THE NBA : Casey a Safety Valve as Clipper Coach

Now that Don Casey’s players have taken a list of complaints to the owner, maybe it won’t be such a surprise when the Clippers interview coaches during the off-season. It was inevitable anyway.

Casey has little chance of returning next season. His hope rests on no one else wanting the job or everyone else asking for too much money. Casey merely serves as the Clippers’ safety-valve choice for a coach.

Last year, when he had the support of most every player, Casey was told to sit while the Clippers interviewed others. Without last month’s player rebellion, it would have been the same thing this season, with the same names.

We would have heard again that the Clippers asked permission to talk with Atlanta’s Mike Fratello. John MacLeod is still available. Maybe K.C. Jones wants another head coaching job after winning in Boston, then bowing out to spend time in the front office before coming back to the sidelines with old friend Bernie Bickerstaff as an assistant at Seattle.

Maybe the Clippers would take another run at North Carolina State Coach Jim Valvano, except this time maybe both sides would agree whether an interview was scheduled.

Did Casey ever have a chance this season? Maybe, but he continually had to sell his case to management, who last season hired their longtime assistant basically because they ran out of other interested, viable candidates.

Even in January, when the Clippers were enjoying their greatest run since coming to Los Angeles, the party line throughout the hierarchy was something like, “Sure he’s doing a good job, but it’s early. It is a long season ahead.”

Ron Harper and Gary Grant, the starting backcourt, were both injured within 16 days, and nothing has been the same since.

Except for the amount of support for the coach.

Dan Majerle continues to shut down opposing offenses and still receives praise only from Phoenix teammates and coaches. Someday maybe everyone will catch on.

He handled Ron Harper twice after Sun Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons put Majerle in the lineup specifically to guard the Clippers’ top scorer. Both times, Harper came up with other reasons for a combined eight of 26 from the field and 20 points.

More recently, the second-year swingman has helped hold Larry Bird to 19 points, Rodney McCray to 12, Alex English to 19 and Charles Barkley to 12 points and four rebounds. When Phoenix and Philadelphia played last season at the Spectrum, Barkley had 30 points through three quarters and the 76ers were leading. In the fourth quarter, Fitzsimmons put rookie Majerle on Barkley, who scored only one point the rest of the way as the Suns won.

So why should anyone be impressed?

“Dan Majerle can’t play me,” Barkley said after the most recent meeting. “I was just tired, that’s all. This was our fifth game in seven days. I’ll be ready for him next time.”

Fittingly, that comes on April Fool’s Day.

The Sacramento Kings, who, judging by their hold on last place in the Pacific Division, have little clue about the present, clearly also have little sense of history.

When Sedric Toney came to the Kings along with Antoine Carr in a trade that sent Kenny Smith to Atlanta, Toney was given jersey No. 11. Problem was, that number had been retired in honor of Bob Davies, a star for seven years when the franchise was known as the Rochester Royals.

Sacramento will let Toney keep 11 the rest of this season and make sure he gets a new number next fall.

If someone remembers.

The legal eagles will be watching this one closely: John (Hot Rod) Williams is about to become a free agent in Cleveland.

However, no one seems to agree whether he will have restricted or unrestricted status. If he is restricted, he will only get an offer sheet that the Cavaliers can match. If he’s unrestricted, he can sign with any team.

At issue is Williams’ rookie season--or what should have been. The NBA made him sit out while being tried for alleged point-shaving from his days as a player at Tulane University.

He was paid by the Cavaliers during the time and eventually found not guilty, but did not make it to a basketball court that season.

If he is a fourth-year pro, Williams will be a restricted free agent. A fifth-year player and he’s unrestricted. The league is expected to rule on the matter soon.

NBA Notes

Charlotte, which has the fewest wins in the league, was at Golden State Monday night to open a stretch of nine of 12 games on the road, where it was 1-24. The home games? Detroit, the Lakers and New York.

Morlon Wiley of Orlando missed all four of his two-point attempts and made three of his four three-point shots in the Magic’s double-overtime loss Saturday against Washington.

Chicago’s Ed Nealy, after a double-double earned him a standing ovation from Bulls’ fans: “The only other time I got a ‘standing O’ was in San Antonio. They used to do that when they took me out.” . . . Chicago center Bill Cartwright has missed six of seven games with a degenerative disk condition. The Bulls won all of those games, including Sunday at Boston Garden, and are 10-1 in games in which he has been absent. . . . If Akeem Olajuwon continues at his current pace, he will be the first player to lead the league in blocked shots and rebounds since Bill Walton in 1976-77.