THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : Webber and Warriors: a Good Story Spoiled Rotten

Let’s say you were 12 and tall for your age when high school coaches started calling the house.

Let’s say you got your first $125 sneakers with the straps, pump, light bulb in the heel and superstar logo from the guy running your summer league team, as a signing bonus.

Let’s say there were summer camps competing for you, national tours, international tours, street agents, cash if you wanted it.

Let’s say by the time you were 16, you were getting mail from the biggest stars in college coaching, like those fawning letters Mike Krzyzewski of snooty Duke wrote to a North Carolina schoolboy named Chris Washburn, congratulating him, among other things, for having such a good-looking girlfriend.

Let’s say when you were 17, you were the star of the Fab Five and your coach kowtowed out of your presence as if you were the emperor of China.

What do you think you’d be at the end of this process?

Meet . . . Teen Monster!

Watching Chris Webber, so gifted, so smart, so personable, so clueless, turn his back on a great, young Golden State team because of a penny-ante snit with his coach might be a disappointment but it’s not a surprise, merely another step in the evolution of the modern NBA head case.

Why would it be any different?

Everything is bigger now--the college game, the pro game, the international game, TV ratings, TV exposure. Rookies without leverage--where else are they going, Europe?--join the league with contracts that increase geometrically.

Before Larry Johnson in 1991, no rookie had ever signed for $20 million; before Webber, Anfernee Hardaway and Shawn Bradley in 1993, none ever got $50 million. In 1994, Glenn Robinson held out for $100 million while his agent suggested the Milwaukee Bucks’ reluctance was a racial issue, before settling for about $70 million.

Even in this mad whirl, Webber was special.

Michigan’s Fab Five captivated the game. Everything they did became fashion: calf-length trunks, blousy tops, black socks. Webber, the star, demanded special handling from soft-spoken Coach Steve Fisher and, of course, got it.

He got special handling from Don Nelson with the Warriors too, but apparently not special enough.

You don’t have to believe in a St. Nellie to conclude this is one of the better pros to play for. He’s an old-school guy. In recent years, seemingly off balance at having his powers snipped by club President Dan Finnane, he might trumpet game plans, suggesting he had coached OK, even if his players hadn’t played very well.

However, he remains one of the few true heavyweights in his profession. He coaches an entertaining, fun-to-play style and has always tried to stay friendly with his players off the court. On a Hubie Brown carping-pain-in-the-neck scale, or a Larry Brown teach-you-till-you-drop scale, or a Pat Riley authoritarian-regime scale, Nelson would barely move the needle.

None of last season’s problems were thought serious enough to threaten this season’s glow, except by Webber.

Elsewhere, Danny Manning, Horace Grant and Wayman Tisdale put in years to take control of their careers and accepted pay cuts to join contenders.

Webber was on a contender but left it to go to Washington, where he’ll learn the ring’s the thing, the hard way.

‘NIQUE’S BACK: SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING

Dominique Wilkins returned to Atlanta as a Celtic last week, an event marked by a sparse crowd in the Omni announced at 10,376.

No, the Hawks didn’t look too good to ‘Nique.

“I can’t understand how one year you can have the best record in the East,” Wilkins said of the rebuilding program that sent him on his way, “and then the next season you dismantle the whole team. Fifty-seven games--you don’t win that many games by accident.”

Nor did Wilkins look like much to the Hawks, not after he shot eight for 20 and scored 16 points in a 110-94 loss.

“I was surprised ‘Nique didn’t try to go by me,” said Stacey Augmon, who guarded him.

Said Mookie Blaylock: “He didn’t look like the same guy to me. Maybe he’s having a slow start.”

Across the street in the Georgia Dome, the Rolling Stones drew more than 60,000 fans.

“Are you saying that if Dominique was 15 years older, he’d do better?” Hawk President Stan Kasten said.

Get set for Wilkins’ return to the Sports Arena on Feb. 17. Good seats are still available in all price ranges.

SHOWTIME CLOSES AFTER ONE WEEK ON BROADWAY

Fast-break basketball lasted a decade in the Forum but had a shorter run in New York. The Knicks started 3-0 with the running game but Riley called it off after losses at San Antonio and Utah.

“We’re going to pound the ball,” Riley said. “We’re going to get back to who we are. It may take a little time. I never wanted to deviate from it because I’ve always looked at us as being a post-up team and a team that needed a few more scores in transition. But the transition game has really undisciplined us.”

In their first five games, the Knicks gave up an average of 106 points--15 more than last season. The league’s top rebounding team a year ago, they were No. 25 this season.

Patrick Ewing sat out the exhibition season after having arthroscopic knee surgery. Charles Oakley is still complaining about a sore toe he was talked out of having surgery on.

Conceding nothing as usual, Riley last week hopped on his players for lack of effort.

