Riley’s Extended Vacation Over : Knicks: After being away for a year, the former Laker coach goes back to work in the NBA today.

NEW YORK —  Pat Riley reports to work today. The new Knick coach is coming to New York for a week to help with the draft. It will be the first time he has been here since signing a five-year contract May 28.

Only slightly more than a year ago--on June 11, 1990--he resigned as the Lakers’ coach.

It has been a hyperactive period in his life.

“It’s a real irony,” Riley said recently. “Last year, you end your career with the Lakers and go into network television. Then, 12 months later, I signed a contract with the New York Knicks on the day the Lakers make the finals.”

Actually, the contract signing was on a Friday, about 12 hours after the Lakers eliminated the Portland Trail Blazers in the Western Conference finals.

The next day, Riley and the Lakers flew to Chicago, where the finals began.

“It was a pretty bizarre experience for me,” Riley said. “To sit there and watch it and be just one year removed but still emotionally involved. It was hard.”

And it was complex, because the bonds were so strong with the Lakers. That was understandable, given that he not only was the coach for nine years, but spent five years with the team as a player, two as a radio analyst and two as an assistant coach.

By the time the Lakers’ series with the Chicago Bulls began, however, Riley also was accustomed to being the Knicks’ coach. Midway through the 27-day negotiating process in May, he began feeling that way because Knick fans--desperate for a big winner and a big name--made him feel as if he belonged.

“I’d be walking down the street and people would be saying, ‘Riles, let’s go. Come on,’ ” Riley said. “Every place I went in New York, it was incredible--the support of the people. This was a pretty hot topic.”

And why not? Although Riley’s last year has been eventful, the Knicks’ has been absolutely crazy. Knick fans know the story. Listing the names of those employed by the organization during the last year is reminder enough--Al Bianchi, Stu Jackson, John MacLeod, Dave Checketts, Jack Diller and Ernie Grunfeld, who has had three jobs since this time last year.

That instability, however, was part of the attraction for Riley. It couldn’t get any worse. Why not be a part of making it better? And Riley was impressed by Checketts, the slick 35-year-old Knick president who seems determined to have the Knicks and credibility mentioned in the same sentence.

“Dave Checketts really convinced me that they’re really hungry--they really want to win,” Riley said. “It’s been sort of disappointing to them for a long time, and they really think I can help. I felt that, ‘Hey, that’s interesting.’ ”

Convincing Riley, who probably could have had almost any coaching job in the NBA if he really wanted it, that the Knicks were intent on changing took a relatively short time. Checketts first talked to Riley by telephone May 4. Their first meeting was May 11. Checketts offered Riley a contract May 21. Riley agreed a week later.

After that, it took lawyers three days, working almost nonstop, to agree on contract language, but there were never any real complications. