He’s Powering His Way Back as a Contributor

Ed O’Bannon, who led UCLA to the NCAA basketball championship in 1995, apparently has found his niche with the New Jersey Nets.

Last year was a disillusioning one for O’Bannon, who had considerably more bench time than playing time.

“I was really starting to feel that I didn’t belong in this league,” O’Bannon told the New York Times. “I was thinking my senior year in college was all a fluke.”

After playing shooting guard and small forward, O’Bannon is now a power forward, even though he weighs only 220 pounds. And he’s seemingly contributing more, even though his statistics are modest.

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Add O’Bannon: “There are times he’s overmatched on the floor,” Net Coach John Calipari said. “I’m not saying he has to be an all-star. But he’s finding a way to stay in this league.”

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Trivia time: Who holds the record for points in an NBA All-Star game?

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Devil in disguise? Houston’s Charles Barkley often entertains the media with his candid quotes, but New York Post columnist Jay Greenberg isn’t impressed.

“What Barkley, who prides himself as the ultimate truth teller, passes off as candor is just self-serving trash,” Greenberg wrote. “What the media argue is colorful about him is really only the darkness of Barkley’s soul surfacing.”

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Deli duty: Bill Belichick will serve as the New York Jets’ interim coach next season, and Bill Parcells is expected to be a consultant to the team. A New York Daily News headline referred to Belichick as “Tuna Sub.”

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New graveyard team: Glenn Dickey in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Once, the Los Angeles Clippers were the team where basketball players went to die. The Warriors have usurped that position, trailing even the Clippers in the standings.”

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Stung again: Shaun Powell in Newsday: “Everyone talks about the potentially awful deal Dallas made to get rid of Jason Kidd, but hardly anyone mentions the Mavericks’ truly bad exchange: Next year’s No. 1 to Boston for Eric Montross.

“The Mavs did the impossible. They made [Coach and General Manager] M.L. Carr look like Red Auerbach.”

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Any suggestions? Bored with a “Junkyard Dog” nickname he has held for years, Houston Rocket guard Mario Elie is asking NBA fans to find him a new name. He asks fans to submit suggestions to the Rockets’ page on World Wide Web at https://www.nba.com.

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Trivia answer: Wilt Chamberlain, with 42 points in 1962.

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For the record: The last time the USC men’s basketball team was ranked in the top 10 in the final Associated Press poll was in 1992, when the Trojans were ranked eighth.

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And finally: The Mighty Ducks’ jersey was voted best-in-show Thursday at the first ESPY fashion gala in New York. ESPN had asked fans to vote for their favorite jerseys on its ESPNET Internet site. The New York Yankee shirt won the baseball category, the Detroit Piston uniform was voted best in basketball, and the Oakland Raider jersey took honors in football.