COMMENTARY : Riley Doing a Solid Job With the Knicks

There is never any new word about Pat Riley’s big contract extension, which must mean big trouble. Riley and the Knicks have been talking about a new contract, off and on, for more than a year. Nothing ever happens. It is why I think there is a good chance Riley could be out of here after this season, even though his current contract runs through the 1995-96 season.

Whatever happens, it is going to be some season for Riley’s Knicks. It has been some season already.

You don’t have to like everything Riley does with his team, or agree with everything he says. Sometimes he sounds like one of those positive-thinking infomercials you see on television at 2 in the morning. Sometimes he seems to be having less fun than a member of the O.J. Simpson defense team. He is still a great basketball coach, as great as the league has seen since Red Auerbach. After what has happened with the Knicks lately, it is worth mentioning again.

When he brought his team into Orlando Sunday (February 5) to play the Magic, the Knicks had a chance to cut the Magic lead to three games in the loss column. Riley is coming off one of the best months of coaching he has had with the Knicks. Maybe the best month he ever has had here. The Knicks were 12-12 and then won 17 of their next 20 games, and maybe Riley is the only person in the sport who thought they could do that.

“Even when we struggled at 12-12, I was not convinced this was not going to be our year,” Riley said after practice the other day. “This was too good a team, with too many good parts.”

He is not the only one in the NBA coaching at the top of his game. A good old friend, Paul Westphal of the Suns, is 36-9 and hardly has had Kevin Johnson in the lineup at all. Nobody ever talks about Westphal as one of the top coaches, but his career regular-season record with the Suns is 154-55. Mike Fratello has done an amazing job with the Cavaliers, even though he has lost all his top players to injury. Orlando’s Brian Hill and Utah’s Jerry Sloan have been terrific.

Del Harris, who is 26-16 with the Lakers, probably has done the best job of all of them.

When the Knicks were at .500, there was a lot of New York conversation about how the Knicks’ moment as a contender had passed, how they were too old, how Riley should get out of here fast because he couldn’t win here anymore. Of course his team made its stand immediately. For the last six weeks, the Knicks have the No. 1 record in the sport.

I’m not sure how much money he wants. After everything he has done here, the Knicks must be offering him twice what he is making. That would mean $3 million a year. If that isn’t enough, who knows what Riley thinks is enough? A difference of opinion about that may end up with him sitting out a year and then coaching somewhere else. If you root for the Knicks, you have to root hard against that.

The Knicks don’t all like Pat Riley. But they respect him as much as modern players can. They play hard for him, every night. At a time when everyone wonders how you coach these rich and moody and sometimes mutinous modern stars, Riley knows how to do it. When you talk about Coach of the Year, Riley is always there, every year.

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--The Rangers are aware these games count, right?

Hey, let’s face it, they were going to have to put the Stanley Cup down eventually.

The Rangers have celebrated their big win longer than the Republicans have.

--I didn’t think Robert Shapiro was getting up to say something the other day, I thought he was afraid atrophy was setting in.

Incidentally, I wasn’t exactly shocked not to find Shapiro and F. Lee Bailey on People magazine’s list of 10 Most Romantic Couples.

Bailey looks as if he’s the one who has been living in solitary since this thing started, not O.J.

When Johnnie Cochran talked about O.J. chipping with his 4-wood the other day, every golfer in America jumped up and yelled, “Guilty!”

One more thing: Carl Douglas, that guy doing some of the cross-examining for Cochran, is about as likeable as Dennis Rodman.

--Even though the Magic beat the Knicks again Sunday (103-100 in overtime), I’m still not convinced they can do it four times in the playoffs.

With or without home-court advantage.

Which is up for grabs in the Eastern Conference all of a sudden, isn’t it?

Long season, isn’t it?

--Of course you have to read “The Paperboy” by Pete Dexter, because Dexter is one of the great American writers.

Dexter writes the way Joshua Redman plays sax.

But it wouldn’t hurt at all to pick up “Third and Indiana,” a brilliant first novel by Steve Lopez of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

--I would like Steve Young more if he didn’t always seem more eager to please than the Welcome Wagon lady.

--When I found out Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders had to be separated one day before the Super Bowl, in an argument over missed curfews by some of the 49ers, I got so excited I couldn’t catch my breath.

--I think my favorite columnist in the other papers is Jimmy Johnson.

Hey, the guy’s got a gift with words, what can I tell you?

And while we’re on the subject: There isn’t anybody who writes a better column out of Washington than Newsday’s Lars Erik Nelson.

Nelson is all over Newt Gingrich the way Derek Harper is all over the other team’s point guard.

--The Giants are going to spend some money on free agents this time around, aren’t they?

If the object of the game is to catch up with the 49ers and Cowboys one of these days, George Young and the boys need to pick it up a little bit.

Starting with Alvin Harper wouldn’t send me to my room with a crying jag.

I never thought I would miss Jeff Kent quite this much.

--”Chicago Hope” is now No. 11 in the Nielsen ratings, and that just tells me one thing: I am so cutting-edge with these television shows, it’s almost scary.

--I wasn’t the biggest fan of Boomer Esiason’s quarterbacking last season, and you can certainly look that up.

But Boomer taking fired Jets quarterback coach Walt Harris down to the Super Bowl as a way of introducing Harris around and maybe helping him find a new job was high class all the way.

--The baseball season will count when Mr. Ripken goes out to shortstop.

--I think the bounce is back in Coach Riley’s step, don’t you?

--I watched Prince suck on that lollipop at the end of the American Music Awards the other night, and I want to ask a question now I once asked about Michael Jackson:

Whom do you suppose Prince thinks is weird?

--”Armed and dangerous, drag queen gangsters . . . on the next Geraldo!”

Oh, don’t even think I’m making it up. The show airs Monday in New York.

--Deion Sanders saying he has traded in his library cards for credit cards must be one of those inspiring messages he passes on to kids all the time.

--Sure, Andre Agassi’s decided to clean up his act and become a champion, and that’s a great thing for tennis.

But where does that leave me?