THE NBA /MARK HEISLER : If You Play for Clippers, Keep Your Bags Packed

Where have all the centers gone

Long time passing?

Where have all the forwards gone

Long time ago?

Where have all the Clippers gone?

Some contender’s uniform.

When will they ever learn? *

There are times, as in the second half of Thursday’s victory over the Lakers, when the Clippers are wonderful to behold: young, athletic, hungry, unselfish.

They throw their bodies after loose balls as Gary Grant did in one memorable dive before the celebrities in the front row, almost ruining the shoeshines of Darryl Strawberry, Eric Davis, Al Davis, Connie Stevens and owner Donald T. Sterling. They change ends like demons, follow their shots like dolphins jumping out of a pool and never shoot before first looking for a teammate who is more open.

Then there are times, like the preceding week, when the whole thing threatens to collapse.

If it’s midseason, someone must want out of here.

Forced trades are a Clipper way of life, not to mention a proven road to money and success. The Clippers aren’t likely to make the NBA finals this season, but Charles Smith and Benoit Benjamin may, even if the Seattle SuperSonics have to tow Ben into place like a decommissioned battleship.

Now it’s Danny Manning, the franchise himself, who has the franchise over the barrel.

Forget his spat with Coach Larry Brown, this thing has been on track since the stormy negotiations in Manning’s rookie season.

He was so upset, he vowed to become a free agent as soon as possible and then leave.

Maybe he would have gotten over it, but in 1990, when he was struggling to return from knee surgery, Sterling told agent Ron Grinker that Manning was a disappointment and perhaps nothing more than a good college player.

By the start of this season, with Manning about to become the first Clipper All-Star since Marques Johnson in 1986, he was turning aside any suggestion of signing a long-term contract. Grinker said Manning might stay, but only under the right conditions: new arena, new relationship with players, etc.

Grinker then noted that Manning was paying $200 a game for four courtside seats because he didn’t like the complimentary ones behind the basket the team gives its players.

The team put its faith in the friendship between Grinker and new Executive Vice President Harley Frankel. Clipper insiders considered Manning already gone.

Any hope that Manning was warming to the situation exploded last week when he got mad at Brown and asked to be traded.

He immediately recanted but it didn’t sound like the dawn of a new relationship with the players.

Grinker is hawking Manning around the league. He says his client really likes Los Angeles, so if it doesn’t work out with the Clippers. . . .

He says he can picture Manning in Boston, too.

“There’s been a lot of talk about Danny and the Celtics,” Grinker told the Boston Herald last week, “and a lot of that has come from me. I think certain players were born to wear Kelly green.”

There is a word for this, from the Clipper standpoint: intolerable . You can’t begrudge Manning his position, but it’s time for the divorce.

“I think somewhere along the line, we’ve gotta get commitments,” Brown said. “And if that can’t be done, then I think we gotta circle the wagons--this is me talking--and just do what’s right for our franchise.”

Now for the hard part. . . .

The Clippers won’t like the offers they get. Everyone knows they are under the gun and will low-ball them, but they have to pick the best one. As bad as their bargaining position is, it gets worse every day Manning gets closer to free agency. They can’t say “We’re not going to give him away,” and kid themselves they can win back his heart. They have had almost five years to do that. Turn out the lights, this party’s over.

Here’s the real problem:

It’s not only Manning.

Four other Clippers can become free agents. The club is dangling all of them, as usual.

Accustomed to such standoffs, Clipper players are seizing the initiative.

A year ago, the team held off signing Smith, a restricted free agent, to a long-term deal. Instead of the usual recourse, getting an offer sheet and a certain $3-million contract, Smith signed his one-year mandatory qualifying offer for a 25% raise to $1.25 million, making him eligible for unrestricted free agency this July 1, forcing the Clippers to trade him to his preferred team, the New York Knicks. Smith retains his free-agent rights but can be signed for any sum by the Knicks, a deep-pockets organization.

It took the good fortune of a center glut in Orlando and fast footwork by Elgin Baylor to put together a three-way deal and come out of it with Stanley Roberts and Mark Jackson.

A year later, the Clippers are holding off re-signing:

--Ron Harper. They have an option for next season--at $4 million, which would make him the second-highest-paid player in the game. They haven’t yet picked it up. Harper says he won’t discuss a long-term contract until they do. In other words, pay him the bundle or kiss him goodby.

--Ken Norman. An unrestricted free agent-to-be, he was outspoken in his desire to stay. When he turned down a four-year, $10-million offer, the Clippers pulled it off the table. There have been no talks since, and it doesn’t look good.

--Grant. This reformed wild man has come a long way in a hurry. He’ll be a restricted free agent. The team is expected to see if anyone tenders an offer sheet. Bet on this: Someone will. Young, talented, experienced point guards don’t grow on trees.

--Jackson. A restricted free agent-to-be, he wants to stay. No sweat.

Suggestion: Sign them all, now.

Of course, they are asking a lot. NBA basketball is a player’s game and they are players. If you don’t want them, sign them and trade them for real value, instead of this continuing fire sale.

