A SWEET DEAL : Norman Has Given Clippers More Than Their Money’s Worth

Ken Norman, who uses the pay phone in the hotel lobby to avoid the 75-cent service charge in his room, who is putting off buying a new car in hopes that a dealer will give him a deal for an endorsement, who waits and waits for sales before going shopping, is cheap and not ashamed to admit it. In fact, he almost brags about it.

“I’m definitely the cheapest guy on this team,” said Norman, the Clippers’ second-year forward. “My wife and my sisters say it all the time. But when I finish playing basketball, I want to be able to decide if I’m going to work again.”

So it is perhaps fitting that Norman has turned out to be a steal of fire-sale proportions in the National Basketball Assn.

On a club with two million-dollar players, not including the injured Danny Manning, Norman is the leading scorer. And before Benoit Benjamin’s recent improvement, Norman was the No. 1 rebounder, too. If he regains that top spot in the Clippers’ last two games--against Seattle Friday night and at Sacramento Saturday--he will become the first Clipper since Terry Cummings in 1983-84 to lead the team in both categories in the same season. All this while earning $300,000, of which $25,000 is deferred.

That $300,000 total is nothing to take lightly, especially for someone who grew up in a ghetto a few blocks from Chicago Stadium, home of the Bulls and the hockey Blackhawks. But Norman’s worth to the Clippers far exceeds his contract--and pales in comparison to the NBA norm for someone with his numbers.

Including Tuesday night’s win over Utah, he has started all but one of the 78 games he has played in, missing two others with injuries. At 18 points and 8.3 rebounds--Benjamin averages 8.8--Norman has become, along with Kevin Johnson of Phoenix and Reggie Lewis of Boston, a strong candidate for the league’s most improved player.

“I’m pleased with the way I’m progressing, but I’ve still got a long way to go before becoming the player I think I’m capable of being,” said Norman, a two-time All-Big Ten selection at the University of Illinois. “I need to work on getting a couple more moves to the basket, I need to work some more on my outside shot. For the last month or so, I’ve improved my free-throw shooting a lot.”

Indeed, the Clippers, who saw Norman make a big improvement last summer because of a more accurate jump shot, would now like him to work on ball handling. But, they are also the first to compliment his improvement and the work ethic that has pushed him.

Others question his intense motivation, but not because of basketball. Those are the people who jokingly tell him they would like to be around when he starts spending all that misered money.

“That’s him,” said Kim Norman, his wife. “He puts a lot of pressure on himself. I get worried sometime because he’s like a workaholic. I have to always remind him to just go out and do his best, that if he only gets nine boards it’s not bad.

“It’s like a must that I get a stat sheet after every game. I hear about that constantly. ‘Kim, Kim, give me the stats. What did I get? Thirteen boards? Well, I could have done better.’ After every single game he does this.”

But she understands the motivation.

She saw her husband-to-be crying in another room while watching the draft almost three years ago, stunned as teams passed him by, including the Clippers twice, before he was finally picked, at No. 19.

She saw him riding the bench in the first part of his rookie season and then starting 21 of the last 25 games of the season after getting a chance.

She saw him, a 6-foot-8 player setting a preseason goal of leading the team in rebounding, going to camp last fall and expected to take a back seat to hotshot rookies Manning and Charles Smith.

“It’s not that he likes that kind of (negative) talk, but it gives him something to strive for,” Kim said. “He thrives on stuff like that, when people count him out.”

No one can afford to anymore.

On March 7 against the Golden State Warriors, he scored a career-high 38 points, the third-most by a Clipper since the team moved from San Diego to Los Angeles five seasons ago.

Two weeks later, against Phoenix, he recorded the first triple-double by a Clipper in six seasons, with 20 points, 14 rebounds and a career-high 12 assists.

And two weeks after that, he topped 30 points for the seventh time this season, scoring 34 against the Portland Trail Blazers.

“He’s proving he can be quite good,” said Clipper Coach Don Casey, an assistant during Norman’s rookie year. “I don’t like to compare players because each person has his own niche, but if we start doing well and we get some good publicity, he’s a possible all-star.”

An all-star? After some people didn’t even give him much chance to start this season?

Clearly, the cheapest guy on the team has become a money player. Now that’s something to brag about.