Maxwell Officially Becomes a Clipper in Deal for Walton

Cedric Maxwell became a Clipper Friday, officially and finally, and was so relieved the deal sending Bill Walton to the Celtics had gone through that he was almost speechless. Almost.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Maxwell, just before he recovered enough to talk almost non-stop for 20 minutes.

“I felt like it was going to get done all along, but I was just tired of people asking me what team I played for. I knew I was going to get paid, I just didn’t know who was going to pay me.”

The Clippers have that honor. In a trade that took nearly all summer to complete, from mid-June until past Labor Day, the Clippers obtained Maxwell and a first-round draft choice from Boston for Walton, the often brilliant but other times injured center, who wanted to play just about anywhere, as long as it wasn’t in Cleveland or with the Clippers.

Maxwell had been waiting in his hotel room near the airport since Tuesday for the trade to be completed. He was so sure it wasn’t going to happen until next week that he had booked a flight for Friday afternoon to Las Vegas to play blackjack. Maxwell wound up taking a night flight instead.

“I feel lucky,” he said. “It’s a new year for me.”

Maxwell also gets a new team. The actual trade didn’t really surprise anyone, only how long it took to get it done.

When it was over, the Clippers had Maxwell and his $805,000-a-year guaranteed contract through the 1987-88 season. The Celtics will also reportedly pay half of Maxwell’s contract, although the full amount will count against the Clippers’ salary cap.

In exchange, Boston receives Walton, who sources say has agreed to a three-year contract for $420,000 a season. Walton’s exit marks the end of the longest term of service of anyone in the Clipper organization, which he joined before the 1978-79 season.

“I’m ecstatic about the trade being done,” Walton said. “It’s disappointing that we couldn’t make the progress that I had envisioned when I joined the Clippers six years ago. It was unfortunate, but there were a lot of factors involved.”

Walton said he hopes to play longer than three years with the Celtics.

“I want to win the championship,” he said. “I don’t have any desire to retire. With Kareem playing at 38, 39 next year, that gives us all hope.”

Both of the parties in the trade were injured for at least part of last season. Maxwell, 29, had arthroscopic surgery for ligament damage in his left knee in February, missed 25 games, then fell out of favor with the Celtics when he came back and could not play up to their expectations.

Maxwell admitted that his knee is still not 100% and wished that the Celtics had understood that last season.

“My integrity was challenged,” he said. “First, they said I wasn’t really hurt, then when they found out I really was, they said I didn’t try hard enough to rehabilitate myself. That was the big reason things soured for me there.”

Walton’s relationship with the Clippers curdled about the same time. The 32-year-old Walton played in a career-high 67 games but was bothered by an ankle injury from the end of January on, and was often unable to practice regularly.

Clipper Coach Don Chaney, who said he was very happy with the trade, said that Walton would be missed.

“This is no knock at Bill, but Cedric gives us more at forward than what Bill would give us at center,” Chaney said. “He’s going to practice every day and he’ll play consistently, night in and night out. I wanted to do that with Bill, but if I played him a lot of minutes one night, I had to worry about him for the next game.”

In the meantime, Maxwell said he has to worry about how to be accepted in Los Angeles after an eight-year career with the Celtics.

“I’m not going to win the city over in one day, but I’ll play hard,” he said. “I was on one of the most hated teams in the league. I’m coming here like the bad boy in school.”

Maxwell instantly became the Clippers’ starting power forward opposite Marques Johnson and said he intends to help the Clippers make the playoffs.

That might prove to be a difficult task. The Clipper franchise has not been in the playoffs for 10 years, when it was still located in Buffalo and known as the Braves. Maxwell did not promise any miracles.

“My wife’s name is Renee, not Lois, and I’m not going to come out of some phone booth with a red cape,” Maxwell said.

“The first thing I’m going to do is get rid of all those green tennis shoes,” he said. “I’m going to spray-paint them all white. I don’t want to see anything green that isn’t money. I’ll also need to buy a few more pairs of shades, I guess.”