76ers, Jordan Found Best Deals at This Swap Meet

The Great Oz himself, super-agent David Falk, had declared the midseason trade deadline of little import, which meant he wasn’t going to be out there thinking up deals, and his client Dikembe Mutombo was staying in Atlanta until this summer and not much was going to happen, as usual.

So what happened?

Lots.

* Mutombo is now a Philadelphia 76er.

This means the East’s best team just picked up the conference’s lone big center.

The 76ers gave up only one player they really cared about, Theo Ratliff, a younger, smaller center. Toni Kukoc was an expensive bust (who may still find his way back to Phil Jackson this summer). Nazr Muhammad was their No. 5 center.

Now the 76ers have someone big enough to guard Tim Duncan, Rasheed Wallace or Shaquille O’Neal, should they reach the NBA finals.

More to the point, next season when Alonzo Mourning returns to Miami and Grant Hill to Orlando, the 76ers would have had to be better to get out of the East.

Now they could be.

* Michael Jordan did something right.

Jordan, who was tired of having darts stuck into him in his new role as absentee president of the Washington Wizards, dumped Juwan Howard and cleared his salary cap for the summer of 2002, instead of having to wait until 2003.

Of course, Jordan never could have unloaded Howard, who is due almost $50 million for this season and the next two, if he hadn’t found a sucker. . . .

* Meet Mark Cuban.

The hyperactive Dallas Maverick owner can’t stand to miss out on anything and spent weeks trying to deal for Mutombo, Vancouver’s Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Seattle’s Vin Baker. (This may be the other reason Don Nelson hurried back from Maui, to make sure Cuban didn’t do something really impulsive with the entertaining little team Nellie had put together.)

Frustrated in all those deals, Cuban turned around and took Howard.

Poor Juwan, he can’t get a break. Booed by his home fans since signing his $105-million deal in 1996, he had won them back with his professionalism in a hopeless situation this season, averaging 18 points and seven rebounds.

Now he goes to a playoff team . . . as No. 4 option behind Michael Finley, Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash. Howard will probably average something like 10 points and eight rebounds, and if the Mavericks are eliminated by a bigger team in the first round, everyone may point at Juwan’s contract again.

* The New York Knicks got Mark Jackson . . . again.

The Knicks are hopelessly capped forever, so even if they manage to appear competitive, their options are always declining.

They spent months trying to deal for Mutombo, in two-way deals with Atlanta, or three-ways with Atlanta and Vancouver, but they had nothing anybody wanted.

Beaten on that front, they apparently decided they had to do something, anything.

* Glen Rice didn’t go anywhere at the trade deadline . . . again.

Rice, averaging a career-low 29 minutes and 12.7 points in the wonderful new home Falk found for him, was offered to Atlanta with Marcus Camby for Mutombo, but the Hawks weren’t interested.

The Knicks are jammed at shooting guard and small forward with Rice, Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell and Rice is still the odd man out, coming off the bench.

If Houston, who can opt out, decides to stay in New York, look for Rice to move this summer . . . again.

* Jason Kidd stayed in Phoenix, but the countdown may have started.

His domestic troubles were an embarrassment, only one of several for the Suns, but they have a worse problem. They’re not good enough, and they know it.

They just lost until next season Penny Hardaway, whose $86-million contract makes their salary-cap situation impossible through 2006.

The Suns hope the Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant situation will get so bad, the Lakers will trade Kobe for Kidd. Someone in Phoenix has been telling the media Shaq is pushing for it.

Well, what’s life without a dream?

* Gary Payton stayed in Seattle, but the countdown has definitely started.

The SuperSonics no longer have any illusions Gary will lead them back into contention or they’ll live long enough to see him mature.

Of course, they want a lot for him, so they’ll entertain more offers this summer.

There will be interested teams, but probably not Milwaukee and George Karl, who had a stormy relationship with Payton in Seattle.

“I’d buy stock in Excedrin or Tylenol [if Payton was in Milwaukee],” Karl said. “Gary would live in Chicago and probably helicopter in for the games.”

* There was the usual posturing, all around.

Said Detroit Piston President Joe Dumars before the deadline: “I am not in the business of taking on somebody else’s junk.”

The next day, he traded energetic Jerome Williams, an upcoming free agent, to Toronto for Raptor reserves Corliss Williamson, Ty Corbin and Kornel David.

This proved once more that junk is in the eye of the beholder.