Imagine you’re James Worthy in the summer of 1986. A year earlier, you helped the Showtime Lakers beat the Boston Celtics in the Finals for the first time. You expect to spend your career in Los Angeles. Then you turn on the TV.

That’s how Worthy learned the Lakers were close to trading him to the Dallas Mavericks.

“I’m just, you know, chilling on the couch and they said, ‘It appears that the Dallas Mavericks is offering a trade to the Los Angeles Lakers: James Worthy for Mark Aguirre and Roy Tarpley and draft pick.'” Worthy recalled on Byron Scott’s Fast Break.

The Lakers were coming off a loss to the Houston Rockets in the 1986 Western Conference finals, decided by Ralph Sampson’s buzzer-beater. Worthy, still early in his career, said no one from the team had warned him.

“At least they could have called me,” he said. “It’s my first time, you know, experiencing that trade talk.”

When a reporter called him that night, Worthy “went off.” The reporter also told him that Magic Johnson had signed off on the deal. Worthy said that wasn’t true, and that Johnson had insisted Dallas would have to give up more.

Jeff Pearlman’s book Showtime tells it differently, reporting that Johnson, a close friend of Aguirre’s, pushed owner Dr. Jerry Buss to make the deal.

That very anger led Worthy to challenge the team’s management. He was then called into Buss’ office.

“Dr. Buss called me in. He says, ‘I understand that you are upset, you know, it’s part of the business,'” Worthy said. “He took a drag of that cigarette, put it down. He said, he looked right at me. He says, ‘But when you say management, that’s me.'”

However, Worthy was still angry after that conversation.

“I was like, man, I don’t know who they going to put on me, but I’mma bust somebody’s a** if they trade me to Dallas,” he added later on. “So, that I think that’s the conversation.”

One of the players the Mavericks were hoping to offer for Worthy was Roy Tarpley. In his conversation on Byron Scott’s Fast Break, Worthy explained that if Tarpley had had a more “stable” life, the trade could have made sense for everyone.

However, Tarpley was extremely embroiled in personal issues that ranged from substance abuse to neglecting his responsibilities to the Mavericks. His career had been disrupted by such issues multiple times. In 1987, he entered rehab after willingly disclosing struggles with alcohol.

Two years later, he was suspended for drunk driving, and it all went crashing down in 1991 when the NBA banned him after he refused to take a required drug test.

Worthy argued that people often forget about Roy Tarpley, but “he was an amazing player,” who could have been a consideration for the Lakers

Ultimately, the trade did not go down. According to Worthy, Lakers general manager Jerry West stepped in.

“Jerry West was very adamant about that trade and went and talked to Dr. Buss,” Worthy said.

Worthy stayed with the Lakers for his entire 12-season career. They won back-to-back championships in 1987 and 1988, beating the Celtics and Pistons, respectively.

He was also named the 1988 Finals MVP. Lakers managed to beat Dallas in the 1988 Western Conference Finals. Now, Worthy is a Hall of Famer and a legend of the game.

The post “I’mma Bust Somebody’s A**”: James Worthy Recalls Tense Meeting With Dr. Buss After Lakers Nearly Traded Him to Dallas appeared first on EssentiallySports. Add EssentiallySports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.