THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : ‘Attention Withdrawal Deficit’ Triggers Jordan U-Turn

Where have you been, Mikey lad, Mikey lad? Where have you been, Charming Mikey?

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He’s been to seek a life, but it looks as if the search will lead Michael Jordan back to basketball, as it figured to all along.

This is a man who lives for action, not to kick back, mow the lawn or spend more time with his family, all of which he promised to do when he retired in the fall of 1993.

Within months, he had the family in Birmingham, Ala., watching him play baseball, but that was a joke, like “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

Michael could dress like the other guys and carry the bat up to the plate but that was as far as it went. He hit a laughable .202.

Of course, with the blessing of Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the Chicago White Sox and Bulls, he was ticketed for a promotion to triple-A this season--and a call to the big club when the rosters expanded in September--which only goes to show you how far a joke can go.

Jordan says he left baseball because of the strike. He didn’t say so, out of deference to Reinsdorf, but he’s mad at Sox General Manager Ron Schueler, who reassigned Mike to the minor league clubhouse.

Of course, Schueler’s order applied to all minor leaguers who didn’t want to be replacement players. Let’s just say that Jordan, sensing another of his dreams wasn’t coming true, might have been casting about for a reason to quit.

It figured that when he tired of dreaming up artificial challenges--remember the one about the PGA tour?--he would return to the one game he could play without embarrassing himself. As the Chicago Tribune’s Sam Smith wrote, he came back out of “attention withdrawal deficit.”

What can any basketball fan say but, “Welcome back, your highness.”?

Of course, the team has changed, courtesy of Reinsdorf.

Only three holdovers--Scottie Pippen, B.J. Armstrong and Will Perdue -- remain from the Bulls Jordan left. The acquisitions of Toni Kukoc, Luc Longley, Steve Kerr and Bill Wennington have helped but the five others are flotsam and jetsam.

The loss of Horace Grant is disastrous. The Bulls have the willowy Kuker at power forward and the pillowy Luker at center. With Jordan, this is virtually an all-guard lineup that even Jordan can’t carry to the finals (I don’t think).

This, for the Bulls, adds up to gross incompetence.

When Jordan left, they had one intelligent course of action: maintain the status quo for a couple of years so that if Jordan wanted to consider returning, there would be something for him to come back to.

What did they have to lose? If Mike stayed away, they’d have to break up the team anyway.

However, Reinsdorf, an old-fashioned autocrat who marches to his own drummer--he sued the NBA and is said to be amused by Donald Fehr’s charges that he stage-managed the baseball strike--didn’t care. And General Manager Jerry Krause could never bring himself to believe.

“He’ll never come back,” said Krause, flatly. “He’s a different kind of cat.”

So they conducted business as usual, which meant busting their players’ chops. Had they come up with the $4 million a year they offered Grant last summer a year earlier, he would be there and they would be title contenders.

Jordan wants to meet with Reinsdorf before committing himself, seeking assurances that the club will be rebuilt, a new contract for Pippen and, who knows, maybe one for himself.

Since Reinsdorf has just seen the value of his franchise increase by, say, $50 million, he should be in a generous mood. However, with Reinsdorf as well as Jordan, who knows? Mike could bail out in a penny-ante fit of pique and Jerry could insist on his imperial perquisites.

The day he comes back, it’s a whole new league.

If the Bulls stay No. 6 in the East, they will meet the No. 3 New York Knicks in the first round, a nightmare for the Knicks, who almost lost to the Bulls in last spring’s playoffs.

The Knicks, public relations aces, have adopted a noble attitude.

“I couldn’t be happier,” said Knick president Dave Checketts. “I hope it happens. If we don’t get there, it means we didn’t deserve it.”

What he means is: “Oy, vey!”

When the buzz started last week, Knick officials began calling around Chicago, looking for information, presumably so they could be first in line to congratulate the Bulls.

But why worry about Bulls, Knicks, Krause or Reinsdorf? Mike’s back!

Baryshnikov dances, the sun rises, Mike’s going to play again. Who can ask for anything more?

HUNGRY GOTHAMITES NIBBLING ON RILES

It wasn’t hard to predict when Pat Riley went east that he was on a collision course with the New York tabloids, which are in their own war for survival.

