THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : For These Three Teams, the Week Has Gone to Pot

You thought you had a rough week?

In retrospect, you were doing OK if you weren’t obliged to fine four of your players because of a sex scandal with teen-age girls, or see your leading rebounder taken to see a psychiatrist by the police or your elder statesman center busted for drugs.

That lets the Portland Trail Blazers, Detroit Pistons and Boston Celtics out.

News item: Salt Lake prosecutor won’t file charges against four Blazers.

Comment: Great, we’ve got our role models back.

The lone lesson from this tawdry affair: If you thought anyone’s conduct had changed in the post-Magic Johnson era, think again.

News item: Dennis Rodman, carrying a .22 rifle in his truck, is apprehended while practicing at the Palace at 6:30 a.m. and taken into custody after a friend says he might be suicidal.

Comment: Piston respectability rides on how many rebounds they can get out of Worm’s precariously balanced psyche. Meanwhile, six Piston players anonymously ripped doomed Coach Ron Rothstein and team president Tom Wilson sided with them, acknowledging “The problems are deep-seated.” It might not be too late to get your bids in for Rodman, Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars.

News item: Robert Parish charged with possession of marijuana:

Comment: I’m confused, is Chief taking the kids under his wing or vice versa?

DOCTOR J: THE WAY WE WERE

You can remember Julius Erving, newly elected to the Hall of Fame, for what you’d like. What I’ll remember is he was so nice.

He was a breakthrough figure. In the dark days of the 1970s, the decade that was supposed to belong to the NBA and almost buried it, he began blazing the path that led to the league’s explosion. While other sports’ superstars got surlier, the NBA’s got friendlier.

It wasn’t always that way. For years, it was almost axiomatic that a star center would be a head case. Bill Russell was aloof. Wilt Chamberlain was accommodating to a fault but stuck in his Goliath persona. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar took years to come off his mountain and never made it all the way to the valley floor. And Bill Walton barely talked to the running-dog imperialist press until his average hit single figures.

Along came Dr. J to set standards for grace, on and off the floor. In baseball, even a writers’ favorite such as Tug McGraw would talk for five minutes, ask “Got enough?” and split. Erving would sit in his stall for an hour after games, ice bags taped to his knees, talking to anyone, including the kid from the Columbia School of Broadcasting, while his wife Turquoise tapped her foot in the hall and asked departing writers, “Is he ever coming out?”

Erving passed the torch to his young fan, Magic Johnson, setting up the NBA’s golden age. In the ‘80s, even young stars who started out sullen and curt--read Larry Bird--turned into salesmen for the game.

We’re not exactly sure who’s got that old torch now. Johnson said he was passing it to Michael Jordan, who said he didn’t want it.

Mike is so big, he’s got it, like it or not. Next up could be Shaquille O’Neal, who is feeling his way now but has the necessary combination of magnetism and manners.

But his is a new day, with sold-out arenas and beaucoup TV exposure. Repression is rolling in on little fat cats’ feet. There are more and more rules, less and less access.

If that’s the face of prosperity, let them look at Erving and remember how they got here.

Here’s to you, Doc. May the game remain worthy of you.

HERE THEY COME, DESERVING OR NOT

And a few words on some other inductees:

Walton--It says here that for one season he was the finest center ever to play the game. Injury robbed him of the chance to prove it over the long haul, but nothing ever quenched his love of the game. Demonstrating his capacity for personal growth, he has joined that running-dog imperialist press .

Dan Issel--In the words of former Denver coach, Doug Moe: “Dan Issel? He went to that institution (Kentucky) where they hit you in the head with a diploma if you drive through town with the windows down.”

Moe also remembers Issel’s famous head fake fondly:

“It worked because it looked so dumb. (Issel used to play with his bridge out and a large gap where his front teeth used to be.) He looked you in the eye and just paralyzed you.”

Calvin Murphy--After three misses, Murphy said he was taking his name off the ballot but graciously consented to accept induction when he hit on No. 4.

“That was my ego talking,” the 5-foot-9 Murphy said. “. . . I feel like I’m 10 feet tall. No one’s going to take this feeling away from me.”

Walt Bellamy-- Walt Bellamy? Who played for seven teams in 14 seasons? Who set up the New York Knicks’ golden era by getting traded away? Of whom it was written: “He made the 20,000-point club irrelevant?” That Walt Bellamy?

Ulyana Semyenova--I’m all for international goodwill, but this 7-foot Soviet woman was, not to put too fine a point on it, not very mobile. Exactly what standards did she meet? Very large people from championship teams? Who’s next, Chuck Nevitt?

