It seems impossible that on this lovely day in Los Angeles, on a huge practice court cleverly hidden inside the University of Southern California's newish Galen Center, O.J. Mayo is only halfway through his first official week as a college basketball player.

Hasn't he been famous longer than Elizabeth Taylor?

Hasn't his spotlight been harsher than the one chasing Britney Spears?

After 140 minutes of mostly defensive drills choreographed by coach Tim Floyd and another 20 putting up jump shots, O.J. Mayo is grateful to be offered a folding chair while he talks. But he is tired, not weary.

Today, the price of being O.J. Mayo grew incrementally steeper. The Los Angeles Daily News quoted multiple sources insisting the pickup game last month that ended with Trojans guard Daniel Hackett's broken jaw did not involve an errant O.J. Mayo Elbow -- but rather a punch that found its target. Both players continue to insist it was an accident.

The controversy was inevitable considering the route the O.J. Mayo legend traversed through his six years as America's precocious prep baller. "Whatever I do is going to be magnified, whether it's the good or the bad," O.J. Mayo says. "There is a lot of good, but there's very little bad -- and sometimes that can overwhelm the good."

Given the prevalence of videotape documenting various O.J. Mayo missteps -- the altercation with a high school referee, the technical foul when O.J. Mayo tossed the ball to the crowd late in the West Virginia state championship game, his surprisingly self -- absorbed McDonald's All American Game -- it's hard to believe there weren't multiple camera crews shooting that innocuous late September pickup game.

None of those incidents amounted to much, and even combined they don't paint a disturbing picture -- but distorted through the O.J. Mayo prism they provide an unflattering portrait that does not resemble the player who just finished this afternoon practice.

When Floyd said to get in a defensive stance, O.J. Mayo got in a stance. When Floyd said to run, O.J. Mayo ran. When action halted, O.J. Mayo's Barry White bass boomed off the walls as he asked another penetrating question about how best to fulfill his responsibilities.

Floyd says the two did not have a strong relationship before O.J. Mayo enrolled at USC. Given what he knew about big -- rep recruits and what he'd heard about this one particularly, Floyd expected to be coaching a whole lot of nonsense out of O.J. Mayo's game.

"I thought we were going to have to fight him," Floyd says. "I thought maybe he would feel he didn't have to guard as hard, change ends as hard. He wants to lead. And he recognizes if he is not going full -- tilt, people aren't going to be doing that behind him."

For all the words spent on O.J. Mayo, what has been mentioned too rarely is how serious and respectful he is about basketball. He does not cut the corners his talent would allow. He plays the game the way folks who write coaching textbooks dream it should be played.

O.J. Mayo, who is 6-5, made himself a point guard but retains scoring ability that should generate a dozen or more 20-point nights in what _ gures to be his only college season. He is not a dazzling passer, but, as Floyd says, "Some people associate great with fancy. No. He's safe. He can make passes that lead to baskets -- safely."

Floyd very quietly proclaims that compared with the many gifted young players he coached with the Chicago Bulls -- Eddy Curry, Jamal Crawford, Elton Brand, Ron Artest -- O.J. Mayo is "more advanced than all those guys were when I had them as rookies, in terms of his understanding of the game, the poise, the skill package and the size and strength for his position."

Doesn't that make perfect sense? O.J. Mayo sits here a month short of his 20th birthday but experienced beyond his years.