NBA DRAFT LOTTERY : SPEECHLESS : In Spirit of Trials, Manning Is Mum About Draft Lottery

The reaction from the newest prospective Clipper-to-be, who had said he was hoping to play on the West Coast and whose agent has said he wants a $35-million contract and is overjoyed that his client has just gone Hollywood, was . . .

No comment.

Thus spake Danny Manning, or thus was the word passed from Manning Saturday at the trials for the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team.

Players here have been made unavailable to reporters since drills started. Manning, asked if he wished to talk Saturday after the Clippers won the NBA lottery and announced they would take him, went along with the spirit of these games.

“He’s not talking because he wants to be one of the players,” said his agent, Ron Grinker, from his Cincinnati home. “I want to publicly state that John Thompson came to Danny and said he’d do whatever he wanted to do to accommodate the NBA and CBS.

“It was Danny’s choice not to separate himself from the other players.”

Gene Shue, only too happy to separate himself from the other coaches scouting here, pronounced himself “extremely happy,” adding:

“He’s not only going to help us become a better basketball team right away, but he’s going to help us from a marketing point of view. He’ll be of incredible value, this being an Olympic year, with him having led his team to an NCAA championship and hopefully an Olympic championship.”