Benoit Benjamin Has Promoter in His Corner : Boxing’s Don King Is Involved With Clipper Center’s New Business Team

Benoit Benjamin, whose agent, Larry Fleisher, died last spring, has new representation, including, at least in the background, Don King.

Benjamin, the Clippers’ free-agent center, has a three-man team handling his negotiations. King, the active boxing promoter who is still waiting to be accredited by the National Basketball Players Assn., is a not-so-visible fourth.

“Don King is involved,” said James Casey, a former sports reporter at KNAC radio and Benjamin’s new manager.

The agent of record, in the eyes of the NBA, is lawyer Henry Holmes of Beverly Hills. He will work with Barry Mallen, another lawyer, and Casey in contract talks.

Holmes has an interim certification by the NBPA, which must approve all agents, and Executive Director Charles Grantham of the union said King’s application process, which has taken longer than most, will continue.

The new business team apparently has changed the tack of Benjamin’s negotiations. Where Fleisher said on several occasions before his death that he wanted Benjamin to leave the Clippers, Casey, Holmes and Mallen say they want him to stay with the team.

And unlike Fleisher, who recommended that Benjamin sign nothing more than a one-year contract if he did return to the Clippers, thus becoming an unrestricted free agent after the 1989-90 season, the new negotiating team says a long-term deal will be fine.

That’s good news all around for the Clippers, who, encouraged by Benjamin’s late-season play, are hoping to get their fifth-year center signed to a multiyear contract.

General Manager Elgin Baylor said he hopes to meet with Holmes today to start negotiations. At the same time, he is aware that the late start on the money talks means Benjamin may not be at Cal Poly Pomona when training camp opens Oct. 6.

“I couldn’t guess if he will be signed and ready,” Baylor said. “I’m certain we’ll get it done, but it’s just not possible to say if it will be before camp opens.”

Holmes said he has been contacted by other teams regarding Benjamin, a restricted free agent who earned $1 million last season, but refused to say how many and which ones. The Clippers figure to match any offer sheet, anyway.

There is a good chance that rookie Jay Edwards could be signed by the end of the week. Baylor is also optimistic that Jeff Martin, like Edwards a second-round pick who will begin camp as the backup to Reggie Williams at shooting guard, will be signed by the time camp opens, but they have hit a snag in contract length.

Sources say Martin is hoping for a two-year guaranteed deal, something the other high No. 2 choices have, but the Clippers are apparently holding firm on one year and an option year.

“We really want to get the deal done,” said Martin’s agent, Kevin Scanlon, who declined to discuss details of the negotiations. “I wish I could be optimistic but at this point I’m frustrated. The market, we think, is pretty clearly defined. . . . Jeff really wants to be out there, but I don’t get the same sense from the Clippers.”