopaholic named Tim Hardaway.

"Isiah was my idol," Hardaway says. "I just liked the way he played and carried himself on the court, and how he tricked people and did his thing out there."

Everywhere Hardaway went, so did a basketball. Eventually he ended up at the University of Texas-El Paso, where he saw a Syracuse guard named Pearl Washington beat a defender off the dribble by switching from one hand to the other. Hardaway took the move further, dribbling between his legs for a misdirection fake, then quickly crossing the dribble over to his other hand.

Thus was born the UTEP two-step.

At the height of his powers, Hardaway could two-step defenders on the dead run. His move froze defenses so solidly he could walk unabated into the lane for layups. Hardaway's crossover was so lethal that Magic Johnson once described it as "bang, bang, you're dead."

It inspired a generation of basketballers.

"Tim Hardaway was the one who put the crossover into my head," says Minnesota's Stephon Marbury, who is considered among the best of Hardaway's crossing heirs. "Anyone who says differently is lying."

Now Marbury, Iverson and the rest have transformed Hardaway's two-step into the basketball equivalent of the atomic bomb.

"They're nasty nowadays," says Billy McKinney, the Sonics' vice president of operations who played seven NBA seasons, starting in 1978. "It's such an awesome and effective move, you wonder how it couldn't have been part of the game 10 to 15 years ago."

While Hardaway's cross is whap, whap, short and sweet, his successors have turned it into a multilayered maneuver. First comes the hard dribble, often same hand to same hand, out wide. That's followed with a jab step to that direction. When the defender follows, the dribble is whipped, as low as possible, to the other hand. On that side, the leg is shifted back, offering a launching pad for the explosive first step to the basket.

And it keeps evolving. Iverson's is wide, with a big hesitation that invites defenders to bite, and often is used to create a shot. Marbury's was like Iverson's, but the past year he has shortened the move to better create penetration. Bryant's is a long, deliberate move that caters to his build.

The move even has gained old-school converts, most notably Jordan, who usually crosses into a pull-up jump shot. And, as opposed to 360-degree jams, behind-the-back passes and the like, the crossover has a good chance of growing in popularity because it isn't exactly being discouraged by coaches.

Teams, with Seattle at the forefront, have become so adept at defending screens, double-teaming the post and patrolling passing lanes, one of the most effective ways to attack a defense is with the dribble. Penetration against modern defenses often results in baskets or dishes to wide-open shooters. Beating, or breaking down, a defender out front is the first step, and that's where the various moves come into play.

"If you have a good crossover move, you don't need anything else," Portland Coach Mike Dunleavy says. "It lets you break someone down in either direction. That's what it all comes down to, being able to go both ways and how you get there. A great crossover move allows you to do that in the quickest way. It's the cleanest move."

Defenders are coached to "turn" ballhandlers, making them turn their backs and thus lose vision of the court and teammates. The crossover helps counteract that tactic. Some believe, however, that crossing encourages the dangerous tendency of holding the dribble in front of quick-handed defenders.

McKinney admits to sitting in the stands and trying to imagine how he'd defend the crossover. It's not an easy puzzle, he says. Two of the league's best on-ball defenders, the Suns' Jason Kidd and the Sonics' Gary Payton, preach patience.

"You can't go for the first fake," Kidd says. "If you lean that way, they've really got you at their mercy."

Payton is not an especially big fan of the crossover move. "I think it's easier to defend," says the NBA's defensive player of the year in 1996. "You've just got to stand there. If you don't go for that first fake, they ain't got nothing."

Because he spends a lot of time along the baseline and posting up smaller guards, Payton understandably is a proponent of Monroe-like spin moves. Many coaches discourage overusing spin moves because they cause the practitioner to lose vision of teammates and the basket. Payton says the spin move has an advantage many don't consider.

"It's a move that takes you closer to the basket," he points out. "Even if a guy beats you on a crossover, where does it get him? He's still got to get around you. If I beat you on a spin move, I'm right at the basket at the end of it."

The next generation of point guards will say Payton is living in the past. They say the crossover is the way to go. Besides the support of most coaches, the move has an implicit endorsement from the NBA, which some say looks the other way as players palm the ball and travel to employ their crossover moves.

Dunleavy says the crossover wasn't as prevalent when he played because "you couldn't carry the ball the way they can now. I think that's one of the reasons why it's more in vogue today."

It could be. The NBA sent some mixed signals last season. Early on, it was reported that the league circulated a memo urging officials to crack down on Iverson's crossover, which seemed to have the most blatantly illegal components.

"There was never a memo about Allen Iverson, regardless of what was reported," says Rod Thorn, the NBA's vice president of operations. "I think it was something put out by Reebok to help sell shoes."

Thorn concedes there was talk during training camp of tightening up against rampant palming. But he says the discussion took place before Iverson unleashed his moves on the NBA. The scrutiny has since eased and the league seems to have embraced the crossover move.

"It's fair to say that the rules are more liberal in . . . palming the ball in 1998 than (they were) in 1988," Thorn says. "If you do something that gives you a special advantage, we're not going to allow something like that. What's happened is the players have evolved. They are more athletic. They do things people before them couldn't. What was apropos in the '50s is not thought of in the same way in the '70s, '80s and now in the '90s.

"They used to say Elgin Baylor walked all over the place, that Oscar (Robertson) palmed the ball, that Jerry West took an extra step and a half. Earl Monroe had an incredible spin move that people said was a walk. The same stuff talked about today was talked about in the '60s."

And like the '60s, this decade has brought revolutionary change. The crossover is gaining on the dunk as the league's signature move. So much so that the NBA logo, depicting Jerry West leaning with the ball coming off his hand, might be due for an overhaul.

The way things are headed, its replacement could be a crouching Tim Hardaway, the ball passing from one hand to the other. ------------------------------- Best in the business

1. Tim Hardaway, Heat: The one on which all others are based. "Tim is the king," Jason Kidd says. His is quicker and more compact than the contemporary versions.

2. Stephon Marbury, Timberwolves: The second-year point guard is considered by many as Hardaway's crossover heir apparent. His signature is the little hop that propels him into the move.

3. Allen Iverson, Sixers: The self-proclaimed new king, his supposedly outlawed variation mostly goes left to right and involves a hesitation that prompts accusations of palming the ball.

4. Kobe Bryant, Lakers: His is in the mold of Jordan and Hill, two other small-forward-types who have long, slow-developing crosses. "It's the way we're built," Bryant says.

5. Jason Kidd, Suns: His doesn't get as much acclaim because Kidd crosses mainly to get into the lane and dish. But he gets his main endorsement for the king himself, Hardaway.

Next: Larry Hughes, St. Louis. This college sophomore is considered Kobe-like because of his versatility. "He handles the ball well enough, I can see him coming with the next big one," the Sonics' Billy McKinney says.

Honorable mention: Michael Jordan, Bulls; Grant Hill, Pistons; Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Kings.