THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : Hornets May Be the Best Team They’ve Ever Seen

The kids are all right: Things are settling down in Charlotte, where the young Hornets have recovered from a 1-2 start and regained their voices.

Of course, it was a little slow there for a while with the $84-million man, Larry Johnson, dragging his right leg around like Chester in “Gunsmoke.”

Johnson hurt himself with a bit of typical exuberance, tomahawk dunking in a charity game, stressing a disk in his back. When he returned, his leg was so weak he could barely dunk at all. He went five games before he finally had one last week against the Boston Celtics. The Carolinas breathed a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, Alonzo Mourning, who sat out the week before the season to rest his sore knee, was getting himself back together and the Hornets were putting up numbers. They went into the weekend averaging 116 points, No. 1 in the league, shooting 53%, 44% on three-pointers.

As usual, no one was more impressed than they.

Said Coach Allan Bristow: “We’re probably the most potent offensive team in the league.”

Most potent talkers, anyway.

Last spring, before falling to the New York Knicks in the playoffs, they told anyone who would listen that they were the gifted ones.

“We have more talent than New York does,” said Kendall Gill, now a former Hornet playing for Seattle. “We just haven’t put everything together like New York has to this point.”

Said Muggsy Bogues: “You look at New York and you constantly wonder how they got 60 wins.”

Well, there was that NBA-best defense, which the Knicks applied to the Hornets in the fourth quarter of the series opener to break the game open.

Said Bristow afterward: “Wore down? Are you kidding me? He (Knick Coach Pat Riley) was playing our game! Ask them if they got worn down. They’re the ones that aren’t used to this pace.”

When the Knicks won Game 2, Bristow, still unimpressed, sneered. “Their defense, I think it plays on your minds,” he said.

To no one else’s surprise, at least, the Knicks eliminated the Hornets in six games.

When not forcing money on its players, Hornet management seems concerned about the young, impetuous coaching staff. Owner George Shinn said he would like it if Bristow, 42, had an assistant older than T.R. Dunn, 37. The other assistant, Bill Hanzlik, is 35.

If this is a small sign of managerial impatience, the line of candidates to replace Bristow will be out the door. Speculation starts with two heavyweights, Kentucky’s Rick Pitino and TNT’s Doug Collins.

For the moment, Bristow is safe. Perhaps to mollify Shinn, he brought in retired war horses Jack Ramsay and Dick Motta to help in training camp. But both have gone home and the kids are on their own again.

THE HONEYMOONERS: A FLAT ON THE WAY TO NIAGARA FALLS

Let’s check in on the Clippers to see how the grand experiment is working out:

Bob Weiss’ mission, should he choose to accept it, is to win so many games that Danny Manning gets swept off his feet and signs a long-term contract.

Manning is now on the injured list because of two cracks in a bone in his left hand.

The Clippers said his status was day to day when it happened Nov. 11.

Manning’s agent, Ron Grinker, called a reporter the next day to announce that it was more like week to week or month to month, declaring that the Clipper doctor, Tony Daly, was not in charge and that Stephen Lombardo, Manning’s personal orthopedist and the Lakers’ physician, was.

The Clippers then announced that Manning had been re-examined by Daly, who had taken a CAT-scan that came up “cloudy.” Manning then was put on the injured list, meaning he was sidelined for at least five games, although Clipper spokesman Joe Safety denied that Grinker was calling the shots.

“Ron Grinker doesn’t run this club, he only runs his mouth,” Safety said.

Safety may only be venting the Clippers’ anger at Grinker, certainly an implacable foe, but they have little hope of splitting the player and his agent.

Grinker once represented Manning’s father, Ed, and Danny grew up calling him Uncle Ron. Even Elgin Baylor, Clipper general manager, says he has never seen a closer agent-player relationship.

And, lest anyone forget him, or make the mistake of thinking that $4 million has bought his happiness, free-agent-to-be Ron Harper announced: “There ain’t going to be no deal. Seventy-seven more games I’m playing here, and that’s that.”

Stanley Roberts might be in shape by Jan. 1.

John Williams might be in shape by Jan. 1, 2001.

Aside from that, the dream lives on.

AT LEAST IN PRACTICE, THEY STILL ARE THE BAD BOYS

There was once a scorpion who asked a frog to give him a ride across a river.

The frog agreed, but made the scorpion promise not to sting him, or they would both perish.

Halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog.

“Why did you do that?” the frog asked. “Now you’ll drown.”

“It’s my nature,” the scorpion said. “I’m Bill Laimbeer in an earlier incarnation.”

