NBA REPORT : SuperSonics Get Schrempf, Deal McKey to Pacers

The Seattle SuperSonics acquired forward Detlef Schrempf from the Indiana Pacers on Monday in exchange for forward Derrick McKey and swingman Gerald Paddio.

“We’ve just added an all-star to our team,” SuperSonic President Bob Whitsitt said. “Any time you can do that, I think you can’t help but become a better team.”

The 6-foot-10 Schrempf, 30, was an All-Star in 1993 after being voted the sixth man of the year in 1991 and 1992. He averaged a career-high 19.1 points last season.

Indiana General Manager Donnie Walsh said the Pacers were trading Schrempf, an All-Star last season, for both basketball and financial reasons. Schrempf can become a free agent at the end of the upcoming season.

“To keep Detlef here, I had to feel real deep in my heart that we were going to have him here next year, or else we stood a very difficult chance of losing him for nothing,” Walsh said.

McKey averaged 13.4 points and 4.2 rebounds as a starter for Seattle last season. Paddio averaged 3.9 points in 41 games.

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Journeyman guard Pete Myers is the leading candidate to take Michael Jordan’s spot in the starting lineup for the Chicago Bulls, Coach Phil Jackson said.

The 6-foot-6 Myers, who played for Chicago, San Antonio, Philadelphia and New York before spending the last two years in Italy, was not even expected to make the team when training camp opened.

Myers, a sixth-round draft pick of Chicago’s in 1986 out of Arkansas-Little Rock, is considered a defensive specialist. He shot only 42% from the floor in his three-year NBA career.

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Clyde Drexler and the Portland Trail Blazers have agreed to put contract discussions on hold until the end of the season, the team said. Drexler, unhappy with his salary after seeing recent huge contracts awarded to newcomers and veterans in the NBA this year, skipped a practice without notice Oct. 22 and said afterward that he was considering holding out or asking to be traded.

Drexler, 31, has three years left on a contract that pays him $1.5 million in each of the next two seasons, followed by a balloon payment of $8.75 million in 1995-96. He has said that he wants to raise his annual salary to about $7 million per year.

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New Jersey Net center Benoit Benjamin, acquired in the off-season, will be sidelined about two weeks because of a urinary tract infection.

Benjamin started in five of the Nets’ six exhibition games, averaging 7.3 points and 3.5 rebounds. Dwayne Schintzius will start in his place.