THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : All of a Sudden, There’s Something Going On Here

A night at the Lakers: It ain’t like last year.

George Lynch throws the ball away, whereupon Nick Van Exel taps himself in the chest and snarls, “Throw me the . . . ball!” interjecting a compound adjective to show how strongly he feels.

Cedric Ceballos, who has suggested Van Exel should throw him the ball, continues on the pace that should take him back to Phoenix as an All-Star.

Vlade Divac blocks shots, just like an NBA center.

Eddie Jones looks promising.

Elden Campbell awakens from time to time.

Give or take the occasional embarrassment, something is stirring here, giving local professional basketball a new--thank heaven--look.

The Lakers bristle with energy, some nights, anyway. The Clippers lack just about everything but young legs and effort. If it isn’t like the glory days, look at it this way: Neither is striking, being locked out or threatening to leave town. Among local major league teams, this makes them unique.

A public, spoiled by a decade of greatness (Lakers) and one memorable half-season (Clippers), is unimpressed.

The Clippers claim an average of 7,505 for their first eight games in the Sports Arena which--even if true--would be little more than half the average of the 26th worst-drawing team, Atlanta.

The Lakers haven’t drawn 14,000 since opening night. When they waxed the Houston Rockets a week ago, only 13,056 showed up.

When they ran up a 19-point first-quarter lead on Golden State to win their seventh of eight, they drew their second-smallest crowd, 10,579.

When they nose-dived Friday against the Clippers, the body count was 10,768, not counting the 12 stiff Lakers.

Laker officials, resigned to rebuilding their fan base, are hanging in there.

“Are we disappointed?” Forum spokesman Bob Steiner says. “We’re not pleased. But I don’t know what else you can expect.”

In front-running L.A., one season out of the playoffs and four out of the finals is an interminable drought, but the Laker turnaround has been remarkable. The day before Magic Johnson retired in 1991, they had one starter--Divac--younger than 30. Now their oldest starter is Divac, 26, and the unit’s average is 23.6.

Jerry West, the Wizard of Inglewood, pulled it off with a single trip to the lottery and no pick higher than No. 10.

With the franchise crying out for a marquee/genius coach and neither Johnson nor Rick Pitino interested, West hired Del Harris, who is more professorial than charismatic but is known as as a coaches’ coach and quickly showed why.

Harris not only put in the fast-paced offense Jerry Buss required, he turned the program around defensively.

In their 7-1 spurt, the Lakers held opponents to an average of 95 points.

They’re No. 1 in the league in steals, No. 2 to the Rockets in opponents’ field-goal percentage.

Unfortunately, it only gets harder.

The Lakers will have all they can do to make the playoffs. Bent on recapturing their greatness, they still have to steal a superstar (oh, why couldn’t they win 23 games last season rather than 33 and dial up their chances at Grant Hill?)

Nevertheless, this column presents its first consumers’ guide: Go to the Forum before prices go up again and they start blocking out preferred locations for the studio people; go to the Sports Arena, where tickets are plentiful and the home team, a bunch of mutts to warm the heart of anyone who ever rooted for an underdog, is more and more competitive.

What the heck, it beats last year.

IN CLIPPERDOM, THE WORD IS NO LONGER GOODBY

A night at the Clippers: It ain’t like anything you’ve ever seen.

There have been fewer wilder scenes at the Sports Arena than that after Pooh Richardson’s shot beat Milwaukee on Wednesday on a busted play Bill Fitch named the “drop-kick special.”

Players wearing towel-turbans for luck mobbed Pooh. Fitch kissed the floor. The players awarded Fitch the game ball, a nice touch since he had been wearing them out on the practice floor through this monthlong ordeal. Still on their high Friday, they gave the Lakers a spanking to remember; the subs jumped off the bench with two fingers in the air.

Unfortunately, it never gets easier.

On talent and experience, the Clippers may be the most- overmatched team ever to play in the NBA. The 9-73 76ers had three players who had averaged double figures. Last season’s Dallas Mavericks, who started 2-39, were a collection of superstars compared to the Clippers, who have one player--Elmore Spencer, currently on the injured list because of personal problems--who finished 1993-94 as a starter.

There will be many pointed lessons, as Fitch tries to persuade talented rookie Lamond Murray not to unleash his three-point rainmaker with 15 seconds on the 24-second clock and Gary Grant not to laugh out loud at Spencer’s scoop layup.

But there’s a new feeling in a dressing room where camaraderie has replaced mass exodus as a motif, for the moment.

Let’s hope upper management can figure out how to support it, for a change. For starters, a Clipper official reckons a move to Anaheim would mean an extra $20 million, not to mention the thrill the players would get actually playing in front of people.

HOLD ‘EM AND HE’LL THINK OF SOMETHING

The more problems the New York Knicks have, the harder Pat Riley coaches.

How about the old surprise-them-with-a-vacation trick, coupled with a poor-us-nobody-respects-us announcement?

Riley took the Knicks to Orlando two days before their game against the Magic and turned them loose in the Magic Kingdom.

He also noted, “They (the Magic) probably think they’re better than us, and that’s probably why they’re good. I don’t think anybody respects the Knicks anymore.”

Proving his point, the Magic won, 125-100.

The Knick problems are thought to be sore knees (Patrick Ewing’s) or toes (Charles Oakley’s), rather than a lack of heart, but Riley went to the whip.