*

One thing you have to give Laimbeer, he’s consistent.

He doesn’t pick on only little guys, or opponents, or guys he hasn’t already laid out.

Last week, Laimbeer was fined $5,000 and suspended for a game, worth another $16,085, for clotheslining none other than Karl Malone.

During a Piston practice two weeks ago, Laimbeer hit teammate Isiah Thomas with a pick that broke one of Thomas’ ribs. Laimbeer and Thomas are buddies whose wives ride to the games together.

“Those two guys are close friends,” said Chuck Daly, their former coach. “I remember they were roommates one year in training camp and they broke up and got separate rooms. They’re like lovers, those two.”

Nevertheless, it was too late to start making exceptions, so last week Laimbeer hit Thomas, playing with his broken rib taped, with another pick. As Laimbeer walked away, Thomas ran up behind him, punched him in the back of the head--and broke a bone in his shooting hand.

Anyone who has seen Thomas shoot--he has made 36% of his shots this season--knows it can’t make that much of a difference, but the Pistons said he would be sidelined for a month.

NBA players threatened to bury Thomas’ house with congratulatory telegrams.

“In my opinion, he can’t have picked a better guy to punch,” Orlando’s Scott Skiles said.

Said Boston’s Robert Parish: “If you’re going to break your hand, then you might as well break it on him.”

Laimbeer, shaken, had to be talked out of retiring on the spot. Get this--the big lug has a heart. Impervious to boos on the road, he has said he would walk away if his home crowd in the Palace ever got on him.

The next day, he and Thomas made up. The next game, Laimbeer entered late in the first quarter to a mixed reception and put together one of his great performances of the ‘90s, 26 points and seven rebounds. The crowd took him back.

The moral of the story: If you’re a scorpion, you still are more popular than Bill Laimbeer.

FACES AND FIGURES

--The good news is he feels great: Portland Oregonian columnist Dwight Jaynes says Clyde Drexler, who shot 33% for his first five games, is a shadow of his former self. Said Drexler: “The outside shots just aren’t falling for me and I’m not getting the stuff on the break like I used to. I feel great. I still feel like there’s nothing I can’t do.”

--Homeboys section: You read right, that was former Bruin, Clipper and Piston Don MacLean leading the Washington Bullets with a 19.8 average after scoring 38 against the Milwaukee Bucks last week. MacLean bulked up to 235 pounds and is working on his defense and floor play. “There’s no doubt he can shoot the ball, but don’t measure him yet,” a gruff Bullet Coach Wes Unseld said. “He knows he can score, but he has to do the other things.”

--Coming off the Bullets’ bench is free agent Mitchell Butler, another former Bruin, who is hoping to stay on after Pervis Ellison and Larry Stewart return. In a recent four-game stretch, the Bullet reserves outscored opposing reserves, 196-58.

--Fairfax High and Arizona star Chris Mills, drafted 22nd last spring, missed by one game becoming the first rookie to start for the Cleveland Cavaliers on opening night since Brad Daugherty in 1986, but has been in the lineup since. Says Mills: “I’ve been overlooked by a lot of people. My quickness has been questioned, and there were doubts about whether I could play in the NBA. I want to do well against all the teams that passed me up.” Said Arizona Coach Lute Olson: “I said that Chris Mills was more ready for the NBA than Sean Elliott. People looked at me like I was wrong.”

--Don’t Haq the Shaq: Shaquille O’Neal, who averaged 38 points his first week, slipped to 22 his second and complained that game officials were letting opponents beat him up. His Magic teammates are struggling to keep the pressure off him, but Nick Anderson is adjusting slowly to small forward, Anfernee Hardaway to big guard.

Miami’s John Salley on holding Shaq down: “Every time he made a move, I tried to stay between him and the basket, stand straight up and yell, ‘Rony (Seikaly)!’ I called Rony like he was my big brother.”

--The Czar of the Telestrator, on journalism: Cavalier Coach Mike Fratello, late of NBC, the holding company of the stars, says the Thomas-Laimbeer incident proves practices should be closed because “we need to have someplace that is ours.” Asked what he would say publicly if such an incident happened in a closed drill, Fratello said he didn’t know. . . . Friends at the network sent Fratello an NBC blazer logo with a message: “Keep this close to your heart. You may need it sooner than you think.”

--Latest coach to get down on Pooh Richardson: Larry Brown. During a recent loss, one of Brown’s assistants with the Indiana Pacers yelled from the bench: “What we need is a . . . point guard!”