Sean Highkin: Damian Lillard, asked to name an underrated player from his childhood: Nick Van Exel. “He was cold.”
Nick Van Exel Rumors
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Nick Van Exel
Position: -
Born: 11/27/71
Height: 6-1 / 1.85
Weight:195 lbs. / 88.5 kg.
Earnings: $74,408,867 ($125,819,253*)
Born: 11/27/71
Height: 6-1 / 1.85
Weight:195 lbs. / 88.5 kg.
Earnings: $74,408,867 ($125,819,253*)
Nick Van Exel, another one of Kobe’s old teammates on the Lakers, also chimed in as he dropped a truth bomb on one of the Black Mamba’s deepest and darkest Michael Jordan secrets: “Everything that MJ did Kobe did like the chewing of the gum, the walking, the mocves, the footwork,” Van Exel said. “I used have VHS tapes back in the day full of highlights of Michael Jordan. Kobe asked borrow them and I have never seen those tapes again. He would just laugh. ‘No, motherf–ker I want my tapes.’”
Chris Kirschner: Hawks Summer League roster includes Sharife Cooper, AJ Griffin and Tyrese Martin. Nick Van Exel is the head coach pic.twitter.com/RBRsancL3I
It’s because during the 1998 Western Conference finals, the Lakers—then built around a young Shaquille O’Neal (26) and an even younger Kobe Bryant (19)—were, for the second straight spring, getting absolutely destroyed by the Jazz, a veteran-laden powerhouse led by Karl Malone and John Stockton. The Lakers were flashier and more talented, with Van Exel, Eddie Jones, Robert Horry, Rick Fox and Derek Fisher flanking O’Neal and Bryant. But the Jazz were more mature and methodical and ultimately overpowering. “We were young,” Van Exel says. “We had guys that wanted to get their points and do their thing, as opposed to going out there and winning as a group.”
Nick Van Exel wants this clear: He never quit on his team, never meant to imply it and never meant to offend anyone. He surely never intended to launch a meme—mostly because, well, no one in 1998 knew what a “meme” was when Van Exel blurted out his wry rallying cry: “One, two, three … Cancun!” “It just popped in my head,” Van Exel says now, chuckling over this odd little origin story. “It wasn’t like it was scripted.”
