At This Rate, Even Bulls Can’t Stop Themselves

Chemistry, that elusive concept, is again being redefined by the Chicago Bulls, who are old, run down, tired of each other, unbeaten and ahead of last season’s pace.

Of course, they haven’t played any good teams in their conference, but then there are no other good teams in their conference.

As Scottie Pippen put it with the usual modesty, “We’re the monsters of the East right now.”

Normally when your star flies to the West Coast on off days to plug his movie, and your second-best player is tiptoeing after surgery, and your leading rebounder attacks your front office for mistreating your coach at the preseason boosters’ luncheon where your sixth man also says he’ll “never” accept coming off the bench, and your fourth- and fifth-best players are coming off surgery, etc., you’d expect a little dropoff.

The rebounder, of course, is Dennis Rodman, who presented Coach Phil Jackson with a motorcycle at the luncheon. Then with General Manager Jerry Krause looking on, Rodman lurched into a profanity-laced diatribe that went in part:

“You [Jackson] didn’t get your due. But . . . ‘em.”

The star, Michael Jordan, was in Los Angeles on Sunday plugging “Space Jam.” This was inconvenient since there were games Saturday and Monday. The trip capped a summerlong promotional effort, and a weary Jordan said he was tired of cute questions such as, what’s Bugs Bunny really like?

“There’s been so much hype,” Jordan said. “I’m pretty sure everyone is tired of seeing all the commercials. I’m tired of seeing them to a certain extent. Everybody should just see it and get it over with.”

Jordan, now playing five fewer minutes a game than last season, finds himself in the unfamiliar position of battling someone, Hakeem Olajuwon, in the scoring race.

Pippen, coming off heel surgery, is averaging 16 points and shooting less than 40%.

Ron Harper and Luc Longley are easing back into action after their surgeries.

Toni Kukoc, who needed a season to get used to Jackson’s yelling and another to get used to Jordan’s, who sulked at returning to the bench and vowed again at the luncheon “never” to accept it, is averaging 17 points and shooting 53%. Before the season, Seattle SuperSonic Coach George Karl called him their wild card, and Kukoc has become the fourth ace.

Since the opener, when the Bulls had to rally at Boston, it has been one long walkover. They’re second in offense, fourth in defense, winning by 19 points a game.

“We aren’t playing well,” Harper says. “I don’t think we’re playing enthusiastically. But we’re a veteran ballclub, and we aren’t playing good basketball teams.”

Heaven knows where they’ll find any of those. Quarrelsome or not, in a league rearranged by free agency, the Bulls are the only team starting the lineup that finished last season.

They have chemistry too. It just isn’t the way people think it should be, a function of affection.

Bull players have always been united by their dislike of the hardball tactics of owner Jerry Reinsdorf and the prickly Krause; by their common awe and fear of the uncompromising Jordan; and by Jackson’s reminders that no matter what they think of each other, they’re all they can depend on in a dizzy world.

Imagine what would happen if they were young, rested and actually liked each other.

Meanwhile, everyone else wants to know where they can find some 33-year-old, trash-talking, movie-making, cross-dressing prima donnas to start their own dynasty.

RODMAN TO BARKLEY: MAKE MY SEASON

Talk about your great grudge matches, how about Charles Barkley musing about ending Rodman’s five-year reign as rebound champion?

It started in Barkley’s first game when he got 33 against the Phoenix Suns, then 20 against the Utah Jazz as opponents learned a hard lesson: If they were going to keep double-teaming Olajuwon, it was going to be hard to keep Barkley’s 250 pounds off the boards.

Barkley suggested he might even outrebound Rodman “if that was all I had to do.” Rodman happily offered to bet; whoever lost had to wear a dress.

“The ball is in his court now,” Rodman said. “He can go to a full-figured women’s outlet store.”

As Rodman and more detached observers noted, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Not every team has made Barkley mad, but Rodman brings his manic zeal every night.

Not since Wilt Chamberlain has a player dominated any statistic as Rodman has. For five seasons, he has taken an astounding 28% more rebounds than the combined second-place finishers, representing the entire pack. (In Chamberlain’s first five seasons, he scored 27% more points than the pack.)

On a man-to-man basis, the gap is even wider. Dikembe Mutombo has been the second-best rebounder for five seasons, but Rodman has taken 43% more than he has.

By week’s end, Barkley, leading the league in minutes, joked about getting suspended to get some rest. Worm slithers on.

LET’S HEAR IT FOR . . .THE CLIPPERS?

Maybe it won’t last, but there’s nothing like a bunch of hustling overachievers, which is what the Clippers have been so far.

I’m not sure they’re one of the West’s five best teams as my friend Mike Downey suggested (he may have meant west of Sepulveda), but they have a lot of decent players and are playing hard.

An 86-point defensive average has kept them respectable while shooting under 40%. The latter number will surely rise; if the former doesn’t take off, they’re in business. If they can trim down Stanley Roberts to his fighting weight (we don’t know what it is, he hasn’t ever been there), who knows what they might do?

I might even have to apologize to Mike. Ask my wife, it has happened before.

