When Oklahoma State guard John Lucas III pulls up to take a jump shot Thursday night at Continental Airlines Arena, he will guide the ball with his left hand, shoot it with his right.
Thirty years ago, when John Lucas Jr. pulled up to take a jump shot for Maryland at Cole Field House, he would guide the ball with his right hand, shoot it with his left.
Mirror images, it seems. Lucas III is the point guard who drove the second-seeded Cowboys into their regional semifinal matchup with third-seeded Pittsburgh, the player about whom Coach Eddie Sutton said, "We would not be here today if not for John Lucas." Lucas Jr. was on some of Maryland's greatest teams, the point guard who guided Tom McMillen and Len Elmore to the East Region in 1973, who led the 1975 team back to that same point.
So just as any protege does, when Lucas III enters opposing arenas, he hears about his father, who went on to play 14 seasons in the NBA. It can be brutal. Yet he smiles at the references.
"I always tell him his name is a curse and a blessing," Lucas Jr. said. "Sometimes it helps him. Sometimes it hurts him."
Lucas III figured that out from a young age. In his family — from patriarch John Sr. to his son, the NBA star, down to his grandson, the Big 12 player of the year — there are, all parties say, no secrets. John III knew it from an early age, when he would be on the playground at school, and the taunts would come.
"Your dad's a crackhead," the kids would say. "You're a drug baby."
Lucas III fought back.
"You're not going to disrespect nobody in my family," he said. "That was just my mentality."
Yet his father's struggles with cocaine and alcohol were too well-publicized to avoid. Yet the TV, the newspapers, that's just how those other kids found out. John III knew because, when he was 3 and 4 and 5, he would watch his father stumble into the house, crawl into bed, shrinking away from life.
"I would be the one laying on my son's lap," Lucas Jr. said, "and he'd be telling me, 'Dad, I'll take care of you. I'll take care of you.' "
That's how their relationship developed, a small child somehow trying to care for his famous, struggling father. There were no lies. "Brutal honesty," is how Lucas Jr. puts it. He was what he was — an NBA player, an alcoholic, a father, a drug addict — and it had an effect on his kids, daughter Tarvia and sons John and Jai.
"When I was young, I knew what was going on, but I really didn't know what was going on," Lucas III said. "I was just like: 'Don't worry about it. I got you. . . .' It molded me into the man I am today, to tell you the truth. His struggles with drugs and alcohol [have] made me a stronger person."
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Yet this is not a story about some precocious, omniscient son who never needed — or received — help from his family. Eighteen years ago, John Lucas Jr. sobered up. He opened a rehabilitation center in Houston. He became a head coach in the NBA, first with San Antonio, then with Philadelphia, later with Cleveland.
It was after that last coaching stop — he was fired by the Cavaliers last winter — that he could truly help his son, then a guard at Baylor.
"It was a chance for him to know his father rather than by cell phone or television," said John Lucas Sr., for 24 years a high school principal in Durham, N.C. "Before, all of his time was given to his occupation."
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Last spring, Lucas Jr. welcomed his son home from Baylor, where he had averaged 13.3 points as a 5-foot-11 sophomore. Yet the father could tell something was wrong. Just as the son tried to figure out what was going on with his father back in those drug-addled days, the father went to work on propping up Lucas III.
"I saw a son that wasn't very happy — for whatever reason," Lucas Jr. said. "So we started investigating, looking at moving him to another school. And this was before things happened with Pat Dennehy."
The times before Patrick Dennehy seem eons ago in Waco, Tex. The former Baylor player was murdered in June, a murder to which teammate Carlton Dotson later confessed. The Bears program likely won't recover for years. Coach Dave Bliss later tried to paint Dennehy as a drug dealer, and wanted to enlist the help of the coaching staff and other players in creating that picture in order to cover up misdeeds in the basketball program. The experience scarred Lucas III more deeply, perhaps, than others.
"How could you not know [any] of this stuff was going on while you were on campus?" Lucas III said. "That's the scary thing. You put your trust in somebody, and they go out and say your teammate's a drug dealer, who's not even there to defend himself? And have another player lie?
"I gave this man my word that I would play my heart out for him, and then he goes back and does this. That really hurt me. That hurt me real bad."
Because the situation at Baylor was so extraordinary, the NCAA granted waivers that allowed players to transfer and not sit out a year, as regular rules dictate. His father immediately told him not to consider Maryland.
"He wanted me to have a name for myself," Lucas III said.
He chose Oklahoma State and made that name. Before he arrived on the Stillwater campus, he worked on his game with his father, who helped him understand how to better get his teammates involved. He played in Houston with NBA players such as Steve Francis, Damon Stoudamire and Cuttino Mobley.
"I didn't think he was very disciplined at Baylor," Sutton said. "He's turned into a pretty good defensive player. His shot selection has improved so much, and he understands [not to] be afraid to share the ball as a point guard. I think before he got here, he didn't always think about his other teammates as much as he should."
This season, he averaged 15.3 points, second on the team to senior guard Tony Allen, as well as 4.6 assists. He has scored in double figures in 20 of the Cowboys' last 21 games.
"I wouldn't trade him for any point guard in the world," Allen said.
Thursday, Lucas III will try to lead the Cowboys to within one game of the Final Four. From the stands, Lucas Jr. will cheer him on. Even with all their troubles, neither would trade their experiences for others.
"It gave me a toughness where if I get beat down, I'm always going to get back up because I know how it is to be on the bottom. I know how it feels to be put down," Lucas III said.
"My dad always said, 'It's the man who can come back from the whole situation and do bigger and better things — that's a man.' "