The NBA / Gordon Edes : Kings Have Become the League’s Court Jesters

Just when it seemed that the award for sorriest franchise of the year award was about to be retired by the Clippers, the Sacramento Kings asserted themselves as odds-on favorites for 1987-88.

There are other candidates:

--The Golden State Warriors, who traded half the franchise and vowed to rebuild around Ralph Sampson, only to lose him because of knee surgery.

--The New Jersey Nets, who regularly lose before empty houses while making headlines only when they’re firing coaches or in the middle of a drug scandal.

--And the Clippers, though they’ve already matched last season’s win total, are still a possibility, with their ridiculous road record and often ridiculous center.

But for sustained silliness, no one has come close in 1987-88 to the Kings, who are planning to move into a new 16,000-seat arena next season but seem to be doing their utmost to persuade their fans to stay away.

It all came to a head for the Kings last week, when Bill Russell--the hand-picked choice of owner Gregg Lukenbill to coach the team and eventually become part-owner--was cashiered as coach. Russell couldn’t be fired--Lukenbill signed him to a seven-year contract last season--so he was kicked upstairs into a vice presidency.

Russell’s long-time friend, Joe Axelson, who played an active role in recruiting Russell for the Kings, was busted from team president--the role that Russell was supposed to have filled eventually--to another vice presidency.

Russell was to be in charge of basketball operations, Axelson the business side. But a couple of days after the changes were made, Axelson went on the radio and said he wasn’t sure just what he was supposed to do. And someone else described Russell’s job as a glorified scout.

The Kings’ new coach is last season’s interim coach: Jerry Reynolds, who was retained as Russell’s assistant this season after the Kings went 15-21 for him in the last 36 games of 1986-87. Reynolds wasn’t good enough last June for another go-round, but Lukenbill has said that Reynolds will be the Kings’ coach for at least two more seasons.

And the new assistant is the old head man, Phil Johnson, who was fired shortly after the Lakers hung a 29-0 start on the Kings in a game at the Forum.

Said Johnson: “I feel like Billy Martin or Yogi Berra.”

Lukenbill, the 33-year-old go-getter responsible for bringing pro basketball to Sacramento, was forced to make a tough admission last week, according to Sacramento Bee columnist Joe Hamelin: He’d been had.

If Russell’s apparent indifference to his coaching duties weren’t enough to turn off the Kings, there was more. According to Hamelin, team publicist Julie Fie had to pay her own way to last month’s All-Star game. Russell requisitioned Fie’s ticket for a companion. Fie was later reimbursed by the league.

At least the Kings will be good for a few laughs with Reynolds, a legitimate challenger to Utah’s Frank Layden as reigning funnyman in the National Basketball Assn.

Said Reynolds to Johnson after the changes were announced: “We have to stop meeting like this. If we do this again next year, I’ll be in real trouble.”

Magic Johnson on New York Knicks guard Mark Jackson, the native of Queens and alumnus of St. John’s who is a lock to be named the league’s rookie of the year, after Jackson’s 17-point, 13-assist, 5-steal performance against the Lakers:

“He’s so smart, so smart. That’s why he’s as good as he is. His court-side sense--oh, my goodness--all I can see is myself.

“He’ll take it and drive down the middle. He doesn’t care who’s there, he has so much confidence. And the guys on his team, they respect him. When he says, ‘Get out of there,’ they do. That’s how you know he’s running the show.”

Sticks and stones, etc.: Detroit Pistons bad boy Bill Laimbeer scored with some heavy verbal blows on Indiana’s Steve Stipanovich after the two centers engaged in a shoving and slapping match last Tuesday.

“It’s like when he got shot, when he kind of robbed that guy. He . . . up.”

It seems Laimbeer was referring to an incident that occurred when Stipanovich was still in college at Missouri, in which he accidentally shot himself in the foot, then invented an alibi. There was no robbery involved, however.

“They have to come to Detroit two more times,” Laimbeer warned. “He should have put me out for the season.”

Talking trash, continued: The Atlanta Hawks came within a game of beating out the Boston Celtics for the best record in the Eastern Conference last season, but the Hawks aren’t anybody’s pick to click, the way they’ve been playing.

They’ve lost 13 of 21 games since Mike Fratello was named coach of the Eastern All-Stars, and superstar forward Dominique Wilkins crossed swords with teammates last week, when he said several players better get their games together.

Atlanta forward Tree Rollins thought Wilkins might have been talking out of turn, calling his comments “inadvisable.”

Said Rollins: “I don’t think it looks good. People see that and say, ‘Does he mean they aren’t playing hard?’ ”

Laker guard Michael Cooper missed a dozen games because of his sprained left ankle before returning to action Monday night. Included in the games he missed were three nationally televised by CBS, as well as a date with Michael Jordan last week in Chicago. Cooper figures he can kiss goodby his chances to repeat as defensive player of the year.

Cooper’s injury probably has taken him out of the running for the league’s best sixth man, which may turn into a runaway for Dallas Mavericks forward Roy Tarpley, who had 18 points and 21 rebounds against the Lakers last Saturday.

Tarpley, the 7-footer from Michigan who was supposedly the object of the Lakers’ affections along with Mark Aguirre in the aborted James Worthy-to-Dallas trade, spent time in a rehabilitation clinic last summer after admitting to a cocaine and alcohol dependency. He recently told Mitch Lawrence of the Dallas Morning News that he can’t recall when he last had a beer.

“And I don’t want to remember,” he said.

Tarpley is among the league’s leading rebounders and set a club record with 23 rebounds, which he did twice, against the Indiana Pacers and Phoenix Suns.