He Used Magic to Make Pfund Disappear

Laker owner Jerry Buss simply could not handle being ignored in the post-Magic Johnson era.

Because of that, Randy Pfund went Pfft as the Lakers’ coach in March 1994.

A day after the Lakers rallied from a five-point deficit in the last 30 seconds to defeat the Celtics, Buss met with Pfund and was angered by the sparse treatment in the newspaper.

“ ‘Randy, this is killing me,’ ” Pfund recalled in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.

“ ‘Nobody is writing about us. We’re going into oblivion here. People are not renewing their tickets.’ ”

Said Pfund: “I told him, ‘Jerry, I can’t do anything about that.’ ”

Buss found a way.

Several days later, Buss fired Pfund and replaced him with Johnson, returning the Lakers to the top of the front page.

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Add Pfund: Now a personnel director with the Miami Heat, Pfund felt the Lakers had been on the right path of rebuilding.

“I think the Lakers did everything right,” he said, laughing. “But one thing.”

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Trivia time: When was the last time Northwestern won the Big Ten football championship?

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Kindergarten next?: Stedman Graham, writing in Inside Sports, sees no good in the signing of Kevin Garnett to an NBA contract right out of a Chicago high school.

“The fear is that if Garnett is successful, the NBA will be beating a path to America’s high schools to find the next teenage phenomenon,” Graham wrote. “It isn’t hard to picture scouts and agents lurking in high school corridors, hoping to have a word with some peach-fuzzed youngster with a great turnaround jumper.”

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Add Garnett: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, while opposed to NBA raiding of the preps, says it would be almost impossible for Garnett to have turned down the contract:

“It’s hard to tell a kid 16, 17 years old that you don’t need $6 million. He’s living a fantasy. The whole package is irresistible--fame, wealth, pretty girls.”

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The real story: What is the biggest difference between high school and the NBA? USA Today’s Greg Boeck asked Garnett.

“No one wakes you up in the morning,” he replied.

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Who’s the boss: Georgetown guard Allen Iverson is considered one of the best in the country, but Coach John Thompson is concerned that he’s sometimes out of control.

“Allen will learn someday that he’s the actor and I’m the director. I write the script,” Thompson said.

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Failure pays: Many players in the NFL donate money to charitable causes for big plays--touchdowns, caught passes, field goals, etc. Carolina’s Mark Carrier thinks differently, reports Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Carrier donates $100 to his church in Louisiana for every catchable pass he drops.

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Too, too many: A too-many-men-on-the-field penalty usually means 12. Not the Raiders. When Al Davis’ crew was docked for the infraction against Pittsburgh, it was for having 13 players on the field.

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No thriller: Cincinnati Bengal cornerback Corey Sawyer wasn’t pleased at having to play in a wind-chill of minus-13 against the Chicago Bears last week.

“It was so cold, I told my brother not to come,” Sawyer said. “I wouldn’t go see Michael Jackson in this.”

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Trivia answer: 1936, when the Wildcats were 7-1 under Coach Pappy Waldorf. Note: When Northwestern played in the 1949 Rose Bowl game, the Wildcats were runners-up.

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Quotebook: Cleveland Brown broadcaster Doug Dieken, who played 14 years with the team, on the move to Baltimore: “It’s too sad to even be a country-western song.”