Lone Star Whoops for Hoops

By Tom Callahan

Something is happening to the state of Texas and the state of basketball, once as compatible as cattlemen and sheepmen in the West. Next to "Remember the Alamo," the most threadbare sampler this side of the Pecos must be retired College Publicist Jones Ramsey's familiar line, "There're only two sports in Texas--football and spring football." Former University of Texas Basketball Coach Abe Lemons laments, "You can lay a football down in a parking lot and draw a crowd," but college jump shooters have been a rougher sell in the Lone Star State. Historically, pro basketball has been no bonanza either. One night in 1973, the Dallas Chaparrals of the American Basketball Association counted 130 paying customers and moved to San Antonio.

So what is all this drumming and dribbling coming out of Dallas now? A week ago, the National Basketball Association staged its All-Star festivities at Reunion Arena, where come March the National Collegiate Athletic Association will house its Final Four tournament. To complete the mood of a basketball world slightly out of whack, the N.B.A.'s annual slam-dunk preliminary was won by an undersize Texan, 5-ft. 7-in. Atlanta guard Spud Webb. Meanwhile, the long-range shooting medal went to a 6-ft. 9 1/2-in. forward, Boston's Larry Bird. The game that followed was overpopulated with seven-footers, but the most valuable player happened to be 6-ft. 1-in. Sprite Isiah Thomas of Detroit. Plainly pro basketball has turned itself upside down.

Five years ago, 18 of 23 franchises confessed to losing money; now 15 to 18 anticipate a profit. Beyond just avoiding the labor strife of football and baseball, the N.B.A. seemed to draw inspiration from both quarrels. Whereas football players struck over a percentage of receipts that never materialized, basketball players are now working for a fixed 53% of the league's gross revenues. Attendance is up 6% over last year's record 10.5 million, and as business has increased, so has the athletes' take. The maximum payroll has compelled sounder salary judgment, and the talk of folding or merging a half a dozen teams has been stilled.

Not just profitability, but palatability is on the rise. While baseball wrings its hands in search of a drug policy amenable to both sides, the basketball players and owners have calmly installed a straightforward plan providing for education, rehabilitation and punishment. The first time a player comes forward with a heroin or cocaine problem, he is suspended with pay, treated at the team's expense and reactivated. The second time, he is suspended without pay; the third time, banned for a minimum of two years and possibly for life. John Drew of the Utah Jazz has achieved the last plateau; New Jersey's Micheal Ray Richardson and Chicago's Quintin Dailey teeter on the edge. Moreover, an independent narcotics expert carries both the owners' and the players' license to order spot checks.

Every team has gained from the league's fresh stability, but the clearest winner is a surprise. Twenty-seven home dates into this season, the six-year- old, third-place Dallas Mavericks are averaging 16,694 customers, shading the champion Los Angeles Lakers (16,571) as the biggest draw in the N.B.A. The Mavs are the hobby of a Stetsoned millionaire named Donald Carter, 52, whose mother made their money in living-room gewgaws, and whose long-standing affection for the sport is suggested by a wallet photo he carries of his wife wearing No. 37 on her old school pinafore. The marketer of the franchise is Norm Sonju, who learned how not to do it in Buffalo, and the coach of the team is Dick Motta, who presided over previous successes in Chicago and Washington. For stars, Motta makes do with Mark Aguirre and Rolando Blackman.

Since almost everything in Dallas is charted against the National Football League's Cowboys, plotters of the Mavericks' curve note that the N.B.A.'s arrival nearly coincided with Quarterback Roger Staubach's departure. As Replacement Danny White began to lose The Big One, in the pecking order of the city disappointing favorites gave ground to surprising underdogs, and loud emotions started to overtake cool indifference. Suddenly Texas became basketball territory. Eventually the Mavericks may be required to win a championship, but for now Dallas would be satisfied with becoming the fourth team in league history to improve its record each season for five years.

Something of a maverick effect appears to be spreading out across the state and maybe even trickling down to the colleges. As hosts to Texas A&M and Texas Christian last weekend, the University of Texas and Southern Methodist did their biggest single day's business in years. In Austin, as many as 11,000 spectators have packed women's games at U.T., where the level of enthusiasm has to have contributed to the fact that the Lady Longhorns are 111 games between conference losses. In San Antonio, the old Chaparrals are alive and well as the Spurs. Once among the N.B.A.'s most apathetic regions, Houston has cheered the Rockets so lustily that in 28 home games they have been moved to win 26. Perhaps the most promising player in the league resides in Houston, the heir to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, that beautiful Nigerian Akeem Olajuwon.

In 1968 UCLA and the University of Houston filled the Astrodome for a basketball game, just about the only pretext that weary barn has anymore for calling itself "the eighth wonder of the world." That was more than ten times the Cougars' customary audience, and so what figured to be a mystery for the ages was: Where did Texas find 52,000 basketball fans? But now the question is: How did it become the basketball capital of the world?