Big of Build, Sleight of Hand

I hate to be the one to fink on him, but the Lakers are harboring a world-class thief in their lineup.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, he’s not Willie Sutton or a stickup man or a cat burglar. He doesn’t have a marked deck or his own dice. The law looks the other way at what he does. You might say he has a license to steal.

He steals basketballs, is what he does. Not watches or rings, only basketballs. He has stolen millions of dollars worth, which is to say that’s what he gets paid for his on-court larceny.

Naturally, he gives his name as Jones. You didn’t think he was going to give his real name to the authorities, did you?

But I jest. He’s one of the Jones boys, all right, although his real handle, given how he makes his living, could be Jesse James. He’s Eddie Jones, and if he did what he does on the basketball court anywhere else, his picture would be in every post office in the land.

He doesn’t deal in strong-arm robbery--although if that’s the only way he can get the basketball, he will--but leans more to being a pickpocket or a con artist.

Oh, he can lie in wait like a guy in the bushes at Central Park on the lookout for a careless guy with a gold Rolex, but his prey usually consists of young players, rookies, preferably. “All they see is the basket,� he laughs.

Young players are like small-town guys at an Elks convention, Jones grins. Just begging to be fleeced.

Jones doesn’t depend on the luck of the draw, he singles out his victims by studying tapes of enemy players to see who’s a prime candidate for a stickup. Eddie is like a yegg sandpapering his fingertips to crack a safe when he spots one of those coming.

There are times when Jones looks as if he were going straight. The other night against Houston, for example, he stole only one ball. But the Lakers kept the second string on the floor much of the night and Eddie played only 28 minutes.

Eddie steals at the rate of 2.36 a game. At least, that’s what he did last season. To give you an idea how good (bad?) that is, the career record--by a thief named Alvin Robertson--is 2.71. Robertson should have played in a mask too. He also holds the record for thefts in a season, 301.

Jones picked up his 500th steal the other night against Minnesota. And his 56 this season make him fourth in the league. The leader is Brevin Knight of the Cleveland Cavaliers with 69, but he is only 5 feet 10. That’s not fair. He’s almost invisible. Jones is a highly visible 6 feet 6.

Steals that result in baskets should count double, Jones believes, because they also take potential points from the opposition. Jones had 189 steals last season, and since he turns more than 60% of his steals into scores, he would say his 1,374 points should have been considerably higher.

The league didn’t keep steal statistics till the 1973-74 season. Before that, it merely assessed the victim a “turnover,� basketball’s equivalent of baseball’s error.

The registered Robin Hood or Prince of Thieves in this, so to speak, underhanded business is either Atlanta’s Mookie Blaylock, last year’s top crook with 212 steals, or Utah’s John Stockton, who began this season with the all-time lead, 2,531 steals. That’s Babe Ruth stuff, 221 more than his closest pursuer, Maurice Cheeks, who has reformed, i.e., retired.

Michael Jordan, as you might expect, is high on the ladder of this rogues’ gallery, third on the all-time list with 2,210 thefts. But some think Jordan doesn’t really steal the ball. The ball goes looking for him. “Michael’s patient,� concedes Jones, proving I guess, there’s honor among thieves.

But Jones doesn’t want to be counted out. His grandest heist was in Philadelphia last season when he was credited with eight in a game.

“It was 11,� he claims. “Ask [broadcaster] Chick Hearn. I made 11.�

It’s an important distinction. The most steals in a game are 11. By someone named Larry Kenon for San Antonio at Kansas City in 1976.

It’s a matter of pride. A man wants to get credit for his misdeeds. I mean, Brink’s robbers would be insulted if you said they made off with only $700,000 instead of a million. Willie Sutton would want every bank he ever knocked over to be included in his resume, wouldn’t he?

John Lardner once said of a ballplayer thrown out at second, “There was larceny in his heart but his feet were honest.� There are many guys in the NBA who wish they could turn to a life of crime on the basketball court but their hands are honest. But not Jones’. When it comes to grand theft basketball, he’s got a rap sheet as long as your arm. He’s the Lakers’ Man of Steal. If you’re trying to get a basketball by him, you need insurance. Either that or an armored truck.