Snakes Alive!

Mikki Moore is enjoying the best season of his life, a career resurrection, and all anybody wants to ask him about are his exotic pets.

Not that he minds.

The Clipper backup center delights in discussing a macho menagerie that at times has included pythons, piranhas, alligators, boa constrictors and, perhaps in a nod to convention, a Rottweiler and a Doberman pinscher.

Moore is an avid proponent of alligators as pets. He kept two in the living room of his apartment when he played for the Detroit Pistons and recently tried convincing teammate Chris Wilcox that he should get one.

“Once they get big enough,” Moore says, “you can put a muzzle on them and walk them like a dog if you want to, take them to the beach.”

As a side benefit, you’ll soon have the beach to yourself.

“They’re not that mean if they’re raised by humans,” Moore says, continuing his alligator advocacy. “They’re real tender. Plus, if you feed them goldfish or dead things like hunks of meat, they’re not going to be so aggressive.”

Most visitors to his home are a little wary anyway.

“Some freak out,” he says.

Recent callers at his Marina del Rey apartment have been confronted by what Moore calls his baby boa, a 5 1/2 -foot-long brown and black non-venomous snake that eventually will grow to about 15 or 16 feet.

It dwells peacefully in a 100-gallon tank in his living room.

Moore’s two albino Burmese pythons, one measuring 13 feet and the other nearly 15 feet in length, are being kept by a friend in his native South Carolina until after the holidays, when Moore plans to have them shipped out.

Moore, 29, is still settling into his new home after signing a one-year contract with the Clippers last summer for about $930,000.

A slender 7-footer who played for four NBA teams over the last two seasons between stints with the Roanoke Dazzle of the National Basketball Development League, he was expected to see only spot duty with the Clippers.

But when injuries sidelined or slowed two other 7-footers, Chris Kaman and Zeljko Rebraca, Moore was thrust into a more prominent role.

He has responded by averaging 7.2 points and 4.4 rebounds over 20.1 minutes. He scored a career-high 16 points against the Indiana Pacers last month, then topped it by scoring 18 less than two weeks later against the Phoenix Suns. He has made a team-high 59.8% of his shots. He also has supplied solid defense at center and both forward positions, helping the Clippers to an 11-7 record, their best start in 12 years.

“Everything’s going great,” says Moore, who is expected to make only his third NBA start -- and first with the Clippers -- tonight against the Lakers. “I’m in a great situation. ... Fans seem to like my hard work, got great teammates, a coaching staff that really communicates with its players. I can’t complain at all about anything.”

Coach Mike Dunleavy loves Moore’s versatility. His length enables him to guard centers and power forwards, but his athletic ability and quickness also allow him to guard small forwards, and he brings other qualities that coaches covet: leadership, savvy, experience, basketball smarts and a hunger for winning.

“When I saw him play [before this season], I kind of felt like this is what he could do,” Dunleavy says. “I was wondering why he hadn’t done it more; I think in games against me, he’s done it.

“It was kind of like, ‘Why hasn’t he done it more consistently?’ And I don’t really care now. He’s doing it for us, which is great.”

Says Mark Bartelstein, Moore’s agent: “People say he’s always in the right place at the right time. That’s not by accident. He’s a smart player.”

Moore, who ended last season with the Utah Jazz, also was offered one-year deals from the Jazz, Seattle SuperSonics and Toronto Raptors last summer.

Why pick the Clippers?

“Opportunity and the coaching staff,” he says. “I knew there were a lot of younger guys on this team, so there weren’t going to be any prima donnas. It was going to be guys that were really trying to win. They’re tired of losing. And I’m tired of losing -- tired of losing my job.

“So, I figured the attitude with these guys was going to be good. And Coach Dunleavy, I know he plays guys that work hard. That’s his reputation.”

Moore views this season as a six-month audition. He’s hoping to sign a long-term deal next summer because “I’m tired of living out of a bag. It’s time for me to stick with somebody.”

He wants to put down roots.

He wants a home to house his pets, add to his collection.

He says he realized early on that the lifestyle of an unmarried NBA player was not conducive to raising dogs, so he turned to more exotic animals.

“They’re easy pets to keep,” he says. “The piranhas, you drop some goldfish into the tank and keep moving. Give the snakes a couple of rats and they’re good for a month and a half. I had a dog, but it was so hard to keep it going and keep it up, taking it to the vet. It was just hectic.”

Not that keeping pythons and piranhas is carefree.

As Wilcox noted in dismissing Moore’s suggestion that he buy himself an alligator, “I don’t want that thing biting my hand off.”

One of Moore’s first snakes froze to death in his car, he says, because as a rookie trying to stick with the Pistons he didn’t feel comfortable bringing it into the locker room. His piranhas died when a pump on their tank malfunctioned.

And his alligators finally grew too big to keep in a tank.

He returned them to the pet store where he’d bought them and they in turn were shipped to Florida, where they were let loose in the Everglades.

Like Moore with the Clippers, they got a new lease on life.