Rick Reilly : Scheer’s Agony on Clippers Has Lynam’s Days Numbered

The dark question Coach Jim Lynam of the Clippers wakes up with these mornings is not so much whether he will be reading his own pink slip soon. The question is by what means it will be delivered.

Lynam has not won the undying allegiance of his boss, General Manager Carl Scheer, and that, in itself, is reason enough for Lynam to begin slinking along hallways and refusing telegrams.

“We have our differences,” Scheer said Wednesday.

If you are Lynam and you are 20-29 and nobody in Los Angeles knows you from the UPS man, quotes such as “We have our differences” are not the kind you like to tape to your shaving mirror.

Not that Scheer is so tough to please. He is a pleasable enough fellow, but for one peccadillo. He is not fond of losing.

Watch Scheer at Clipper games. He is so wildly involved in the game that he is unable to keep his seat. Instead, he stands in a corner of the arena, where he is free to wave his arms, rave, rant and run his fingers through his haircut. Every official’s whistle causes him to thrash around in such gyrations that you could believe you were watching the last act of “Macbeth.”

So suffice it to say that Scheer does not take Lynam’s losing lightly. Nor does he plan to see his efforts to salvage the Clippers tied to a man he did not hire.

Scheer is a man who has dispensed with more pro basketball coaches in his three decades on the job than Lynam has met. Scheer’s list even includes Larry Brown, and that’s something of an achievement, since Brown is known for quitting before the office secretaries have learned his first name.

“I would prefer to have my own man,” Scheer said. “It’s like I told Alan (Rothenberg, Clipper president). I want to be able to walk into his office and say, ‘I messed up. It’s my fault. It’s my show.’ I want to be completely accountable.”

Scheer understands that Lynam has had to put up with injuries, the most maddening of which have befallen Marques Johnson, who was counted on for tinsel value here. But where is there a team immune from injuries?

No. Scheer’s list of differences with his coach goes past injuries.

For one, Scheer wants a running team.

This is a man who not only condoned the Doug Moe, All-O, let-the-defense-go madness with the Nuggets, but championed it. Scheer’s hoop heritage is not exactly champagne and sushi. He cut his teeth in the ABA, where guns and knives were checked at the door and the sort of set-it-up, wax-figure offenses that Lynam uses today were laughed across state lines.

Lynam’s idea of excitement is to have the lumbering James Donaldson half-nelson a rebound, sweep the area clean with his prodigious elbows and, upon seeing that all is safe, hand the ball to Norm Nixon, who is left to escort the ball up the court at a furious pace, giving fans just enough time to remember where they parked.

And this is a team with Johnson, Derek Smith and Nixon--all known as open-court players--and center Bill Walton, whose forte is feeding such players with the most poetic outlet pass known to man.

The last guy to bring the set-’em-up act to Los Angeles was one Paul Westhead, who chalked out one too many diagrammed plays with the Lakers and today finds himself diagramming sentences instead in a college English department.

Westhead and Lynam were the prize pupils of Jack Ramsay’s School of Coaching out of St. Joe’s in Philadelphia. Also in Jack’s pack was former Laker coach Jack McKinney. For a time, it was the chic crowd.

But let’s see now, McKinney is catching up on his needlepoint, Westhead thinks less about Isiah Thomas than Dylan, and Ramsay, the guru himself, is seven games under .500 at Portland. School’s out.

Then, too, Scheer is not doing backflips over the way Lynam has handled the Clippers’ No. 1 draft choice, Lancaster Gordon.

Admittedly, Gordon came to Los Angeles as something of a child. At the University of Louisville, they not only serve you your steak on a golden platter, they cut it up in bite-size pieces.

Gordon came to camp 15 pounds overweight and equally top-heavy with his own ego. He was ill-prepared for what life was like without Denny Crum to hold your hand. It was not until three weeks ago that Gordon even bought an automobile.

But now Gordon, suitably humbled, has grown up, yet Lynam still refuses to play him.

“I think Lancaster is a player,” Scheer said.

Lynam thinks Gordon is a player, too. A third-string player, behind guards Derek Smith and someone named Bryan Warrick. Hmmmm. Says here that Warrick went to St. Joe’s and played under Jim Lynam.

“Jimmy likes Bryan because he doesn’t make a mistake,” Scheer says. “Personally, I’d rather have him go with Lancaster full-time.”

Finally, it is becoming apparent that both Nixon and Walton are less than thrilled with Lynam and his intense ways, a style that is fine for Philly kids at St. Joe’s but one that does not play so well in Hollywood.

Scheer, though, is not without compassion. He may phone in a temporary pardon, but sooner or later, the news will arrive at Mr. Lynam’s doorstep.

The Western Union man always rings twice.