Suggestion for the selection committee, whoever you are: Disband before Marvin Barnes gets in.

BERNARD IS BACK IN TOWN

The New Jersey Nets’ signing of Bernard King was inspired. He came cheap--$70,000 for the rest of the season--represents instant offense and can be cut at the first sign of trouble.

Of course, in typical Nets’ fashion, they had to stumble over him.

This is the (dis)organization that gave away rising stars Terry Mills and Mookie Blaylock to save money. With them, with or without Bernard, they would be dreaming of a championship in North Jersey.

When King’s name first came up, General Manager Willis Reed said, “I just don’t see how Bernard fits in.”

Said Reed two weeks later, “After careful considerations and discussion, we felt it was in our best interest to obtain a player of Bernard’s ability.”

Assistant coach Brendan Suhr saw King working out in the area and told Coach Chuck Daly to take a look at him.

Daly decided he wanted him.

“He’s a gunslinger,” Daly said. “I’ve had ‘em all now. I’ve had (Kelly) Tripucka, I had (Adrian) Dantley. I had (Mark) Aguirre.”

King is auditioning for a new contract and everyone knows it. For the moment, he’s in his Dr. Jekyll mode, all charm. Nevertheless, there’s concern about Chris Morris, the flighty starting small forward.

Morris was in bed with flu when he got the news on TV.

“It said they signed Bernard,” he said. “I’m already sick. I said, ‘Ohhhh man.’ ”

Said Daly, ever the realist, “I don’t know that we had great chemistry anyway. So I said, ‘How bad can our chemistry be?’ ”

FACES AND FIGURES

One problem the Clippers don’t have: Larry Brown is not going back to UCLA. Forget all that talk-show babble. He burned his bridges with his last about-face in Westwood and is dismissed out of hand by key Bruin officials. . . . Moe, Philadelphia 76er coach, keeps insisting his club is really trying to an ever more skeptical audience since he also keeps noting he doesn’t want to get caught in “the twilight zone” of the eighth playoff berth. He has nothing to worry about with his team tumbling again. Said Moe after a Spectrum crowd booed a one-sided loss to Houston: “They’d have to be brain-dead if they didn’t boo.”

Kendall Gill of the Charlotte Hornets says he will pull a Danny Manning, sign a qualifying offer this summer and become an unrestricted free agent in 1994. The relationship has never been the same since then-General Manager, now-Coach Allan Bristow tried to choke Gill’s agent, Arn Tellem.

Test of new-found maturity alert: Reformed tempest George Karl, whose first year as SuperSonic coach was an unbroken triumph, has lost seven of 10 games and is being lobbied by players and management to play Benoit Benjamin. Says General Manager Bob Whitsitt: “(Karl) still has to adjust to the blend of speed and power we have. . . . The power game and the half-court offense is something we have to develop.”

One victory a month won’t keep the Dallas Mavericks out of the record book. They are still about even with the 1972-73 76ers, who went 9-73, but this is the point of the season where the 76ers went 5-2 under new Coach Kevin Loughery, who replaced fired Roy Rubin (4-41). “I don’t see us winning five of seven like Philly did,” Maverick interim Coach Gar Heard said. “For this team, that’s a miracle.”

Indiana’s Reggie Miller, ejected on his home court after a fight with Michael Jordan, who was allowed to stay: “Michael Jordan runs the league. Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Half the vendors and half the people in the stands would have left if he had been thrown out. It shows it’s all about money.” . . . In a spasm of justice, the NBA took the remarkable step of suspending Jordan for Friday’s TNT marquee matchup, handing the Knicks a golden opportunity and, finally, the No. 1 spot in the East. Holding it won’t be easy. Going into the weekend, the Knicks had 35 games left, 20 on the road. The Bulls had 33 left, 20 at home.

Bulls’ second fiddle Scottie Pippen has a candy bar named for him, the Scottie. Presumably it’s milk chocolate with chunks of aspirin. . . . Free-wheeling Knick guard John Starks, sailing out of bounds with the ball, turned in mid-air, called time out and was granted it before he landed. Said Coach Pat Riley: “At first, I thought John was going to try to shoot.”. . . More Shaq attaqs: NBC’s ratings, which had been down 16% from last season, jumped 46% for last week’s Orlando-Phoenix game--despite a 30-minute pause after O’Neal broke the basket standard. He’s back on NBC today and TNT has rearranged its schedule, canceling a Miami Heat game to add the Magic. . . . O’Neal, insisting he’s not going to hit this rookie “wall” he’s being asked about: “I’m 20, not 30.”