They’re a Couple of NBA Diamonds With Rough Edges : Pro basketball: Dennis Rodman, Brian Williams have talent and troubles.

Dennis Rodman and Brian Williams share many of the fruits of life in the NBA. They are young, rich, talented and athletic. But these days, both share something else: Each is troubled, his life disjointed and filled with questions.

Rodman is back in the Detroit Pistons’ lineup, once again worming his way to the top of the NBA’s rebounding chart. That’s not to say, however, that he’ll be doing the same tomorrow.

“Dennis,” said Pistons Director of Player Personnel Billy McKinney, “poses interesting challenges to us every day.”

Rodman’s impressive return -- he has averaged 20 rebounds in three games since coming back from a suspension stemming from a series of personal problems -- merely is part of McKinney’s latest dilemma. Do you trade such an impact player, or do you try to live with the daily adventures?

A year ago, Williams, a former star at Maryland and Arizona, was a prize rookie of the Orlando Magic, with a big bank account and a bright future. But now Orlando belongs to rookie sensation Shaquille O’Neal and Williams’ future is as cloudy as O’Neal’s is bright.

Following what General Manager Pat Williams called a “splotchy” rookie season, the Magic had to make a decision on Williams. The team had selected LSU all-American O’Neal with the first pick in the June draft and needed to clear a sizable amount of money for the franchise player’s inevitable blockbuster contract.

“There were deals offered for Brian, deals that would have opened up over a million dollars for us,” said Pat Williams. “But Brian was the young power forward we were going to build around. We envisioned a (Dennis) Scott, O’Neal, Williams front line.”

The Magic has been in first place in the Atlantic Division, with O’Neal averaging 26 points and 16 rebounds per game, and with Scott, the small forward, contributing 20 points a game. But Brian Williams, the Magic’s No. 1 pick in 1991, isn’t on Orlando’s active roster; instead, he is undergoing therapy twice a week after being diagnosed with clinical depression.

In October, Brian Williams took an overdose of sleeping pills in an attempt, he told the Orlando Sentinel, “to go to the end and back.” That followed a bizarre summer in which he fainted four times. Recently, he collapsed during a practice, banging his head on the court. Initially, the team thought the problem was physical, perhaps an irregular heartbeat.

But, said Pat Williams, “he was tested more than any player in the history of the game and (physically) everything was sound.”

Still, Pat Williams said the Magic suspected something was amiss.

“We’d have workouts and he’d be the best player on the floor, but there was no zest, no life in it,” the general manager said. “There was just kind of a deadness of spirit.”

Williams averaged 1.3 points and 2.5 rebounds in the Magic’s first four games of the year. After the last episode, team doctors suggested he seek psychological help, which the 23 year old agreed to.

At the therapists’ request, their identity and the type of treatment Williams is receiving have remained undisclosed, although Pat Williams said he’s been told the treatment has an 80% success rate. The GM added that Williams won’t return to the team until the therapists decide he’s ready.

Brian Williams declined to be interviewed for this article.

Williams’ depression is a surprise to his teammates but helps explain some of his actions.

“How do you talk with someone about what’s going on when you don’t know what’s going on?” said guard Scott Skiles. “It’s been very difficult. We’d all try to talk to him but he wasn’t close to any of us.

Enigmatic is a word that has long been used to describe Williams. A native of California, he went to three different high schools. When it came time for college, he chose Maryland, although he transferred after his freshman year because of what he called “philosophical” differences with then-Coach Bob Wade.

In his junior year at Arizona, he averaged 14 points and 7.8 rebounds. After that season, he decided to enter the NBA draft and called Los Angeles-based agent Fred Slaughter, informing him he’d selected him as his agent.

“I didn’t even know him,” Slaughter said with a laugh.

Slaughter also expressed surprise at Williams’ depression, saying he read of each episode in the news but that “every conversation I had with him while this was going on was very positive and upbeat. ... He’s as normal as anyone else I’ve represented over the last 20 years.”

Rodman’s problems have been almost as murky. After leading the NBA in rebounding with the highest average (18.7) in 20 years, marital troubles caused his play to tail off in last season’s playoffs. When Chuck Daly then left the Pistons to coach the Nets, Rodman said he was considering retiring to his construction business in Dallas because the game was no longer fun.

The initial tendency was to dismiss the talk as part of Rodman’s quirky personality. A two-time defensive player of the year, the 31 year old far from fits the NBA standard of cool.

In previous seasons, Rodman had a fondness for carving words or symbols into his hair; this year there’s a series of tattoos running down each arm. But Rodman missed all of training camp, returning four days before the Pistons’ opening game, and only then, he said, because his contract forced him to. Averaging just three points and nine rebounds after the first four games, Rodman then refused to join the team on a West Coast trip, claiming a knee injury. He missed two games but after team physicians cleared him to play, Rodman refused and was suspended, missing three games.

On Nov. 23, Rodman and his agents met for more than 3 1/2 hours with McKinney and Pistons President Tom Wilson and was reinstated immediately afterward. Although he’s still in divorce proceedings and is fighting for custody of his daughter, on the court Rodman has been his usual strong self on the backboards.

“I know that his personal problems aren’t over but he’s resolved that in his mind,” McKinney said. “He battles it every day but Dennis has made the commitment that he’s ready to play basketball.”