SHOOTING STAR

The limo driver. He filmed the limo driver who was waiting to greet him in those first steps out of the LaGuardia Airport terminal Friday afternoon.

“I got the bellman,” Maurice Taylor said proudly. “I got everybody in the lobby. I got all the camera men shooting me--me shooting them while they were shooting me. I’ve got all the players so far.”

The camcorder was temporarily on the table in front of the Clipper power forward because he was in conversation. Or, just as likely, because it was exhausted, having been worked harder these first few hours in town for All-Star weekend than Taylor ever was by any Bill Fitch practice.

The only goal when he arrived here was to live the atmosphere, capturing what he could on camera and then hoping the rest soaks into his skin, though buying an extra cassette quickly moved up the priority list.

There’s some steam coming from the manhole covers, there’s a guy selling hot dogs on the street, and me with no film left! Such a tourist.

Such an attraction. Taylor is one of those too, even while refusing to acknowledge as much, having earned a spot in the rookie All-Star game tonight by emerging as one of the elite first-year players in the league. His chance to go from watcher to watchee.

“I’m awe-struck,” he said.

Just ask the bellman.

“A lot of people can say it’s not a big deal,” Taylor continued. “But to me, it is a big deal.

“I’m very excited. I’m not the type of guy who thinks he belongs here, that I’m the second coming or anything.”

Yet there is no doubt that he is both. He’s the second coming in a role of a Clipper big man in the rookie game, after Lorenzen Wright got seven points and four rebounds in only 11 minutes last year in Cleveland. And he definitely does belong.

Taking advantage of the extra playing time that came when a back injury forced starter Loy Vaught to the sideline, Taylor has blossomed ahead of his own schedule. The player even the Clippers didn’t expect to take because they did not figure he would fall to No. 14 in the draft, planning instead on a choice of point guards Brevin Knight and Jacque Vaughn, comes in with the second-highest scoring average on the eight-man West squad. Only the 13.7 of Denver’s Bobby Jackson beat Taylor’s 10.7.

Only Michael Stewart has a better shooting percentage, although Taylor is a much bigger part of the Clipper offense than Stewart is with the Sacramento Kings. Only Stewart and Portland’s Kelvin Cato are blocking more shots.

“He’s here, so he must be doing something right,” said Knight, a friend.

Knight also will play tonight in Madison Square Garden, one of four Cavaliers selected for the East, before a knee injury forced Derek Anderson to withdraw. But Cedric Henderson and Zydrunas Ilgauskas are here, along with Chauncey Billups, Tracy McGrady, Ron Mercer, Tim Thomas and Diamond Bar’s Keith Van Horn.

Rodrick Rhodes from USC made the West squad. In addition to Cato, Stewart and Jackson, his teammates are Antonio Daniels, Danny Fortson, Alvin Williams . . . and Taylor.

If he makes it to tonight.

“If I’m having this much fun the first couple hours,” Taylor said, “I hate to see what the rest of the weekend is going to be like.”

Not as bad as its going to be for that camcorder.