THE NBA : Returning Home Not So Sweet for Riley

Happiness is being a Laker at the All-Star break after a half-season that has been memorable all around.

Ask Pat Riley, ex-Laker.

Here’s how the transition is going among the alumni: The first time Riley returned to the Forum for a game, he drove into the parking lot . . . turned around and drove out.

A couple of weeks ago, he made it all the way. He popped into the Laker locker room, before a game but after the players went onto the floor, to surprise Mike Dunleavy and his old assistant coaches. Riley says they were surprised, all right.

Memories are short in this biz. One day, you’re winning four championships together. The next, you’re not sure of your welcome.

The worst thing Laker players say about Riley is he drove them too hard. He did have a thing about control. He went from easygoing Riles, everybody’s pal, to celebrity. But he bled purple and gold, and he staked his heart out on that sideline where he and his Giorgio Armani suits cut such a figure.

Even at the bitter end last spring in Phoenix, there are no accounts that he was mean. Just loud.

Now he’s learning a new trade at NBC while detoxing from the passion and the glory and the resentment directed at him, too.

Some parts of it, he misses more than others.

“You know,” Riley says, “it was sorta hard (coming back). I just felt at that particular time, it was better I didn’t go, for myself and maybe for everybody else.

“Any time you’re around something so long and you’re so passionately involved in it, and you’re not there and you can’t be part of it, it’s sorta hard to go back and watch it for a while. . . . You miss them, you want to be part of it, but you made the decision to move on. That’s what happens for a while. Happens to everybody.”

Months afterward, Magic Johnson, Riley’s last defender, confirmed the troubles of springtime, saying, “I think some of the guys just grew apart from him, basically.”

Riley doesn’t like hearing it . . . and understands it . . . and is probably hurt by it, denials notwithstanding.

“It sorta rolls off my back,” he says. “I think it’s the usual thing. It depends on who it’s coming from, who’s saying it. You go back, when I took over the team (in 1981 from Paul Westhead), the same things were said. It’s what you call honeymoon talk.

“I understand the mentality of that kind of comment. But we had a lot of great moments, a lot of happy moments when I was there.

“I’ve been around the Lakers for 20 years and I’ve seen ‘em all come and go--including me, twice. That’s just the way it is. And all the people behind the scenes that are saying whatever they want to say, they’re going to feel it too one day when they go, and you can bet your butt they’re going to probably be gone one day. We all leave.”

Riley says he hasn’t seen any of his players but has corresponded with “a couple of ‘em.”

Who?

“I don’t think that’s important,” he says.

Time takes care of hard feelings. There were more highs than lows, more moments when they loved and backed up one another than angry ones. That’s what they’ll finally remember, happily.

With only partial accuracy, the Lakers’ defensive push is being ascribed to Dunleavy.

This is an improvement for Dunleavy, who two months ago was about to be indicted for strangling “Showtime” in favor of “Milwaukee West.”

To be sure, Dunleavy brings something new. Laker players say his emphasis and multiple schemes are responsible for a sub-100-point average, second only to slow-down Detroit.

However, the Lakers began slowing down and working on their defense years ago under Riley.

Since the mid-1980s, their scoring average has fallen almost every season, from 118 points a game in 1984-85 to 110 last season, along with their defensive average, from 111 to 104.

Says Riley: “This team in the early ‘80s was an offensive machine. We were young and enthusiastic and we were offensive-minded. Our offense, regardless of how ineffective it might be, was usually good enough to win.

“But as we became a better basketball team, we developed a better defensive philosophy. And as we got a little bit older, the premium became more on defense and rebounding. We became more methodical in our halfcourt game. That process happened naturally. Even though we kept emphasizing running, we really were becoming a different team.”

Riley says he thinks Dunleavy has done a great job.

The Lakers?

“There’s not a better basketball team in the league,” Riley says. “I think by the time the season’s over, they’re going to prove that.”

NBA Notes

The sensitive ‘90s: Washington Bullet Coach Wes Unseld, asked the big differences in the NBA: “Imagine guys kissing other guys on the court. Can you imagine Gus Johnson kissing Dave DeBusschere or me kissing Willis Reed? I don’t think they’d let Willis back in Louisiana and I know they wouldn’t let me back in my neighborhood.”

Packed in cotton: After Larry Bird’s 18-point, 13-assist, nine-rebound return, the Boston Celtics sat him out against the Knicks in New York. For now, Bird isn’t playing on consecutive nights, traveling or attending the All-Star game. . . . After Bird’s back survived three collisions, CEO Dave Gavitt said: “I think 15,000 people inhaled all at once.” . . . The Celtics, traditional skinflints, will fly by charter the rest of the season. They say one benefit is that Bird can avoid sitting in airports, can lie down during flights and even receive therapy. Did they get this plane from the American Red Cross?

Maybe we’re becoming a little too sensitive: After Commissioner David Stern picked guard Hersey Hawkins of the Philadelphia 76ers over Detroit forward Dennis Rodman to replace Bird in the All-Star game, Piston General Manager Jack McCloskey issued a statement calling it “a black day for the NBA” and “a gross injustice that can’t be explained rationally.” Just what Rodman has been searching for, a boss as emotional as he is. . . . And that San Antonio restaurant chain that provoked Karl Malone’s tantrum by putting the Utah Jazz star’s number on a pinata, decided to eschew personalized pinatas and started putting 0 on them--just before the Seattle SuperSonics with Olden (0) Polynice and the Clippers with Benoit (00) Benjamin arrived. In an increasingly rare victory for proportion, neither 0 nor 00 got angry.

Some Laker numbers from their 16-game winning streak: No one is averaging as many as 19 points a game, but seven are in double figures; Magic Johnson’s shooting went from a career-low 46% to 52%, and on three-pointers from 29% to 39%, and Vlade Divac, averaging 10.2 points and 7.4 rebounds, went to 13.5 and 9.7. . . . Do the Trail Blazers, whose lead was sliced from 7 1/2 games to two in the loss column, feel hot breath on their necks? After they broke for the All-Star game by losing their second game at Sacramento, Coach Rick Adelman said: “We’ve had so many good things happen to us this season, we haven’t had any lows. If we want to win our division and have the best record, we have to win games like this.” . . . If the Lakers are going to overhaul Portland, they’ll have to survive a grueling post-All-Star schedule--12 of 17 games on the road, including a five-game trip and a six-game trip, beginning with their first game back--at Phoenix Tuesday night. The Suns ended both of the previous longest winning streaks this season, the 11-game runs by Portland and Detroit.

Almost in the nick of time: After Rod Strickland broke a bone in his right hand outside a San Antonio nightclub named Illusions, Spur General Manager Bob Bass put Illusions and another hot spot, Studio 57, off-limits to his players. . . . War time: When David Robinson slumped, Spur Coach Larry Brown noted that he hadn’t played well since the start of the Persian Gulf War. . . . The Bulls have offered the Dallas Mavericks various packages, including Stacey King, B.J. Armstrong, John Paxson and Craig Hodges for Derek Harper. Said Harper: “Chicago would be a great place for me. . . . They’re saying I could be the missing piece, and maybe I would.”