THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : Buckner’s Losing It With Mavericks

Management Secrets of Attila the Hun’s Son: Unlike his revered Indiana mentor, Bob Knight, Quinn Buckner, the rookie coach of the Dallas Mavericks, has never kicked his son.

Of course, this isn’t a fair comparison since Buckner doesn’t have a son playing for him.

In other ways, however, Buckner has managed to come off as an NBA version of the IU-Tollah, railroading players, ignoring administrators, turning up his nose at the press.

This adds up to the biggest miscalculation since Knight offered a referee on the other side of the court a chair. Buckner’s players aren’t teen-agers on scholarship but young men with multimillion-dollar contracts. His front office delights in his struggles with his players. The press is covering it without asking him for guidance or volunteering to ghost his autobiography. I don’t think we’re in Bloomington any more, Toto.

Everyone thought the Mavericks had hit bottom last season when they threatened to break the 76ers’ 9-73 record and almost punted away Jim Jackson, who refused to sign, then knocked down a trade to the Lakers in a three-way deal with Milwaukee for Todd Day.

Buckner’s hiring seemed to signal an end to years of chaos. He had a well-rounded background, 10 years in the NBA plus two in the cradle of coaches, NBC. He was pleasant and hard-working.

Jackson signed immediately and led a rally that carried the Mavericks to 11-71. They got another wonder-rookie, Jamal Mashburn. With no expectations this season, they had only to learn the NBA together, go back into the lottery and build a beautiful tomorrow.

What could go wrong?

First Buckner met the front office, decisively.

Hired at the sole recommendation of personnel director Rick Sund, Buckner turned around and brought in Stu Inman, giving him duties parallel to Sund’s. Buckner might have been appropriately leery of Maverick execs who had blown so many decisions, but this naked power grab let the old-timers know what they could expect in a Mighty Quinn administration.

Next, Buckner met the press, reluctantly.

Routine questions were met by stolid replies that whatever was being asked was “an internal matter.”

For example, he said he couldn’t discuss qualifications for assistants because candidates might read his comments and shape their answers accordingly.

Next, Buckner met his players, noisily.

First, he drew down on Derek Harper, the closest thing to Mr. Maverick left in town. Harper was a hard worker, a stand-up guy and very popular among his teammates, especially rookies like Mashburn, whom he had always extended himself to.

Buckner thought Harper was a misplaced shooting guard and made his disdain known, hooking him at any pretext.

Once, he pulled him 3 minutes 47 seconds into a game, telling him, according to Harper: “I’m just giving you a blow.”

Hardly convinced, Harper swore as he walked past Buckner, kicked the press table and later gave his version in detail to the press. Buckner said it was an internal matter.

Losses began to mount as players struggled with the triangle offense Buckner had imported from Chicago. The Mavericks arrived at the Forum Dec. 1 averaging 90 points per game, a pace that would make them the lowest-scoring team in 39 years.

That night they lost the opening tip. The Lakers scored. With 24 seconds gone, Buckner called a 20-second timeout.

Moments later, Mashburn took a 20-footer early in the shot clock and Buckner hooked him. He kept him sitting all of the second half and Mashburn went off afterward.

“I think everybody questions it,” he said. “Everyone wants to know what’s going on. All of us are confused. We don’t know what to do. . . .

“People are just running out there, running to spots, afraid to make a mistake or you’ll come out and get an earful.”

Buckner said this was an internal matter, too.

“The game is 100 years old,” he said. “This is the way it’s been done 100 years. I’m not creating the wheel. This is the way the wheel turns.”

Not in pro basketball, it doesn’t. The next day Buckner was obliged to convene a meeting and listen to his players tell him what they didn’t like about him.

“It was a learning experience and anytime you learn, I think you’re humbled in some form or fashion,” he said afterward.

“Yeah, I think sometimes they misconstrue the toughness that I want to come across, the traits that are to be carried onto the court, probably as a non-openness. But I think this is two months into what will be, as far as I’m concerned, a very long relationship.”

Of course, the Mavericks have lost all the games since, but things are looking up. Buckner has only won once, but he has already learned which end of the barrel the bullet comes out of.

LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE HAWKS

No surprise in the NBA compares to Lenny Wilkens’ start in Atlanta, where the aging, hopelessly mediocre, written off and nowhere-with-more-disdain-than-this column Hawks have shot to the top of the Central Division.

Wilkens, deemed a dim bulb in Cleveland where his Cavaliers specialized in early-spring collapses and appearances as the other guys in Michael Jordan posters, has turned the program around single-handedly. Once soul-less gunners and their grudging accompanists, the Hawks now play defense or not at all. Dominique Wilkins’ and Kevin Willis’ numbers are down, but the team, No. 21 in defense last season, is No. 5.

Said the effervescent Wilkens: “I thought it would take a little longer.”