NAMES AND NUMBERS

Charlotte Hornet Coach Dave Cowens has a situation with Anthony Mason, the ex-New York Knick malcontent, now unhappy in Charlotte. “When they brought me to the press conference,” Mason moaned after the team’s 3-3 start, “I asked them if they wanted to win or if they wanted to experiment. I didn’t want to be a part of no damn experiment. Are we power basketball? Are we finesse basketball? Are we going to shoot it inside? Are we going to shoot it outside? What are we going to do?” In other words, give me the rock and forget about this Glen Rice guy. Cowens had talked to Mason’s former coaches, Don Nelson and Pat Riley. “Don said he’s a very emotional player,” Cowens noted. “Riley said I may have to suspend him a couple of times.”

The Toronto Raptors’ Damon Stoudamire, last season’s rookie of the year, met this season’s favorite, the Philadelphia 76ers’ Allen Iverson, in a duel of cocky, chip-carrying prodigies, and they didn’t become fast friends. The Raptors won as Stoudamire scored 21 points with 12 assists to Iverson’s 24 and three. Said Iverson: “I hope I always could get 21 points too, if I shot the ball 28 times [as Stoudamire had]. I watched him in college, and I saw him a few times on the TV highlights last year, but I can’t really say I’ve learned anything from his game.” Replied Stoudamire: “I still think I had a better game than he did, a lot better. He’s a good ballplayer, but he doesn’t know how to pass.”

Toronto’s Benoit Benjamin, getting the $247,500 minimum, slimmer than he’d been since high school but playing no harder, was waived after a shouting match with Coach Darrell Walker, threatening to end his great NBA career before anyone could organize a farewell tour. . . . As a professional, you’re in trouble if teenagers are telling you stuff you don’t know: At a shootaround on returning to Minneapolis’ Target Center, Isaiah Rider bellowed, “I built this house! It’s still my place!” He scored 22 points in a Portland Trail Blazer loss, was booed loudly and refused comment. “I just told him he has to use his head a little more often,” said Minnesota’s Kevin Garnett. “From some of the things he’s done, I know not to make the same mistakes. He’s still a good person. The people who know him know that.”

Sun Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons, who relished comparisons of his career of rebuilding franchises to Red Adair, the famous capper of oil well fires, fled after a 0-8 start, throwing Danny Ainge into the blaze a season ahead of schedule. Fitzsimmons hopes to return to his old job, known in the organization as “vice president in charge of nothing.” . . . Houston’s Matt Bullard, called for a taunting technical that gave the Lakers a key point: “I only get one or two dunks a season, and I can’t celebrate?” . . . Toronto’s 220-pound Marcus Camby, on his first collision with 330-pound Shaquille O’Neal: “I thought, ‘Man, I can’t be doing this.’ ”

THE TIMES’ RANKING: Top to Bottom

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Team (Record) Comment 1. Chicago (9-0) Untoucha-bulls, 81-10 since ’95 opener. 2. Seattle (6-2) Ready to rumble after slow start. 3. Houston (7-1) Great until Lakers zapped them. 4. New York (7-2) Great until 76ers zapped them. 5. Detroit (7-1) 7-0 vs. league, lost to Bulls by 18. 6. Lakers (6-3) Great until Hornets, Raptors, Spurs zapped them. 7. Orlando (3-1) Penny out, Shaq gone, looks like expansion era. 8. Utah (4-2) Floor falls out from under them, literally. 9. Cleveland (6-2) No. 1 in defense, 26 in offense. 10. Miami (5-3) Look like Riles’ Knicks: Good defense, No offense. 11. Atlanta (5-4) Six road games and injured backcourt. 12. Milwaukee (5-3) Oops! Baker, Lang just got hurt. 13. Washington (3-5) Wake me when the revolution starts. 14. Portland (5-5) On bright side, no new Rider incidents. 15. Philadelphia (3-5) Iverson, Stackhouse 63, Knick guards 19. 16. Dallas (2-5) Good thing Pacers showed up. 17. Charlotte (3-5) Lost four in row. So much for mirages. 18. Toronto (3-4) Camby last week: 22 points a game. 19. Clippers (4-4) Plucky guys met big guys. 20. Minnesota (4-4) New franchise high-water mark. 21. Indiana (2-5) Hole in dike, but Dutch boy Smits is out. 22. Denver (4-5) Bad news: Dale Ellis, 36, has been best. 23. Sacramento (3-5) Reports of dissension and Brian Grant’s out. 24. San Antonio (2-6) Good thing Lakers showed up. 25. Boston (2-5) While playing five of seven at home. 26. Golden State (2-5) Will real Joe Smith stand up? 27. Vancouver (1-8) Good thing Suns showed up. 28. New Jersey (0-5) Calipari still working on victory speech. 29. Phoenix (0-8) Next coach.

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GAME OF THE WEEK: NEW YORK AT ORLANDO

* When--Tuesday. Time--5 p.m. PST. TV--TNT.

* Storyline--The Knicks, once the Magic’s most hated archrival (now, of course, it’s the Lakers), are back for a matchup of one-time Eastern biggies. New Knicks Larry Johnson and Allan Houston are struggling to fit in. The Magic, struggling to make the transition to the post-Shaq era, already had Dennis Scott on the injured list when it learned that Penny Hardaway will be out two to six weeks after arthroscopic surgery on his sore right knee.