THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : Michael Jordan: Man for All Reasons

It was great fun, but thank heaven, Michael Jordan’s short season is over.

It’s getting too loony out here. Watching Jordan is a privilege, but covering him is a distinct pain in the rear, what with every penny-ante story, like his uniform number, bumped up to a Controversy.

Then there are the various Conspiracies, a staple of talk radio in any city whose team is playing the Bulls: Mike gets favored treatment from the referees (which superstar doesn’t?); the league and NBC have rigged it for Mike to make the finals (this presumably replaces the conspiracy buffs’ old favorite, that Commissioner David Stern secretly barred Jordan two years ago for gambling.)

Then there’s Chicago.

The biggest little city in the world, Chicago is a promoter’s dream: boisterous, childlike, uncritical and rabid.

What kind of a place savages a man such as Horace Grant, a sweet guy and a self-effacing player who toiled so nobly to help the Bulls win three titles, for taking a better offer?

To the people who knew him, Grant is remembered as the Bull who saw a homeless man outside the team’s hotel in Philadelphia during a playoff series and got him a room for the night.

To the panderers who host Chicago talk shows, Horace is disloyal and an ingrate. After his Orlando Magic teammates hoisted him on their shoulders after Game 6, one Chicago clown with a press credential asked Grant if it hadn’t been “tacky” to let them do that.

Then there’s Jordan, himself.

Gifted, beguiling and overindulged, his kid-in-the-candy-store-of-life act is wearing thin. It would be too much to say he lies only when he opens his mouth, but he sure misrepresents himself a lot.

Basically, Jordan is a creature of whim, who can always find some warm, fuzzy reasons for what he’s doing.

Despite what he said, he didn’t quit basketball to spend more time with his family. It had just become too much of a hassle.

He didn’t play baseball as part of some compact with his late father. He did it because he was bored.

He didn’t quit baseball because of the strike. He was no good at it.

He didn’t wear No. 45 because 23 was the last number his father had seen him in. When a new whim hit him, he switched back to 23.

He didn’t show all the young players how to assume their responsibilities to the game, as he promised upon his return. He was gracious for a while, starting talk of a “kinder, gentler Michael Jordan,” but as soon as a new whim hit him, he declared his annual media boycott.

To show his real impact on the game, most of the Bull and Magic starters followed him.

“It’s a trend of the ‘90s,” Magic Vice President John Gabriel said. “And that [Jordan’s silence] doesn’t help you when you’re trying to convince younger players that talking to the media is the right thing to do.”

Reporters entering the Bulls’ locker room after games had their choice of Steve Kerr--who began to called himself “Dr. Quote”--or Judd Buechler or one of the centers.

Finally, an embarrassed Stern personally intervened, and everyone immediately went back to talking.

For all its progress, the NBA only flirts with elite status. Because of their length, the finals, the league’s marquee event, draw only a handful of newspaper columnists, compared to the World Series, the NCAA tournament and, of course, the granddaddy of them all, the Super Bowl.

“It’s our job to get people to cover us,” Stern says. “If our players don’t talk to them, that’s not in our interest.”

Worse, when players sense that they aren’t accountable to anyone, they quickly forget where they come from. Take Jordan. What exactly did he need with that six-man detail of off-duty Chicago cops that followed him everywhere?

“Four to carry the litter,” suggested the New York Daily News’ Mitch Lawrence, “and two to scatter the petals.”

Stern and his staff have been widely praised and richly rewarded for their marketing skill, progressive labor relations, etc. Some of it was earned, some was just the good fortune of having public relations geniuses around like Magic Johnson, Julius Erving, Charles Barkley and the young Jordan.

In four years, the NBA players’ legendary graciousness has all but died out. League officials have denied it and pussy-footed around it, but this is their test: If they’re who they think they are, let them deal with it.

Otherwise the NBA will turn into baseball, where everyone hates everyone else, and it will deserve exactly what it gets.

EVERYONE’S A CRITIC

Overjoyed at his ratings windfall and terrified lest Jordan take a hike and make it all go away, NBC’s Dick Ebersol last week launched a series of attacks at the press for harassing his meal ticket.

Said Ebersol: “On one hand, you have the fans voting in unprecedented numbers by something we call ratings to see this great athlete return. On the other hand, you have a group of people that are spending an inordinate amount of time looking for blemishes. . . .

