Biggest Jab in Seattle Since Space Needle

Talk about your bulletin board material. A letter to the editor appeared in last Sunday’s Seattle Times and was signed by Marshall Glickman, the presumed senior vice president of the Portland Trail Blazers.

The Trail Blazers and rival Seattle SuperSonics are matched in a heated first-round NBA playoff series.

“Why should teams like our Portland Trail Blazers have to play first-round games with non-competitive teams like the Seattle ‘Sub-Par’ Sonics?” the Glickman letter read in part. “Our million-dollar players such as Clyde Drexler are risking serious injury by playing in such lopsided games. . . . “

What would provoke Glickman to such prose?

Turns out, the letter was a fake and had somehow slipped past the newspaper’s editors, who are supposed to confirm the authenticity of published letters.

“This one slipped through the cracks,” said Don Shelton, an assistant sports editor.

Monday morning, Glickman said he received 10 calls on his home answering machine from irate SuperSonic fans.

The Times printed a correction Tuesday. Next Sunday, an authentic letter from Glickman will appear in the paper.

“I just want the Sonics to know I wouldn’t write a letter like that,” the real Glickman said.

Real bulletin board stuff: The Kings might want to post this quote from Craig MacTavish of the Edmonton Oilers, who scored the overtime goal Sunday night that eliminated Los Angeles from the NHL playoffs.

“We’re happy that when we skate onto the ice in Los Angeles, we won’t have to hear anymore, ‘The Smythe Division champion Los Angeles Kings,’ ” MacTavish said. “They had it for a week; we’ll have it for a year.”

Earth to MacTavish: Despite the loss, aren’t the Kings still Smythe Division champions?

Trivia time: Most people know that Wilt Chamberlain never fouled out of an NBA game. What player holds the record for most disqualifications? Hint: He’s also a former Laker.

What’s the point? A local radio station reported Tuesday that Cleveland Cavalier forward John Williams earned $9,900 per point during the regular season. If Chicago Bull star Michael Jordan made that much per point, his 1990-91 salary would have been $25,542,000.

No Showtime: Lloyd Daniels, the former New York City prep basketball star whose potential has been derailed by off-the-court problems, is getting another chance with the Miami Tropics of the United States Basketball League.

The team held a news conference Monday to announce his arrival. Daniels never showed.

“His plane was fogged in in Dallas,” said Kevin Koffman of the Tropics.

Actually, Dallas was sunny Monday, and Koffman later clarified his statement.

“His girlfriend said he was fogged in. He told me it was a mechanical problem.”

Koffman said this was a “last chance” for Daniels, 23, who flunked out of four high schools and was later shot outside a crack house in a drug debt dispute.

It’s about time: Twelve years after the Islamic revolution put an end to the pursuit, golf has been reinstated as a permissible activity in Iran, for better or worse. Prepare for the run on sand wedges.

Of course, golf isn’t golf in any country without golf jokes, so here’s one courtesy of the Bluffer’s Guide: “A golfer falls into a lake and cries out to fellow players, ‘Help! Help! I’m drowning.’

“ ‘Don’t worry,’ one yells back, ‘you won’t drown. You can’t keep your head down long enough for that.’ ”

Trivia answer: Vern Mikkelsen fouled out of 127 games with the Minneapolis Lakers in the 1950s.

Quotebook: Trevor Smith, 9-year-old son of tennis star Stan Smith, who has his own line of famous footwear: “Dad, did they name the shoe after you, or were you named after the shoe?”