“You tell me why Charles Oakley is not rebounding double digits, or Patrick Ewing or Anthony Mason in 36 minutes gets three rebounds,” Riley said. “That is a must. That is about getting after it.”

This is about as far as Riley can push them. One way or another, stay tuned.

FACES AND FIGURES

Cardiologist at work: Charles Barkley, set to open the season this week, is expected to be much more helpful in uniform. After the Suns’ opening-night loss at Sacramento, Barkley heard someone ask the trainer a question. “The bodies are OK,” Barkley muttered, “but check the hearts.” Replied Kevin Johnson, “Does that ever happen with him in the game?”

The new ban on hand-checking, sometimes referred to as the Derek Harper rule, has Harper in frequent foul trouble and Riley in anguish. “The steering committee that really pushed for this thing has to have their heads examined, they really do, about what they have pursued, legislated and lobbied for,” he said. “That sounds like sour grapes from me, because the New York Knicks are whining about having to play defense legally. That’s how I feel about it, and I know a dozen other coaches would feel the same way.”

Don’t miss your chance to kick ‘em while they’re down: Before last week’s game, Golden State’s Tim Hardaway said the Knicks “think they’ve got such a great defense, but they don’t. If they had a great defense, they’d have stopped Houston. If they’re supposed to have all this ‘D’ they say they have, they’d have won. They think they can stop anybody in the league but they can’t stop nobody.” Then Hardaway had 20 points with eight assists in a 109-100 victory that sent the Knicks home with a 1-3 trip.

Glad to see you didn’t take it personally: Referee Hue Hollins, whose ticky-tack foul on Scottie Pippen for tapping Hubert Davis’ wrist after his last-second shot was gone--later labeled “a terrible call” by supervisor Darrell Garretson--awarded the Knicks Game 5 of their playoff series, returned to Chicago last week. First, he summoned the Chicago Tribune’s Melissa Isaacson, who had reported Garretson’s comments, and yelled at her. Moments into the game, Pippen was bumped by Dallas’ Jamal Mashburn, lost the ball, complained--and received a technical from Hollins. After the Bulls had lost to the Mavericks, Coach Phil Jackson called Hollins’ work “brutish” and was fined $10,000.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone: Minnesota’s ever-popular Christian Laettner vowed, “I’m not going to settle for us stinking. That bothers me. If we stink again this year, you’ll hear from me. You’ll hear I’m causing problems or turmoil. You cannot allow your team to stink. I’m on a horrible team, so that makes me look bad. That didn’t happen at Duke because we were winning. But all of this is out of my control. The only thing I can control is winning on the basketball court. If we’re not, fingers are pointed. Somebody has to be blamed. So they blame me. They change coaches, general managers, owners. I resent all of that. But you’re only measured by how your team does. So I accept that.” Laettner is averaging 15 points and seven rebounds. As a rookie, he was at 18 and 9, last season 17 and 9.

Tick, tick, tick: An eerie silence hangs over the Seattle SuperSonics, who were comatose in losses at New Jersey and Boston. Says Coach George Karl, whose tempests were once the stuff of legend, “I know in pro basketball it can go down fast and it can go up fast.” . . . Who are these guys? Robert Pack, former Trojan and now the Denver Nuggets’ starting point guard, averaged 20 points and a league-high 11 assists in his first five games. Frequently fined for tardiness, he now comes early and stays late to shoot, and made seven of his first 11 three-point tries. Rodney Rogers, who came in plump and slow as a rookie last season, averaged 23 points in his first three games and shot 60%. “Here’s a guy who wouldn’t run last year and Dan (Issel) has him running,” the Warriors’ Nelson said.

Imagine that: After a summer of hype and five games of the regular season, Celtic Coach Chris Ford castigated his starters for “embarrassing us” and called them “pig-headed.” New General Manager M.L. Carr, who justified free-agent signings of Wilkins and Pervis Ellison, saying at least they now had some players someone might want, is trying to find someone to take a Celtic, any Celtic, to make room for Ellison, once more coming off the injured list.

How great is Grant Hill? Laker Coach Del Harris predicted the Detroit rookie will be in the Hall of Fame--before Hill had played his first NBA game. Charlotte Coach Allan Bristow said of Hill, “I might have taken him with the first pick the last four years.”

Don’t let Jerry West see this item: Trevor Ruffin, the last Laker cut, flew home to Buffalo to learn he had just been signed by the Phoenix Suns. He got on another flight to Seattle, scored 17 points in 14 minutes and the next night scored 15 in 18 minutes against the Clippers. “If you don’t like that, you don’t like basketball,” Coach Paul Westphal said. . . . Westphal, obviously a student of Clipper history, after his first game in The Pond of Anaheim: “It’s a beautiful arena. It’s sold out. No wonder they don’t move here.”