As Laker coach, Riley was so successful a manipulator, he referred to the press as “the animal that has to be fed every day.” Now, the tabs are tying napkins around their necks and eyeing him.

Grant started the frenzy, telling the New York Post’s Pete Vecsey that he turned down a Knick bid last summer after Knick players told him Riley was ego-drunk and made them play hurt.

Said Grant, “They told me training camp and practice is hell. They also said that Riley has an ego that won’t quit. It’s OK to have an ego--every player has one--but they say Pat’s crazy.”

The next day, the Post ran a follow-up under a headline that said, “Riley’s Losing Knicks.”

Said an unidentified Knick in the Post story, “A control freak? Without question. About everything. So what else is new?”

Said another, “His biggest problem is be believes the stuff he’s selling. In the beginning, he did it because he helped the team. Now he’s doing it because it helps himself. He thinks he’s deeper than every person on earth.”

Since the development of the high-pressure Riley in the late ‘80s, players have grumbled, though rarely to the press, according to another of his dictates. Last season, when two Knicks lodged an anonymous run-of-the-mill protest about going to Patrick Ewing too often, the Daily News gave it big treatment--”TEAM TURMOIL”--and Riley convened a team meeting to ask who snitched. Anthony Mason, thought to be one of the culprits, got his punishment later, when Riley suspended him for anti-Knick remarks.

Now, however, Knick players are confiding in reporters, one more suggestion that Riley’s Knick days are drawing to a close.

“When I came here, I expected to get some personal criticism and it doesn’t bother me,” said Riley, maintaining his fabled cool. “What bothers me is that people constantly misjudge your motives. Ridicule becomes part of the equation and when it gets in the way, it bothers me. I don’t play people hurt. I care about their careers.

“The other stuff? Hey, it might be right.”

The Knicks, of course, have advanced deeper into the playoffs in each of his seasons and are now on a four-game winning streak.

During Wednesday’s rout at Boston, players whooped it up on the bench--as if to challenge Riley, who had complained angrily about such behavior two weeks earlier.

Riley looked the other way.

“Coaching in New York has got to be the toughest job around,” said his predecessor, Rick Pitino, who went all the way to Kentucky to escape the tabloids.

“There are two things about New York: One, it demands great competition. And two, the media every day demands a great story. And those things can’t happen every day. Every day there has to be a splash. It can’t be, ‘Oak Has a Sore Ankle.’ It has to be career threatening.”

It’s career threatening, all right, and the career it’s threatening is Riley’s.

FACES AND FIGURES

Glenn Robinson’s new persecution complex: “There are a lot of people who don’t want me to enjoy (the season). People write bad things so I’ll get frustrated and then go out and do something crazy. But I’m not going to let myself get frustrated. Basically, I don’t care. What’s going to happen when I’m scoring 20 points a game with no turnovers and six or seven rebounds and a couple of assists? What are they going to write then?” . . . Comment: We’ve got plenty of time to work on it. Robinson leads the NBA in turnovers at four a game. . . . Robinson’s old persecution complex: On a trip back to Purdue, he thanked the writers there for never saying bad things about him--and apologized for having refused to talk to them.

Who else but the Nets: Trading for reserve forward Jayson(cq) Williams two seasons ago, they promised their 1995 No. 1 pick to the Philadelphia 76ers if Williams’ points and minutes added up to 19 a game. He’s currently at 18.1 and Coach Butch Beard hints that General Manager Willis Reed has told him about it. Instead of using Williams more with Benoit Benjamin out (how can they tell?), Beard dusted off Dwayne Schintzius, who had played 155 minutes all season. . . . The Bulls players have been complaining that their 30-year-old chartered plane creaks. Flying home from Philadelphia a week ago, it dropped 25,000 feet in 90 seconds and cabin temperature fell to 32 degrees. “You could see your breath,” said Steve Kerr. Management had no comment but look for it to find a shiny new jet for Michael Jordan’s return.

Grant Hill denied an ESPN report that he had complained about Piston Coach Don (the Duck) Chaney to the front office, saying he only “talked about things dealing with me, not the team. Things like adjusting to Detroit.” However, Hill is known to be upset that Chaney hasn’t gone to him more. In other words, get the overnight laundry service, Duck. . . . Horace Grant on his back problems: “I wouldn’t wish this on Bill Laimbeer.”