Actually, it might. Wilkins, the franchise, is about to turn 34 and his contract is up in the spring, so the future is anything but assured.

The present is struggle enough for them, with long-ago bored Atlanta yet to awaken to the new phenomenon. While going 9-0 at home, the Hawks have averaged 11,337, second-worst in the league, above only the 11,168 the Clippers are said to be drawing.

Last week, with the Hawks at eight in the winning streak that has grown to 13, they played the Celtics . . . and drew 8,472.

“We play hard,” says center Jon Koncak. “We play defense and we’re not 6-6. At some point, hopefully, people will realize we’re not the same team as the last few years.”

A WINNER WITHIN, A BACKCOURT WITHOUT

Pat Riley, author of a best-selling management book, “The Winner Within,” had better check the chapter where he tells guards how to shoot.

For public consumption, Riley laughed it off when the Houston Rockets bombed his New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden but the next day, team president Dave Checketts and personnel director Ernie Grunfeld showed up at practice to meet with him.

The No. 1 topic was probably: Where can we find help at point guard?

The answer was probably: Beats me.

The Knicks start 32-year-old Doc Rivers, who last year endured injuries to most of his limbs and organs. Backup Greg Anthony has fallen, in players’ slang, to the level of a “self-check”--someone who doesn’t need to be guarded. Anthony’s 29% is the lowest shooting percentage of any player averaging 15 minutes. Against the Rockets, he missed three open jump shots, passed up the next two and was booed mercilessly by the home crowd.

Riley doesn’t like anyone else prodding his players and went into his cocoon mode. He even snapped at Knick announcer John Andariese, who asked if backup shooting guard Hubert Davis couldn’t play a little point.

Anthony, on Riley’s double-secret probation list after hitting Kevin Johnson last season, practiced shooting all summer, proving that hard work isn’t everything.

“I was telling my wife, we might just have to move to Rhode Island and buy a little farm or something,” Anthony said. “What can you do? You sit there, you cry, you get frustrated. You ask the Lord, ‘Why me?’ ”

Try Chapter 6, Greg: “The Breakthrough.”

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF $84-MILLION MAN

It takes a worried man to sing a worried song: Picture Charlotte Hornet owner George Shinn, who incurred the ridicule of his peers by giving Larry Johnson that $84-million extension, watching cold L.J. last week.

Johnson had 19 points as the Hornets went west and lost their third, fourth and fifth games in a row. That’s not an average of 19, that’s a total of 19.

In the losing streak, Johnson averaged nine points, eight rebounds and shot 25%. His matchups, Otis Thorpe, Karl Malone, Tom Hammonds, Dennis Rodman and John Salley, averaged 19 points and 16 rebounds.

Johnson is still trying to build up his weak right leg, the result of a bulging disk that he suffered doing a tomahawk dunk in a summer charity game.

Meanwhile, the injury got into his mechanics, not to mention his head.

“I find myself running away from the ball,” Johnson said. “At times, I could have gotten the ball if I wanted it. I guess it’s just the lack of confidence.”

Back home in Charlotte, Johnson had 26 points against the Cavaliers and Shinn forgot about calling Lloyd’s of London, for the moment.

Of course, Grandmama isn’t going to be the first one to take the fall for this.

The Gaston, N.C., Gazette recently asked readers if Coach Allan Bristow should be fired.

Of the first 274 respondents, 204 said yes.

FACES AND FIGURES

Rodman’s hair color of the week: red. . . . Riley was second-guessed in New York for playing Hakeem Olajuwon one on one while he was scoring 37 points. The next night in Atlanta, double-teamed all game by the Hawks, Olajuwon had 17 in the lone Rocket loss. . . . The Knicks were sky-high on reserves Anthony Bonner, Anthony Mason and Hubert Davis but the Rocket bench hit them with a 13-0 run that broke open the showdown. Said Houston Coach Rudy Tomjanovich: “Someone made mention of the fact that the Knicks would certainly win the NBA championship because they have so much more depth than anybody else. I’m sorry, I just don’t agree with that.”

Difference of opinion: Miami’s Salley, after the Heat had lost its sixth home game in eight: “Defense is not emphasized or taught.” Said Coach Kevin Loughery: “That’s a lie.” . . . The return of B: Byron Scott went 11 minutes in his first game for the Indiana Pacers, got off 10 shots, made three. In his second, he got 22 minutes and made four of nine shots. . . . The Sacramento Kings wanted to send Lionel Simmons to Cleveland for Tyrone Hill, but they couldn’t make it work under the salary cap. Seeking a rebounder, Sacramento is now angling for Indiana’s Kenny Williams or Antonio Davis. King General Manager Jerry Reynolds on the state of mind of owner Jim Thomas: “Oh, it’s great. Jim’s like Garry (St. Jean, King coach) and myself. He’s having a good time with it. Of course, he has advantages we don’t.”