THE NBA : Bucks’ Robertson Is Feeling at Home

The Milwaukee Bucks have put together a string of statistics, from the obvious to the obscure, boosting guard Alvin Robertson for the All-Star game after a slow start.

But lost among the facts that he is averaging 15.8 points, 2.9 steals and 6.9 rebounds overall and shooting a torrid 59.6% the last 15 games is why Robertson has come on so fast in the past month.

There is, of course, the obvious--getting settled in with his new team after having spent five seasons at San Antonio, three of which resulted in all-star berths. The less obvious might be more important.

When Robertson went from the Spurs to the Bucks along with Greg Anderson in May in the trade that sent Terry Cummings to San Antonio, his 6-month-old daughter stayed behind in Texas, hospitalized with an intestinal problem. Doctors said Courtney Robertson was too ill to be moved.

As her condition improved, Courtney and her mother were able to join Alvin in his new surroundings. His play began to improve about the same time.

“That was early in the season and people will sympathize, but they don’t want to hear excuses,” said Robertson, the NBA record holder for steals in a season. “That’s not my job. All they want me to do is come out and perform. I wouldn’t use that as a crutch. Sure, it was there, but it was something I had to deal with and play through. Now that that’s getting better, hopefully I can play better also.”

The Bucks have won four consecutive games with Robertson playing better. In that time, he has averaged 23.3 points, 11.3 rebounds, 7.3 assists and 2.3 steals and, while playing just 29 minutes on Sunday against Miami, recorded his first triple-double of the season.

Oh, by the way, at 6-feet-4 or smaller, he went into the weekend as the league’s third-best rebounder.

Milwaukee, the city that made Razorbacks famous: Robertson had a season-high 37 points, a career-high 16 rebounds, and eight assists and four steals on Tuesday against Golden State, the same night the Bucks retired the jersey of Sidney Moncrief, another Arkansas graduate.

That game was picked for a reason. Moncrief wanted Warrior Coach Don Nelson, who had coached him for eight seasons in Milwaukee, to be there.

“This is a very special human being,” Nelson said. “Sidney Moncrief was the greatest player I ever coached. . . . Sidney was not the most talented player, but he was the greatest, the greatest human being I ever coached.”

Five grand for your thoughts: You didn’t expect Philadelphia’s Charles Barkley to take his $5,000 fine for a friendly bet with Mark Jackson of New York quietly, did you?

First came the signs over his locker--”Casino entrance” and “Charles the Greek.” Then came the comments.

“I went to bed and I was Charlie Barkley,” he said. “I woke up and I was Pete Rose.”

That Michael Jordan decided against participating in the slam dunk competition during February’s all-star weekend at Miami rated as a greater disappointment than a surprise. The game’s most exciting high flyer, a two-time winner of the event, withdrew because of an injury last year but had said previously that he didn’t want to enter because it tired him out for the second half of the season.

“What else can I do in the dunking contest?” Jordan said. “The fans want to see something creative from me every year. But that would risk injury. All I can really do is the same ones over and over again, and the fans don’t want to see that from me. I haven’t been practicing.”

The same old Jordan dunks? Yeah, how boring that would be.

Instead, he will participate in the three-point shooting contest Feb. 10 and, of course, the game the next day. Teammate Scottie Pippen replaced Jordan in the slam dunk showcase.

No one knows about his future, but the present appears to have gotten worse than the past for Chris Washburn, which is saying something for the No. 3 pick in the 1986 draft who got three strikes with the NBA drug policy in only two seasons.

The stunning thing is not that Washburn, who played a total of 72 games with Golden State and Atlanta, but none since 1987-88, confirmed last week he was returning to a substance-abuse clinic. Rather, the Charlotte Observer detailed, he had been arrested twice since mid-October and taken to hitting up former teammates for cash. Talk also was that he had been living on the streets.

“He would call a lot of times or I’d bump into him on the street and he’d want money,” said Atlanta guard Spud Webb, a former teammate of Washburn’s with the Hawks and at North Carolina State. “I never would give him any because I didn’t know whether he wanted it for food or anything else.

“It’s sad. It made me want to cry the first time I saw him like this.”

NBA Notes

In its search for a young point guard to back up Maurice Cheeks, San Antonio reportedly has turned to New York, hardly a surprise. The Knicks have Rod Strickland and Mark Jackson, and Spur Coach Larry Brown has always liked Strickland. The surprise is that when the Knicks responded with interest in Willie Anderson, Brown, who would have been glad to deal his second-year swingman a few months ago, labled Anderson something of an untouchable. That, however, may have actually come from above--President Bob Bass. “I’m used to that kind of talk,” Anderson said. “I don’t feel very secure in San Antonio. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was traded.”

Before beating Atlanta last week, the Sacramento Kings had lost six consecutive games in which they’d had at least a 12-point lead in the second half. . . . Four of the eight participants in the slam dunk competition during the all-star weekend are 6-5 or smaller. Five of the eight contestants in the three-point shooting contest are 6-6 or taller.

When New York and San Antonio played twice last week, their only meetings of the season, each won at home. The showdown of centers was a draw, too--Patrick Ewing had 45 points and 18 rebounds and David Robinson had 47 points and 12 rebounds.

The Denver Nuggets took a bad third place in interest Jan. 14 when the Broncos played for a Super Bowl berth and a livestock show brought an arena full of cowboys to town. Kurt Rambis of the Phoenix Suns took notice of all the 10-gallon hats towering around the hotel and said, “I think that’s how they steal towels.”