Back in New York, he said the problem was “the old comfort zone. It’s complacency at its best, the theory of entitlements. . . . That is over. You produce on the court to play. That’s not a warning or a threat. It’s just doing the right thing.”

The right things didn’t include a team meeting, suggested by John Starks, rejected by Riley.

The East being what it is, the Knicks won three in a row--in a string of games in which they won’t even see a .500 team until Dec. 15--and roared their defiance at a world closing in on them fast.

“In order to get to the championship, you’ve got to come through New York,” Ewing said.

“I’m looking forward to playing them (the Magic) again. We’ll be counting down the days. At least I will.”

He’d better get healed. In two games, Shaquille O’Neal has outscored Ewing, 79-39, and outrebounded him, 32-7.

NEXT: WORM RUNS OVER TOOTH FAIRY?

It’s hard to imagine where Nike, which advertises itself as a company that cares about sports, can go from its ad in which Dennis Rodman, having raised himself to celebrity status in an ongoing exhibition of self-mutilation, is shown mugging Santa Claus.

Let’s see, Charles Barkley has staked out the I’m-no-role-model role. (This was before Nike reintroduced a fatherly Charles, advising us to Participate in the Lives of America’s Youth, proving Nike still cares, even if it can’t remember.)

How about Worm, wearing $150 Nike cross-trainers, kidnaps the Easter bunny and holds him for ransom?

How about Worm, wearing $150 hob-nailed Nikes, kicks Barney, deflating his costume in the middle of the “I Love You” song?

Meanwhile, back on earth. . . .

The Spurs, having found out what they are without Rodman--a .500 team--are holding the line.

Rodman, scheduled to rejoin the team from his paid suspension last week, called during practice to tell Coach Bob Hill he was in Dallas, where the keys to a friend’s pickup truck had been stolen and some of Worm’s possessions had been lost.

Don’t you hate it when that happens?

Apparently skeptical, the Spurs re-suspended Rodman, this time without pay, when Rodman reported. Who says he’s crazy?

FACES AND FIGURES

Heat trainer Ron Culp on Ron Rothstein, who coached Miami to its 0-17 record in 1988: “I was actually afraid he’d drop dead. He’d get so red in the face and become so agitated, I thought he might have a stroke or a heart attack. At the very least, I thought he’d hyperventilate and pass out. He was just so intense, he’d get himself into such a physical and emotional state, you’d worry about him. Coaching was his life and he took it very, very personally.” . . . Aftermath: The uptight Rothstein is on Mike Fratello’s Cleveland staff. Assistant coaching is now his life, and he’s better off for it.

Glenn Robinson averaged 24.6 points on a five-game trip and inserted himself into the rookie-of-the-year race thought to have been ended early by Grant Hill. . . . Jason Kidd, plagued by shooting problems--at 33%, he’ll need a lot of work to get himself up to “poor”--is a distant third but has nevertheless been impressive. “He’s a man,” Spur Coach Bob Hill said. “He manhandled us, kicked our butts all night. His stats don’t mean a thing. He’s special. He played like a veteran.” . . . Officials from the NBA and the players’ association are finally meeting with both sides saying they want a deal before the Feb. 12 All-Star game. The NBA has offered to increase the players’ percentage of revenues from 53% to 57% and their cut of licensing money from $500,000 a year to $25 million but wants a four-year limit on contracts, elimination of balloon payments and a cap on offers for free agents.

Nostalgia, it’s great: Introductions of great ex-Celtics in Boston Garden’s last season brought Danny Ainge, who with Kevin McHale introduced a joyful note of irreverence in the ‘80s. Ainge on a fond memory: “It was when Froggy--M.L. (Carr) doesn’t like to be called that anymore--but when Mr. M.L. Froggy Vice President Carr was in a game and Bill Fitch sent Gerald Henderson in for him. M.L. didn’t want to come out, and when Gerald came up to him he said no. Gerald was standing out there, and we had six guys on the court. Fitch had to call a timeout to convince M.L. to come out of the game.” . . . Red Auerbach on Lenny Wilkens, who’s about to break his all-time record for victories: “Remember, he didn’t do it in 20 years.” Said Wilkens, who’ll do it in 21 years plus two months after gigs in Seattle (twice), Portland, Cleveland and Atlanta: “Tell him I didn’t have the players he had, either. Give me a break--Russell, Havlicek. . . . “

Orlando teammates Jeff Turner, Scott Skiles and Larry Krystkowiak railed at the excesses of youthful teammates last season, but Turner says things have changed: “There is a lot more maturity than there was last year. And the two veterans, Horace Grant and Brian Shaw, these guys played on other teams and say, ‘Hey, this is the way you’re supposed to do it.’ ” . . . Nick Anderson: “Now guys are coming in an hour, an hour-and-a-half before practice. We have a game, and guys come in the day before, shooting, doing weight work. It’s just totally different.”

The Incredible Sulk: The Warriors’ 2-8 plummet since trading Chris Webber isn’t hard to explain since several young players are carrying a torch for departed teammates. Latrell Sprewell and Keith Jennings have Webber’s No. 4 on their sneakers; Jennings also has Billy Owens’ 30. Even Coach Don Nelson has complained he has lost his spirit for the moment. Solution: Trade Tom Gugliotta and several No. 1s to Chicago for Scottie Pippen (a deal the Bulls reportedly would have accepted last summer if the Bullets had offered it), make Carlos Rogers a power forward, field the most athletic team ever put together and, as the Eagles would say, get over it.