THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : The Attachment Is There, but the Commitment Isn’t

That was fun, wasn’t it?

The Lakers’ playoff drive was like Jerry Buss’ last-ditch attempt to get Magic Johnson to coach his team: exciting, but a longshot.

It was all the more electric because Johnson proved to be a natural, because the boring, sullen Lakers responded as if someone had waved a wand over them and the fans returned almost as if they had never left. Opponents fell like tenpins right up until Denver’s baby bull, Rodney Rogers, trampled their bubble Friday.

With the diversion of a race suddenly gone, a question intrudes:

What now?

For a moment, it was as if Kim Basinger had agreed to marry Buss’ frog on the hope of turning him into a prince. What if Kim backs out, instead, and lets the frog go back to dating?

Indeed, Johnson acknowledged last week what everyone around the Forum had guessed--he had taken the job for a month only as a favor to Buss and had no intention of staying beyond this season.

At first, he seemed to be wavering.

“This was going to be in and out, and it still might be,” Johnson said. “Now it’s going to be emotional, no matter what happens. I never thought it would be, but you get attached.”

By the end of the week, however, he was backing away.

“What are the chances of me being back?” he said before Friday’s loss to the Nuggets. “More so the other way--that I won’t be.”

Johnson says he won’t decide until the season ends, but it’s up to him.

The ownership issue?

No problema. Buss says he will sell him a chunk.

Jerry West?

No problema. West looked like a man being forced to go along and, indeed, had his own agenda for replacing Randy Pfund, preferring to wait for summer to see if they could get a hot replacement, reportedly Kentucky’s Rick Pitino, Kansas’ Roy Williams or Cincinnati’s Bob Huggins.

West is said to have had one fear about the interim appointment--what do we do for an encore after we’ve built up everyone’s expectations if he doesn’t stay?--but was part of the effort to bring Johnson back.

“Jerry West was in on these discussions from day one,” says Johnson’s agent, Lon Rosen. “He pushed for it as much as Jerry Buss did. He (West) wants Earvin to be the coach of this team, and you can see why.”

There is only one issue: What does Johnson want?

Problema .

Coaching, as Johnson learned it from Pat Riley, isn’t a lifestyle, it’s a life, and Johnson likes the one he has.

The Lakers have gone back to practicing as they did under Riley, long and hard, with Johnson carrying a schedule of drills on a doubled-over sheet of paper, as Riley did. Magic worries about every detail, such as reminding everyone to set their clocks ahead, although he has yet to get into the music they play at the Forum or when the Laker Girls dance, as his mentor did.

Lakers are required to wear jackets and ties on the charter now.

Lakers are again required to remember they’re Lakers.

Of course, they’ve been on a honeymoon. Vlade Divac is as unlikely to maintain his recent 70% shooting percentage as Elden Campbell is to keep his new 17-point average, but it was a new experience to see the fire in Vlade’s eyes, or Elden with both of his open.

If Johnson leaves, he will at least have shown what a top coach can mean, even in a rebuilding program. The pressure will be on to find another big-timer, someone like Pitino.

Big-timers, however, run on their own schedules and have options galore. The line of NBA teams that want Pitino goes around the block, and some have stars like Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson.

It’s a brave, desperate, risky thing Buss is trying, with a tremendous up side and a depressing down side.

On the other side, things aren’t boring any more at the Forum.

STAY IN SCHOOL (NOT YOU GUYS)

Everyone expected another big underclass move into the draft, but the recent announcements of freshmen Rashard Griffith of Wisconsin and Dontonio Wingfield of Cincinnati were surprises.

Agents are recruiting these kids with scare stories about a rookie cap. Actually, a rookie cap is a longshot; the NBA will have all it can do to close its salary-cap breach without asking the players for more give-backs.

What do the kids know? What do they care with talk of $50-million deals everywhere?

Wingfield is 6 feet 9 and 250 pounds and, with his youth and unbridled talent, reminds people of Shawn Kemp. Unlike Kemp, whose indiscretions were penny-ante and whose attitude was good, Wingfield has been getting into trouble with coaches and other authority figures for years.

“He’ll probably go from the end of the lottery to the 20s, which is a sad commentary,” an agent said. “This is not Shawn Kemp.”

The 6-11, 265-pound Griffith hasn’t withdrawn from school but is home in Chicago rather than on campus in Madison, Wis. Anything but a problem child, he’s upset at Coach Stu Jackson for bringing him along slowly. Jackson reportedly went to Chicago to see him last week but returned to Madison without him.

