THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : All’s Not Well in Chicago With These Bulls

Bulls-gate: They’re young, they’re gifted, they’re here today to play the Lakers, whom they have beaten in five of their past six meetings.

So what’s their problem?

After Michael Jordan criticized General Manager Jerry Krause for not landing Walter Davis--”the Bulls would be better if I were the general manager”--Horace Grant lashed out at “selfish” play, Stacey King asked to be traded and Will Perdue said he wasn’t happy either. So Coach Phil Jackson instituted a gag rule. Jackson also bars the media on charter flights and closes practices.

Chicago owner Jerry Reinsdorf, obliged to mediate among his young and restless, said of Jordan: “He’s still a player, and players, quite frankly . . . don’t know a whole lot about what it takes to make a deal. We can’t sit and explain to every player what moves we’re trying to make. . . . We can’t single out one player and make him a consultant to the general manager.”

Jordan, muffled if not quite silent, said he won’t discuss the subject further but noted, “The public knows how I feel about certain people in the organization, and I’m going to leave it at that.”

Harmony, it’s wonderful.

Tough times don’t last, but tough people do:

The Detroit Pistons are 5-0 after getting the news that a wrist operation would cost Isiah Thomas the rest of the season followed by a post-surgery bulletin that he might miss the playoffs, too.

Said noted sentimentalist Bill Laimbeer, Thomas’ close friend: “He’s no longer here, so it makes absolutely no sense to talk about him. Period.”

Laimbeer’s unpopularity has been bought and paid for, but make no mistake, he’s pure competitor and sets the Pistons’ tone. In their first game without Thomas, they trailed Dallas by one point in the closing seconds when Laimbeer, two for seven at that point, put the ball on the floor from the top of the key and banked in a running 16-footer to beat the Mavericks.

Let 1,000 flowers bloom: There’s been a turnaround in Denver, where the Nuggets, once 6-28, went 7-2 including five consecutive victories and an upset of the Bucks at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, where they were 20-1.

You couldn’t say a sudden infusion of talent is responsible. Leading scorer Orlando Woolridge was out; they traded No. 2 scorer Walter Davis, and they acquired Greg Anderson off the Milwaukee bench and Kenny Battle and Reggie Williams off the waiver wire.

Some vindication for Paul Westhead’s Loyola Marymount-bred system?

“How long can this last?” asked Westhead, ever poetic. “Fresh-cut flowers lose their smell in a brief time, but they’re sure beautiful while you have them.”

Hats off to you, too. It’s already been a long season.

Current events, they’re fascinating: The Indiana Pacers’ George McCloud and LaSalle Thompson were overheard discussing the Gulf war:

McCloud: “What’s their God’s name? Isn’t it Allah or something?”

Thompson: “Ala Abdelnaby? He’s not a guard. He’s a forward.”

NBA Notes

Assistant Bob Weinhauer of the Philadelphia 76ers to Charles Barkley, who says he is helping coach while recovering from his ankle injury: “If you’re going to be a coach, I just hope you have a player on your team like you some day.” . . . How are the Lakers doing? Since the first seven games when they were 2-5, they are 31-6. The Portland Trail Blazers are 31-8, the Boston Celtics 27-9 and the San Antonio Spurs 26-9 in the same span. . . . Defensive play of the week: With the Bucks nose-diving, frustrated Coach Del Harris stepped onto the floor to argue a call at the other end and collided with fast-breaking Nugget guard Michael Adams. Harris was ejected, then reportedly told his players: “They blew that call, too. It was a charge.”

Triple-double of the week: Adams’ 45 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds against the New Jersey Nets at Denver. Adams is 5-feet-10. . . . Seattle’s arch-cocky rookie Gary Payton was benched for the second half against the Suns at Phoenix, railed at Coach K.C. Jones and was jumped loudly by teammates. “Eddie Johnson was just telling me to chill out,” Payton said of the postgame rhubarb. . . . Said an unidentified SuperSonic to Tacoma’s Morning News Tribune: “Some guys aren’t very happy with him. I call him the mouth that roared.” . . . Hold that parade: the Pistons are 25-1 against sub-.500 teams, 8-12 against winning clubs. . . . Bad timing in San Antonio: Willie Anderson’s average and shooting percentage are down from a career 17.2 points a game and 49.5% to 13.6 and 42.9% this season. The Spurs were already thin, and Terry Cummings, who broke his left hand, is out again. . . . Bad omen: Spur Coach Larry Brown has gone back to screaming at Sean Elliott.

The Hawks were steaming about Karl Malone’s collision with Sidney Moncrief, claiming the Mailman kicked Moncrief in the knee. Said Atlanta’s Dominique Wilkins: “I told Karl, ‘You’re a cheap-shot artist.’ I told him, ‘You’re not a man, you’re not a true power forward.’ I told him, ‘You always go out to hurt someone smaller than you, that’s your game.’ He got mad and said some things to me, but I’m not afraid of him. I told him, ‘Buck Williams is a man. Buck Williams is a real power forward.’ ” . . . Vernon Maxwell of Houston shot 50% in consecutive games for the first time, concluding with a 51-point (30 in the fourth quarter) night against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Next game, he went two for 16.

Endangered Rocket Coach Don Chaney is worried because his contract is expiring, but owner Charlie Thomas didn’t like reading about it in the newspapers. Said Chaney: “All I did was answer a simple, straightforward question, and boom, an atomic bomb went off.” . . . Former Crenshaw High star John Williams, who had knee surgery last season and ballooned into the 300-pound range last summer, finally made the 265-pound weight and was cleared to rejoin Washington practices. The Bullets will pay him $644,000 they have withheld. . . . Mr. Bill’s reign of terror: In a two-week span of Bull games, Bill Cartwright elbows--all deemed inadvertent upon review by NBA officials--sidelined the Rockets’ Akeem Olajuwon, bloodied the nose of the Bucks’ Jack Sikma, put five stitches in the chin of Orlando’s Greg Kite and hit the Magic’s Terry Catledge in the mouth. The league office has asked Cartwright to wear elbow pads, but he’s resisting.

Hard-luck non-All-Stars: The Warriors’ Mitch Richmond, the Pacers’ Reggie Miller, the Pistons’ Dennis Rodman. The Clippers’ Charles Smith made a real run until a sore knee slowed him. . . . Converse, which escalated sneaker wars by signing Julius Erving, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, has declared bankruptcy. Johnson, who is signed through the 1993-94 season, reportedly earned $1 million last season but doesn’t know where he stands. Said agent Lon Rosen: “We’re concerned.” . . . Lest we forget him, Barkley, on the NBA’s stay-in-school program: “An education is a wonderful thing unless you can run and jump over buildings.”