“The fans are saying, ‘Hey, we want a chance to see the greatest athlete since Muhammad Ali. Let us do it. Don’t drive him away, unless he’s holding up banks.’ ”

This was presumptuous, to say the least. Despite heading up a network sports division, Ebersol knows as much about journalism as a monkey knows about typing.

Ebersol has packed NBC with jockos and coaches (Pat Riley, Bill Walsh, Bill Parcells) kicking back between job offers.

Ebersol distinguished himself in the 1993 Jordan gambling story by abandoning his star announcer, Bob Costas. Costas did a tough interview of Stern. When Stern complained publicly, Ebersol never uttered a peep to back up his man.

In a quintessentially Ebersol move last week, NBC hired mush-mouthed Joe Montana, who promised he wouldn’t say any of that negative stuff he hated as a player.

What did that leave?

Ebersol said Joe could talk about “things we haven’t heard in a long time. How do athletes eat on the day of the game? What are their superstitions?”

HAIL TO THE LAKERS; WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR?

Well, that was more than we bargained for, wasn’t it?

Before everyone starts congratulating each other on the birth of a great power, however, there’s work to be done.

They need a big-time non-snoozing power forward. Unless I miss my guess, Jerry West will be offering Elden Campbell and Anthony Peeler in his annual try to trade for a top pick. If he’s really excited about one of the child big men, he could throw in Cedric Ceballos.

Why not? If they get a power forward, Campbell means nothing. Peeler is expendable because of Eddie Jones. Ceballos is a good player, but this is Nick Van Exel’s team.

Van Exel made a quantum jump this season. Now they have to mellow him out. His attitude makes him as good as he is, and is, of course, the reason he fell to them at No. 37 in the draft, but this me-against-the-world stuff will only be a burden to him. All he has to do is look around at the Forum stands to know the world isn’t against him.

For young guys, the Lakers are already a prickly bunch, prone to “media strikes” (Van Exel’s term) and complaints they’re being dogged if someone writes a story about a struggling player.

Sometimes they’re going to struggle. Sometimes it’s going to be noted, just as their exploits were.

They’d better learn to get on with their business. Where they hope to go, only the mature need apply.

FACES AND FIGURES

News item: Rockets make West finals. Comment: Huh? . . . With Vernon Maxwell gone and Carlos Herrera hurt, they’re down to eight usable players. They were lucky enough to draw two center-less opponents who couldn’t guard Hakeem Olajuwon, but they’re 5-0 this spring in elimination games, after going 3-0 last spring. Hats off to underrated Coach Rudy Tomjanovich, who kept them keeping on. . . . Mad Max’s “personal problem” is a sulk because Clyde Drexler has removed him from the picture. The Rockets are tired of him and played along with the gag. . . . Prediction on the West finals: Are you kidding? San Antonio. The Spurs have a center. . . .

News item: Suns blow 3-1 lead after Charles Barkley is hurt. Comment: What else is new? He’s 32. It’s hard to age gracefully in this league. . . . News item: Knicks rally from 3-1. Comment: Huh? . . . With their best player, Patrick Ewing, hobbled and getting outscored by the Pacers’ Rik Smits, 139-106? Whatever happens, hats off to Knick Coach Pat Riley. . . . Prediction on the East finals: Orlando. There won’t be enough left of the Knick-Pacer winner to pick up with a spoon. . . .

Picking out the bad guy in the Bob Hill-Dennis Rodman clash: Rodman is a brilliant player but a loony bird whose act isn’t just old, it’s prehistoric. Hill is a good X-and-O man who’s uptight, humorless and tries to make the press the heavy, as before Game 5 of the Laker series when he railed at reporters for asking about Rodman. “What about David Robinson’s performance in L.A.?” snarled Hill. “Why don’t you print something positive about that? If Dennis comes out with a different hair color tonight and misses the game, that creates history here. You print about his hair color instead of what we’re trying to accomplish.” Bottom line: Two guys who deserve each other. . . . Matchups we can only dream of now: the Suns’ “Schleine” (Joe Kleine and Danny Schayes) against the Bulls’ “Three-Headed Monster” (Luc Longley, Will Perdue and Bill Wennington). Said Schayes before the Suns and Bulls were bopped: “In Chinese folklore, this is the Year of the Dog. It could be the year of the big white stiff.”