Lakers Start Fast With Grant

Score one for the Lakers in the early stages of the free-agent derby. Thursday night, at the moment teams were allowed to contact players and their representatives, Jerry West became the first person to call Jim Sexton, the agent for Horace Grant, the Chicago Bulls’ power forward who is at or near the top of the Laker wish list.

“I think that made an impression with Horace,” Sexton said.

The Lakers figure to go after three other forwards: Danny Manning of the Hawks, Scott Williams of the Bulls and Clipper Dominique Wilkins. The Clippers also contacted Sexton about Grant.

The Lakers made a minor trade Friday, acquiring power forward Anthony Miller of Michigan State, the 39th pick in Wednesday’s draft, from Golden State for a second-round pick in 1995. They also did not give Reggie Jordan a qualifying offer, making him an unrestricted free agent, and renounced the rights to Danny Schayes.

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Orlando guard Anfernee Hardaway will exercise a contract option and become a restricted free agent. The Magic has tendered Hardaway a qualifying offer, which means the team can match any offer he receives and retain his services for next season.

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The Minnesota Timberwolves decided to buy out the final four years of Chuck Person’s contract after no team was willing to trade for the 30-year-old forward, making him a free agent.

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Former NBA all-star Tom Chambers was released by Utah after a roller-coaster 13th season. The Jazz also released former all-star and two-time NBA defensive player of the year Mark Eaton, who sat out the season because of injuries.

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An appeals court judge in New York declined to lift a temporary restraining order that bans NBA players from signing contracts until at least July 8. The NBA Players Assn. was granted the restraining order on Tuesday as part of a lawsuit seeking to have the salary cap, NBA draft and right of first refusal ruled illegal under antitrust laws.

Auto Racing

Nigel Mansell finished seventh in provisional qualifying for Sunday’s French Grand Prix, while driving a Formula One car for the first time since 1992. Mansell, who won the Formula One title two years ago before moving to the Indy car circuit, averaged 121,380 m.p.h. driving a Williams-Renault.

Hockey

New York Ranger goaltender Mike Richter headed a list of 108 NHL players who became eligible for free agency. Richter was included among 64 restricted free agents whose rights can be retained should their clubs match offers. Signing of any of those players would require compensation. New Jersey’s Bernie Nicholls and Calgary’s Al MacInnis were on the list of unrestricted free agents.

Miscellany

Pat Harrison, a former USC player who was an assistant coach last season for national champion Oklahoma, was hired as baseball coach at Pepperdine. Harrison, 48, succeeds Andy Lopez, who resigned June 20 to become coach at Florida.

The top-seeded team of Kent Steffes and Scott Ayakatubby easily advanced to today’s quarterfinals of the $100,000 Manhattan Beach Open pro volleyball tournament. Steffes has won the last three titles here with Karch Kiraly, who has been sidelined from the Miller Lite/AVP tour for three weeks with a kidney injury. Steffes and Ayakatubby will play eighth-seeded Eric Fonoimoana and Tim Hovland in a 10 a.m. match that will be televised live on NBC.

Jerry Stovall, will leave as athletic director at Louisiana Tech to enter business. . . . Molly Goodenbour, a member of two national championship teams at Stanford, was hired as an assistant women’s basketball coach at the University of San Francisco.