Clippers Very Picky About No. 2

Amid continued speculation that they will trade the No. 2 pick in Thursday’s NBA draft, the Clippers put former Stanford forward Josh Childress through a workout Friday at a health club in El Segundo.

Childress, who expects to play guard in the NBA, is projected as a top-10 pick, but nobody expects him to land among the top two.

Those spots are thought reserved for Emeka Okafor, who led Connecticut to the NCAA championship in April, and Dwight Howard, who was the high school player of the year last season at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy.

Both are 6-foot-9 power forwards. Neither has scheduled a workout with the Clippers, whose glut of power forwards includes starter Elton Brand and former lottery picks Chris Wilcox and Melvin Ely, but the club remains hopeful. Howard’s father, Dwight Sr., told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that his son is scheduled to meet Sunday with Clipper General Manager Elgin Baylor.

Okafor is thought to be ticketed for the Orlando Magic, which holds the top pick, while Howard is coveted by the Charlotte Bobcats, who own the fourth pick, and his hometown Atlanta Hawks, who own the sixth and 17th picks.

Citing the team’s logjam of power forwards, Howard said last week that he hoped the Clippers would trade their pick.

The Hawks reportedly have dangled their two first-round picks in exchange for it, also offering to take on an unwanted Clipper contract, such as Predrag Drobnjak’s.

For the Clippers, the more space they clear below the salary cap, the more lucrative the contract they can offer free-agent-to-be Kobe Bryant.

It’s unclear what the Bobcats have offered -- the expansion team does not yet have any players -- but General Manager Bernie Bickerstaff told the Charlotte Observer on Friday that he was optimistic about making a trade.

“There’s a good possibility that we’ll move to [No.] 2,” he said. “Now it’s out of our hands. What we would be willing to do is on the table.”

Baylor laughed at the assertion.

“I’m sure the other teams are saying the same thing,” he said. “They’ve made proposals; the other teams have done the same thing.”

Although the Hawks and Bobcats seem to have been most aggressive in pursuing the Clippers’ only pick in the draft -- or, at least, the most vocal about it -- Baylor indicated that several other teams have made proposals too.

He declined to identify them. But the Clippers, he said, continue to listen. “We want to see everyone,” he said, “before we make any decisions.”

Baylor said he hoped that would include Okafor and Howard.

The Clippers’ No. 1 need, however, is a point guard. Two of the three they have identified as the best in the draft -- Okafor’s former Connecticut teammate, Ben Gordon, and 6-foot-7 high school star Shaun Livingston from Peoria, Ill. -- are scheduled to work out for the team Sunday. The third, Devin Harris of Wisconsin, worked out for the Clippers last week in Chicago.

High school forward Josh Smith and Pavel Podkolzine, a 7-3, 19-year-old Russian center, are among the players scheduled to work out for the Clippers today. Both are projected as top-10 picks.