THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : Eyed by the Birds and Then Gored by the Bulls

Noon in the Sports Arena, the Clippers shooting around before that night’s game against the Chicago Bulls, everyone bundled up against the meat-locker chill, a couple of birds swooping around.

“Look at that,” Coach Bill Fitch marvels, “birds!”

Buzzards looking for a Clipper’s shoulder to alight on? Chickens coming home to roost?

They’re actually only swallows, but two weeks into the regular season, Fitch is beginning to feel as if he has seen everything.

His players have been manhandled early. They have collapsed late. They have neglected to win, making the Clippers--finally!--a story to fire the nation’s imagination as they challenge the Philadelphia 76ers’ 9-73 futility record. Count this as bad timing for Fitch, who inherited this mess, and the players, who bear ridicule more appropriately directed upstairs.

The players are mostly young guys getting their first NBA shots. If none looks like the next Danny Manning--or Chris Webber, to use a name that still causes the basketball side of the organization to wince--some may develop into good NBA players.

Upper management, on the other hand, bought and paid for this season in cash.

Who can ever forget last season’s performance?

October: Clippers call off their deal sending Manning to Miami for Glen Rice and Willie Burton. Owner Donald T. Sterling insists he will persuade Manning to stay.

February: Clippers pass up an Orlando offer that includes two No. 1 picks, trade Manning to Atlanta for 34-year-old free-agent-to-be Dominique Wilkins.

July: Wilkins signs with the Boston Celtics. The Clippers, who acknowledged having known Wilkins’ asking price--a $21-million contract--before trading for him, offered $10 million.

When Fitch was hired last summer, Elgin Baylor was trotted out to say the Clippers understood they’d made mistakes. Sterling ordered the organization to undergo a painful self-evaluation, but a couple of hard truths must have escaped notice.

The front office is still on the same merry-go-round ride to nowhere. Two weeks ago, the basketball people were all for jumping into the Webber chase. The Clippers had the league’s biggest slot--Wilkins’ $3.5 million--and had been invited by Fallasha Erwin, one of Webber’s agents, to tender an offer sheet.

Webber wanted a $77-million, nine-year deal with an out clause in two seasons. Of course, Webber’s people were only trying to leverage the Golden State Warriors. On the other hand, the Clippers had nothing to lose.

The initiative died somewhere between the office of Executive Vice President Andy Roeser and Sterling’s swank rooftop suite in Beverly Hills. The basketball people still don’t know who killed it or why, but one way or another, the arrow points to Sterling. Roeser’s chief job is to front for The Donald.

Since the Clippers don’t know, or have failed to articulate what they did wrong, here it is:

--Their failure lies in their inability to establish a program the participants can believe in.

Even now as they trumpet a new beginning and Fitch’s old-fashioned virtues, they’re drawing crowds of 5,000. It says “an announced 7,500” in the paper but that’s because the Clippers are so fond of their fans, they count them all 1 1/2 times.

--Their name strikes terror into the hearts of players. Danny Ferry fled to Europe rather than play for them. Players too numerous to mention served out their contracts like sentences and forced trades or bolted via free agency. Wayman Tisdale turned down a $2.5-million offer from them to work for $850,000 in Phoenix.

Next spring, when some undergraduate like Corliss Wiliamson is wondering if he should come out, the Clippers may get the No. 1 pick . . . and Williamson might start thinking Fayetteville, Ark., is looking better all the time.

The answer begins with a move to Anaheim, a city that, bless its heart, wants them. The first game at The Pond sold out and the other five are close. The Clippers have an option in their lease to leave. There will be no public outcry in Los Angeles County, which barely marked their arrival and could regard their exit only as a civic improvement. The Clipper organization, with the exception of one man, regards a move as inevitable.

Because Sterling wants to stay put, Roeser will be obliged to whip out yet another set of plans for the long-proposed new stadium around L.A. Where’s the next site, the La Brea Tar Pits?

PERFECT!

Before the Clipper pack up the balls and the memories and move their cellar-dwelling selves down the freeway, they had better learn how to back up the professionals or they can challenge the 76ers’ record every season.

Of course, I could be wrong. The Clippers are free to prove it by drawing some people to the Sports Arena who don’t come dressed as empty seats.

HIT THE ROAD, CHRIS, AND DON’T LOOK BACK

Fallout from the Webber deal, received morosely by Warrior players and fans alike, continues to sprinkle the Bay Area. Even Coach Don Nelson, who did it, didn’t try to put a happy face on it. With Webber, the Warriors were a potential monster. With Tom Gugliotta, they’re merely a contender.

