It’s Ewing Who Has the Final Say on Knicks’ Team

During the NBA exhibition season, Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicks was fined $1,500 by the league after a fight with Steve Stipanovich of the Indiana Pacers.

The fine was announced by NBA Vice President Scotty Stirling.

Stirling subsequently was hired as the general manager of the Knicks, replacing Dave DeBusschere.

What did Ewing say about that?

Stirling: “He told me he wanted his $1,500 back.”

Add Stirling: One of his first official acts was to install his son as one of the Knicks’ ball boys at Madison Square Garden. And whose son did the boy replace?

You guessed it, DeBusschere’s.

Trivia Time: What do Al McGuire, Doug Moe, Wilt Chamberlain and Alex English have in common? (Answer below.)

The Washington Bullets’ Manute Bol, on his fight with Jawann Oldham of the Chicago Bulls Tuesday night: “If he don’t hit me, I don’t fight. But we were jockeying for position after I boxed him out on a rebound. All of a sudden, he hit me in the back. Then he said the magic four-letter word. If I want to fight, I can go to Libya or Lebanon.”

Add Bol: As a pregame promotion, the Bulls announced that all 7-footers and all Dinka tribesmen would be admitted free.

Said a Bull spokesman: “Six patrons who said they were 7-footers were given balcony seats. They weren’t actually measured but they were pretty close. And we had three who claimed to be Dinka tribesmen, so we let them in.”

No, Frank Layden doesn’t think John Bach poured it on when Golden State beat Utah, 150-104, Wednesday night.

“Who else was John going to put in?” Layden asked. “The beer salesman took off his shirt and wanted to go in.”

Said Raymond Clayborn of the New England Patriots when asked about all the distractions of the Super Bowl: “If it’s a distraction, it’s a pleasant one. There are 26 teams in the NFL not being distracted this time of the year. I’d rather be on one of the two that are being distracted.”

Pat Ellis, attorney and adviser to Tito Horford, can’t understand how UCLA has turned its back on the 7-foot Dominican.

“Tito had his phone in the Dominican Republic connected over the holidays, and the majority of calls were from UCLA,” Ellis said. “This past weekend, most of the efforts to get Tito were by UCLA. I just find it kind of unusual.”

Said Horford: “UCLA recruited me harder than anybody in the country. Even during Christmas when I was in the Dominican Republic, they didn’t stop calling me. Now they say, ‘We don’t want Tito.’ That makes me look bad. I just want to go to college and play basketball.”

Trivia Answer: All played for Frank McGuire--Al McGuire at St. John’s, Chamberlain with the Philadelphia Warriors, Moe at North Carolina, English at South Carolina.

Quotebook

NBC Sports executive producer Michael Weisman, downplaying his network’s generosity in agreeing to allot about three minutes of airtime during the Super Bowl pregame show for a “Hands Across America” videotape: “It was either that or a feature on the art of passing by Dieter Brock.”