Too Little From Collins, Never Enough From Barkley

Marv Albert posed the day’s second most pressing question first.

“What is going on with the Blazers?”

Doug Collins had no answer for that, which puts him in the same boat as Portland Coach Mike Dunleavy, who finds himself up the creek without a paddle because Rasheed Wallace just hit Arvydas Sabonis over the head with it while Scottie Pippen was low-bridging Detlef Schrempf into the water.

Or if he did, Collins wasn’t giving it up. Instead, he talked around the question, offering up the obvious as a safe substitution: “They have one choice--put it behind them. They’ve got a chance to salvage their season with this series against the Lakers. If not, it’ll be a disastrous finish to an awful season for the Blazers.”

That we know.

What we don’t know, what we want to know, is which players Collins will be coaching next fall with the Washington Wizards, a horrendous basketball team rumored soon to be recast as official playground for Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley.

Albert waited until late in the first quarter of Sunday’s Laker-Blazer playoff game to ask the day’s most pressing question, teasing his NBC broadcast partner with: “How about Michael changing the percentage [against his making an NBA comeback]? It’s no longer 99.9%. Did he say 85% now?”

Collins played it coy.

“I didn’t hear that report,” he deadpanned.

“Right,” Albert said sarcastically. “Like players ‘aren’t reading the newspaper.’ ”

Collins: “Marv, that’s why I hang around with you. You always keep me abreast of what’s going on.”

You know the Jordan/Barkley comeback rumor is grounded in reality because Collins, the man Jordan just hand-picked to coach the Wizards, has changed gears whenever asked about it. He has moved from Stage One--denial--to the always annoying Stage Two, subtitled, “I Know a Secret and I’m Not Telling.”

Albert tried it again near the end of the first half, asking Collins if he has had any recent conversations with “potential Washington Wizard Charles Barkley?”

Again, Collins did the soft-shoe.

“Well,” he replied, “Charles and I both live in Scottsdale. I’m waiting for him to join me with my workouts on the exercise bike. If he can keep up with me then, we’ll start talking.”

This was getting us nowhere, which is what the NBA prefers, hoping to keep the spotlight on the young Not-Like-Mikes for at least the next two months, because some of them are going to be christened Best Basketball Players in the League, for whatever that’s worth in April 2001, before we move on to Jordan III.

Sorry. That isn’t going to happen. Sunday, NBC had a live tripleheader of NBA playoff openers--New York defeating Toronto followed by Phoenix upsetting Sacramento followed by Shaq-Kobe and Rasheed-Sabonis and the cut man in the Blazers’ corner--and, still, the most interesting moment of the day was a live Q-and-A session with Barkley during halftime of the Laker-Blazer game.

Fortunately, over-verbalization has never been a problem for Barkley.

Via remote, Barkley told NBC’s studio crew of Ahmad Rashad, Kevin Johnson and P.J. Carlesimo, “I just miss playing. But Kevin, I’ve got to get my big butt in shape. I have been a disappointment to myself so far. I’ve lost 20 pounds. I thought I’d have lost 30 by now, or 35. I’ve just got to pick it up.

“I have not done a good job so far. I can give you a lot of excuses, but I thought I would have lost more weight by now. So I’ve really picked up my routine the last few days. I’m doing two-a-days now. And I’m excited and pumped up about it.”

The comebacks are coming, which is a good thing and a bad thing for anyone who enjoys watching basketball on television. Because if Barkley is banging under the boards for Collins next season, he won’t be offering his priceless, from-the-hip opinions from his TNT analyst’s chair.

No one minces words quite like Barkley, who was as blunt as a wet towel in the face when asked about the emotionally challenged Wallace.

“He’s a knucklehead,” Barkley said. “He’s a knucklehead, and I know a lot of players try to defend him, but he hurts his team. And it’s unfortunate that a guy with that much talent . . . he’s probably one of the 10 best players in the world if he just plays. But his technicals get too much attention and it’s really hurt their team.”

Wallace got another technical at the end of the first half Sunday after jawing with official Bill Spooner.

Barkley said, “There’s nothing in that situation that that ref could’ve said that could’ve made him explode like that. I’ve know Rasheed for a long time, and his mom. He’s a great guy, but he’s hurt his team. He’s hurt them all season. And that right there is the beginning of the end [for the Blazers]. Because they played terrific that first half, and that really was a momentum-breaker right there.”

The Blazers trailed by only three, 51-48, when Barkley made those comments.

Final score: Lakers 106, Blazers 93.

Yes, you could say that was a momentum-breaker.

“It’s their fault,” Barkley said. “They should have nobody to blame but themselves. As you know, players always stick together. It’s up to the other players to discipline [Wallace]. They have not done anything about it all season. They tried to do it the last two weeks of the season, but it was too late. I’ll be really surprised if they can keep it together.”

Barkley also had another prediction, one that ought to have them panicking in the streets of Sacramento right about now.

“I pick Phoenix, because I think they’ve got a better team in a short series,” he said. “I don’t like Sacramento’s team. I think they’re a little soft. Chris Webber’s a great player, but that’s pretty much it as far as their toughness.”

We’re going to miss him when he’s gone to D.C., saving that kind of talk just for the guys in the paint. That’s one more reason Jordan has to come back. It’s the only way he’s going to stay within earshot of Charles.