THE NBA : Westhead’s Game Runs Uphill in Denver

Doug Moe became the messenger of his own demise last week in Denver, where, in typical Nugget fashion, he was left to announce his own firing at a news conference. His wife brought the champagne, which should pretty much sum up her feelings about escaping an organization that has become basketball’s answer to the theater of the absurd.

“All I want to know is, do we pick up the check or do they mail it to us?” Jane Moe said, referring to the Nuggets’ still owing her husband $1.65 million for three years.

Moe will get his money, but, in the long run, Paul Westhead may pay the most.

Just as the Nuggets couldn’t have found a much bigger personality contrast among coaches than between Moe, with his no-tie, open-collar dress at games, and Westhead, who recites Shakespeare as frequently as his contemporaries read box scores, Westhead would have been hard-pressed to make a much bigger jump from one season to the next.

From a Loyola Marymount team that deserved the nation’s attention even before its star player died to the NBA team that should be voted most likely to secede. From the playoffs, that is, after nine consecutive appearances.

There are other problems, some of which Westhead is being counted on to help solve. The Nuggets, playing in a city with only one other major league team, finished 23rd among 27 teams last season in attendance and sold about 5,000 season tickets, fewer than even the Clippers.

A public relations blitz, based on Westhead’s 78-r.p.m. style, is in the works to regain fan interest, but it will be a tough sell. The top attractions from last season have been fired (Moe), traded (Fat Lever) or left on their own through free agency (Alex English).

The team last season got new owners, a new general manager, a new president, a new public relations director and numerous new players.

More recently, the Nuggets lost three big men, basketball’s equivalent of a quarterback in football or a pitcher in baseball, and have little to show for them. They chose not to re-sign Joe Barry Carroll and Tim Kempton and traded Danny Schayes to Milwaukee for the rights to rookie Terry Mills, who at first jumped to Greece but has since returned and hopes to play in the NBA.

So what does this all mean to Westhead?

That keeping the Nuggets among the playoff regulars will be his best transition game yet.

Although acknowledging the efforts of groups from Orange County and San Diego, among other areas, Commissioner David Stern said Friday that no expansion plans are being considered.

“We entertain, from time to time, delegations from these groups and stay in touch on a regular basis,” Stern said at the annual league meetings. “But we had expansion (the last two seasons). Now, we’re going to wait and watch the football expansion and baseball expansion.”

Aware that his scoring 40 points a game during the playoffs still isn’t enough to get the Chicago Bulls to the finals, Michael Jordan has decided to try cold cash.

So insistent is Jordan on the need for help that he offered to defer up to $500,000 of his 1989-90 salary until next season so the Bulls could sign free agent Walter Davis and stay under the salary cap.

Jordan even appealed to Davis personally, asking him to move from Denver to back up Scottie Pippen at small forward and supply scoring off the bench.

But Davis spurned that and the Bulls’ reported offer of $2.6 million for two years and re-signed with the Nuggets.

So, Chicago searches on. Cliff Levingston is one of the new targets for front-court help, as is Joe Wolf, a restricted free agent with the Clippers.

NBA Notes

Pat Riley received the first Jack McMahon Coaches Award here Friday in recognition “of his contributions to coaching in the league.” Jack McMahon was Riley’s first pro coach, in 1967 with the San Diego Rockets. McMahon, a popular longtime player, coach and administrator, died in June.

Former referee Earl Strom has emerged as a strong candidate to become the television analyst for Clipper games on Channel 5, replacing Kevin Loughery, who became an assistant coach with the Atlanta Hawks. Strom has no experience in the role, but his appeal as a colorful personality would be a plus, and Clipper officials were not discouraged after seeing a tape of Strom’s performance in a tryout with NBC. Keith Erickson, who formerly had a similar role on Laker broadcasts, is also in contention to work alongside play-by-play man Ralph Lawler.