COMMENTARY : BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 14 : Magical Mystery Tour Coming to an End--Finally

Like a fireball trailing sparks across the Olympic sky, the Dream Team speeds to its place in history.

All that remains to be determined is the final score and the aftermath:

--Will Magic Johnson grant the Pope an audience on his way home?

--Will Johnson solve the Middle East impasse by posing for a picture with Yitzak Rabin and Yasser Arafat?

--Can they get Charles Barkley out of town before he lectures King Juan Carlos on Spanish social problems or bites somebody in the neck and starts World War III?

It’s been a summer for the NBA stars to remember, even if they would like to forget it. Rather than the Beatles tour, the metaphor of choice, it’s been more like Bill Clinton’s campaign.

Fellow U.S. athletes are ambivalent about them, a posture exemplified by runner PattiSue Plumer, who complained that the basketball stars were getting all the attention, though adding in an aside to Sports Illustrated’s Gary Smith: “Yeah, I think I got a good shot of Magic. If I didn’t, my husband will kill me.”

The U.S. Olympic Committee isn’t as torn.

It just wishes the pros would go away.

Forget this U.S. Olympic “team” stuff. The moment that archer lit the Olympic torch, the USOC and the NBA hunkered down for two weeks of Greco-Roman wrestling and bureaucratic infighting, highlighted by USOC publicist Mike Moran taking on Michael Jordan publicly, and LeRoy Walker, the former track coach and USOC president-designate, saying he couldn’t care less whether the pros return.

Hint for the new president: If you thought it was tough getting them here, wait till you try to get them out.

Why?

The world adores them.

The day Walker was going off, Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, was calling NBA President David Stern to thank him for bringing his players.

Boris Stankovic, the Serb who heads the International Basketball Federation, was beside himself with joy, but wondering who this Walker person was.

“I hope Mr. LeRoy shouldn’t decide alone,” Stankovic said. “I would like to ask a question: What happens in the U.S. if the U.S. loses the gold medal with college players? What will public opinion in his own country be?”

If the NBA presence was controversial, it was a peculiarly American controversy.

The rest of the world was faint with excitement.

In this case, a billion Chinese did give a damn.

Xu Jicheng of China’s Xinhua News Agency said there was great interest in his country, where U.S. games in the Olympics were carried live, an improvement over NBA telecasts, which are shown on tape delay of several weeks.

Xu said the Chinese love Jordan most but Isiah Thomas next, because, “people in China don’t throw so high.”

Richard Brecht of Television New Zealand said the last thing his 12-year-old daughter told him when he left was, “You’ve got to get Michael Jordan’s autograph.”

Crowds lined the streets for two blocks when the U.S. team’s bus left its hotel. Players were pursued everywhere by fans, athletes and Olympic volunteers. One night at the fights, former Cuban boxing star Teofilo Stevenson shouldered aside an armed guard to get to Magic Johnson.

If the world press was any more breathless, it would have needed artificial respiration.

Question for Jordan: “Are you of this Earth?”

Jordan: “Well, I live in Chicago.”

Question for Johnson: “Magic, people love you so much. What is your mission in life?”

You’re looking at his mission in life. He’s as happy as Olivier doing Shakespeare.

The Dream Team owes its composition to Johnson, as much as to anyone. He talked a reluctant Jordan into coming and turned Larry Bird around, too. “I know Magic was instrumental with Bird,” Celtic President Dave Gavitt said. “Larry’s initial response was this was for younger players.”

After that, anyone who thought he was anyone was dying to be invited--and complaining bitterly if he wasn’t.

But nerves frayed as the summer wore on.

In the beginning, there was the glow of camaraderie with one’s fellow All-Stars.

Then came the excitement of the Tournament of the Americas in Portland, Ore. That wore thin in a hurry, but it was followed by a week off . . . and another in Monte Carlo for reconditioning, golf, sunning oneself on the beaches and late-night blackjack at private tables.

Finally, it was time for the Olympic opener.

After that, the weirdness set in.

Jordan threatened to stay off the victory stand today if he had to wear a Reebok pullover for 60 seconds, likening his allegiance to Nike to that of a son to his father. Daddy Nike had already told its athletes it had no objection.

David Robinson burst forth with his curious don’t-send-us-to-war-with-mixed-signals speech, seeming to compare basketball blowouts to bombing Vietnamese.

Scottie Pippen, asked about any opponent, evinced contempt.

While their comments may have suggested that Jordan has a dollar sign where his heart should be, and Robinson was feeling alienated as usual among his earthier peers and Pippen’s manners need as much work as his jump shot, they were penny-ante breaches of decorum next to the exploits of Barkley, 255 pounds of Ugly American on a world stage.

Barkley poked his snout between Jordan and Johnson into center stage, setting the tone for what was to come by elbowing a 176-pound Angolan in the opener. Matched against players he overmatched in size and ability, he still had to make sure they knew who he was and who they weren’t.

Embarrassed teammates criticized him throughout the competition. “Of course, what he does rubs off on us,” Johnson said. “People look at him and think, ‘They’re all like that.’

“Nothing you can do but hope he doesn’t go overboard. The thing is, Charles is a good person if you know him.

“Well, they don’t. We know him. They don’t.”

After that came a new phase: Barkley got heavy.

Sounding like a man who had spent one too many nights out with Spike Lee, Barkley responded to LeRoy Walker’s comments with a lecture to the media on the more pressing problems of race and poverty.

Barkley also confided in midweek that he was tired of the Olympics.

As final proof of how madly the world loves this team, it isn’t even offended by Barkley.

“To me he is brilliant,” said Thierry Bretagne of the French basketball magazine 5 Majeur (Starting 5). “A movie has a good guy and a bad guy. If everyone was like David Robinson and Clyde Drexler, it would be boring.”

By now, everyone on the team could stand some boredom of the Stateside variety.

So, we approach the ultimate moment, eager to see if our superstars can stay awake one more night, curious to see if Jordan dares snub the flag on worldwide TV, hoping the U.S. government lifts Barkley’s passport as soon as he gets home and wondering if all this was really necessary.

I’m with LeRoy Walker on this one, but we’re up against it.