Griffith isn’t the second coming of Kareem, but he’s strong and precocious. After meeting Johnson at a camp last summer, he has his heart set on the Lakers but will have to get past the Mavericks, Bullets, Kings, Bucks, Pistons and Timberwolves, who figure to pick first and need a center.

Unlike Wingfield, who shouldn’t have been in school in the first place, Griffith ought to buy a good insurance policy and stay. He has things to learn about basketball, not to mention himself, and no one should be in a hurry to truncate his childhood.

Don’t bet he won’t come, though. Soon he’ll be doing those “Stay in School” ads with a bunch of other guys who never saw their junior years.

HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?

The Mavericks’ losing streaks of 20, 17 and 16 account for 78% of the schedule, but last week’s victory over Sacramento gave them a total of nine, tying them with the 9-73 76ers of 1972-73.

“At least 20 years from now,” Sean Rooks

said, “the media won’t be looking me up, asking me how it felt to play on the worst team of all time.”

Actually, Dallas, with consecutive 70-loss seasons, would post a new standard for sustained incompetence. Coach Quinn Buckner is hanging by a thread, but owner Don Carter, who circles to the beat of a different drummer, will probably bring him back. Carter wants to rehire Dick Motta, despite Motta’s feud with the front-office people who canned him, as a consultant to help with the lower picks in the draft.

“Chances are,” Carter said, “that an idiot can make that first pick.”

And has.

FACES AND FIGURES

The Nuggets, 6 1/2 games ahead of the Lakers on March 27, ended a four-game nose dive with victories over the SuperSonics and Lakers, but they’re young and volatile on all levels. “I guarantee you,” General Manager Bernie Bickerstaff said, zinging point guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, “if we had someone in the backcourt who understands the game, we wouldn’t have any problems.” . . . Talking about the young and volatile, impetuous Charlotte owner George Shinn almost gave emotional Allan Bristow a vote of confidence, saying he remains his coach “on this day” and adding: “If something comes along that’s best for the team, I have a responsibility to do what’s best for the franchise.” . . . More trouble: Washington’s Wes Unseld, an old favorite of owner Abe Pollin, is expected to be booted upstairs and replaced as coach by 76er General Manager Jimmy Lynam, an old friend of Bullet General Manager John Nash. Kevin Loughery’s three-year contract is up in Miami, and Heat management is keeping an ominous silence. . . . You know your program is losing steam when CBA guys don’t want to report: Lester Conner said when the Pistons got him from the Sioux City (Iowa) Sky Force: “I have mixed feelings coming here. I may be on a 10-day contract, but I’m giving them a 10-day tryout.” . . . Charles Smith, the Knicks’ $3.8-million-a-year non-producer, was due to return from the injured list but reported that his sore knee hurt after a shootaround, leading to a confrontation with Coach Pat Riley in a Madison Square Garden hallway. Riley wouldn’t comment. “It was a delicate situation,” Smith said. “We’ve put it behind us.”

Despite his glowing smile and moose’s physique, Chris Webber is a problem for Warrior Coach Don Nelson, who wants him to be more physical but must tread lightly around him for fear of straining their relationship. “I’m not a center,” Webber protested. “I’m very uncomfortable playing that position. The problem is, we don’t have many big men, so I’m usually checking centers like Hakeem (Olajuwon) and the rest of them. It’s tough going through that night after night.” . . . Bad choice for a comparison, CW: Actually, at 6-10 and 260, Webber is the same size as Olajuwon. . . . The free-agent crop took a hit when Buck Williams unexpectedly re-signed with the Trail Blazers. Williams would have made a useful power forward for the Hornets or the Magic, so Horace Grant’s value just went up even further.

B.J. Armstrong, upset over a quarrel with Bull Coach Phil Jackson, said he had reached “a low point in my career” despite being selected as an All-Star starter and signing a long-term contract. Jackson, when asked if Armstrong has a beef with him, said: “B.J. does not eat beef. B.J. is a vegetarian. I don’t think he has any beef at all.” . . . New Bull Luc Longley, to teammate Bill Cartwright: “In Minnesota, when we’d complain on the bench about not getting a call, we’d always say, ‘If we’re the Chicago Bulls, we would have gotten that call.’ ” Cartwright replied: “Yeah, we say the same thing now.”