If you need inspiration, look across town at the Lakers, who made Vlade Divac the game’s fourth-highest-paid player to keep him from returning to Europe. Jerry West didn’t think Vlade was the fourth-best player in the game; he just preferred having him to having nobody. What Jerry West wants, Jerry Buss gets him.

Sterling means well and he throws a swell party. He has been dragged into the ‘90s and now comes up with major jack--unfortunately only after epic struggles. Clipper negotiations turn adversarial to personal to ruinous.

He has two options: Sign his players or herald the new dark ages.

Of course, that would put the lottery party back on the calendar.

BIG D, AS IN DEPOSED

News item: Dallas Mavericks fire Coach Richie Adubato.

Comment: That should turn the program around.

This was as predictable as sunup. The peppery Adubato was a veterans’ guy with little fondness for mistake-prone young players, especially the variety at hand that included four-year flop Randy White and budding bust Doug Smith.

Adubato was there on a pass in the first place, Dallas having offered his job last summer to NBC’s Quinn Buckner, who said no, concerned about the franchise’s direction.

Adubato, perhaps at the end of his rope, last week asked for a one-year extension.

Moral: Never go in to ask the boss for a raise when he has been wondering how to tell you he’s cutting your pay.

The Mavericks still want Buckner but now trail the pace of the 9-73 76ers. No. 1 draft pick Jim Jackson vows to sit in Columbus, Ohio, rather than sign with them. How’s that for a new direction?

AND A LAST O-WOOO FOR JIMMY RODGERS

When the Minnesota Timberwolves become good, 19,000 fans doing the Wolf howl while opponents shoot free throws will be one of the fun things in this league.

Of course, that won’t be for a while.

Management pulled the plug on Coach Jimmy Rodgers, a low-key pro well suited to developing a young team. However, Rodgers didn’t have a young team, Bill Musselman’s CBA veterans having been supplanted by General Manager Jack McCloskey’s former Pistons.

McCloskey thought Rodgers didn’t confront resentment of Christian Laettner. To his credit, Laettner stood up, conceded he had been selfish and vowed to fit in, but by then the veteran Timberwolves had packed it in.

Interim Coach Sidney Lowe may last the season. He’s the point guard Musselman brought with him from the Albany Patroons and whom Musselman insisted on starting ahead of Pooh Richardson.

Lowe was asked what was more important, developing players or winning games.

“Winning games,” he said.

Wolf fans had better not hold their breath waiting to howl.

FACES AND FIGURES

Wrong opponent: Bernard King, upset that the Washington Bullets hadn’t activated him, engaged in a shoving match with sumo wrestler-size Coach Wes Unseld. King then called a news conference to demand that the team activate him or release him--and was suspended for his trouble. Said Unseld: “We’ve waited a year and a half on Bernard King, and I don’t see why we’re going to get that excited over making him wait awhile to show me that his skills are still where he says they are.”

Richardson, having a disappointing debut season in Indianapolis, is being outscored, 11.2 points to 10.7, by veteran Vern Fleming, who plays fewer minutes, and may be close to losing his job. Said Pacer Coach Bob Hill after a recent practice: “Vern just spanked Pooh. It’s great because Vern had a great practice, but it’s bad because our starting point guard can’t hold his own against our second-line point guard.”

Orlando Magic officials, aware that their 8-3 start came against a soft schedule, were eager to see how their recent home stand would go. It went 1-6. . . . Get ready for a l oooo ng practice: Coach Pat Riley was so unimpressed by the Knicks’ fall in Denver, he didn’t say a word to them afterward. Said Doc Rivers: “We think about catching Chicago. We better be running from New Jersey and Boston right now.”

The Knicks are 0-9 in games in which they give up 100 points. . . . The Nets, who started 4-7, drew within 1 1/2 at midweek with the Celtics, who started 2-8, only 2 1/2 back. Said Net Coach Chuck Daly: “There’s a lot of things open in NBA basketball right now. Yeah, Chicago is the odds-on favorite and you’ve got the Portlands, the Clevelands and all those people, but nothing is etched in stone this year.”

Baby Jordan-on-a-string: The tug-of-war between Harold Miner and Miami Heat Coach Kevin Loughery continues. Forum fans chanted “HAR-OLD,” and Chick Hearn called Loughery’s substitution pattern “a disgrace” as Loughery held Miner to 11 minutes in his homecoming, during which Miner scored 13 points, making all six of his shots. The next game, Miner played 39 minutes at Utah, scoring a career-high 27 points, including a three-pointer that tied the game with :00.8 left in the first overtime. Said Loughery: “He’s getting better every game but he still has a long way to go.”

Some years it goes like that: The day Golden State’s Billy Owens came off the injured list, Victor Alexander made room on the roster for him by breaking his nose in practice. Owens, sidelined 15 games, of which the Warriors won 12, had 10 points and six rebounds in 10 minutes--but hurt his sore knee again. This time he underwent arthroscopic surgery.

Charles Barkley, after the Phoenix Suns lost at Seattle: “C’mon man, these games don’t mean anything. This is January. We came with the best record and we’re leaving with the best record. What else do you want to know?”