Despite Webber’s protestations he’s a power forward, at 6 feet 10 and 250 pounds, with massive shoulders and long arms, he’s bigger than Alonzo Mourning. Wherever they lined him up, he was a shot-blocker, a low-post threat and a force.

Gugliotta is only a good player. He averaged 17 points as the Washington Bullets’ No. 1 option. When Chris Mullin comes back, Gugliotta will be the Warriors’ No. 4 option.

Despite Webber’s obstinacy, questions remain:

--How come Nelson never called to see if they could straighten it out man to man?

“Yeah, I did think about it,” Nelson said. “It was just that I was not involved in the negotiations and I wasn’t asked to make that call and they were talking about my situation and Chris’ situation within the negotiations. And I think both sides felt better that the call wasn’t made.”

Comment: Huh?

--Why did the Warriors cave in?

The answer might lie in Nelson’s long-held determination not to work with jerks. Webber wasn’t one, but Nelson had never had to go, hat in hand, to one of his players and might not have been eager to start.

Among Warrior players, reaction was muted and downcast.

The San Jose Mercury-News reported that Tim Hardaway, team leader and a Nelson mainstay, walked right past Nellie the day the trade was announced, refusing to acknowledge his coach’s greeting.

“I’m not talking,” Hardaway said later.

Told he looked upset, Hardaway replied, “If that’s the impression y’all take, then that’s the impression y’all take.”

Said Latrell Sprewell: “We have some guys who can make plays, but to me it’s not going to be the same. (Webber) is one of those players that are gifted. He can do a lot. It’s something you can’t teach. I don’t think there’s anyone better at finishing, other than Shaquille O’Neal. He was a player that can get the crowd involved.”

For his part, Webber said so many things, it was hard to tell what he was, other than a headstrong young man who got too much advice and got in over his head.

Caught in the willful act, he yelped in surprise, even calling a talk-radio station in his hometown of Detroit, where people were ripping him.

“I don’t believe what’s going on,” Webber said. “The people of Detroit are missing the point.”

Someone was, anyway.

Before leaving the Bay Area, Webber told the Mercury-News’ Ric Bucher:

“To the fans, I don’t have anything against them, but I have no love for Don Nelson. This is all his doing and no one else’s. It’s all about a coach who has been intimidated by a contract. I think it’s been in the works to trade me for a long time. . . .

“It’s not like (he and Juwan Howard) loved each other so much that I have to follow him (to Washington). It’s going to be a difficult year. I’m not going to win 50 games. It’ll be difficult getting acclimated. They’re not a good team, but we’ll win a championship if I stay there for a couple of years. . . .

“I just learned my way around here. Now I’m going to have to live in a hotel for a couple of months, I’m going to have to learn my way around again, all the while I’m getting to know a new team. . . .

“The whole Dream Team II hates (Nelson). The Warriors are going to have trouble every time they play one of the guys from that team. I know Derrick Coleman, Steve Smith, Dominique. They all want to get back at him.”

To be young is to mess up.

Webber remains one of the league’s most talented and engaging young players but at this point, it would be better if he zipped it up until he has actually done something. Maybe just for that “couple of years” it’ll take to raise the championship banner in Landover.

Nelson’s problems go beyond having the Derrick Colemans of this world after him. Having some of those guys hate you suggests you were on the side of the angels all along.

Nelson’s problem is what might have been and is no more and how to go on from there.

FACES AND FIGURES

Big trouble in New York, where Patrick Ewing’s right knee, on which he had arthroscopic surgery last summer, is swelling again--suggesting he came back too soon. In his first seven games, Ewing averaged three fewer rebounds than last season, sat out a game, then limped back and was overmatched by David Robinson. Said teammate Derek Harper: “I’m not a doctor . . . but a lot of times you can rush things like that. You think you’re ready and you’re really not.”

The Derrick Coleman boor-of-the-week award goes to Denver’s Dikembe Mutombo, who celebrated a two-point victory over the Bulls by moaning, “I’m sick of all the (stuff) going on with this team. I’m frustrated. I’m not happy. I took one . . . shot. I am not getting any touches of the ball on offense. I’m afraid my role is becoming like Manute Bol. All I do is block shots. I’m sick of this (stuff).” . . . Miami, overstocked at small forward after its weird trades, tried Billy Owens at point guard. Also, the Heat has noticed that Owens is a bad free-throw shooter. Coach Kevin Loughery calls it “something a player has to stand up to and overcome. We expect him to make his foul shots down the stretch.” Owens’ reply, believe it or not: “At Golden State, I didn’t go to the line much.”

Madonna alert: Denver’s Brian Williams shaved his head, got a ring in his nose and dyed his goatee blond. Now if he could only take 1,200 rebounds.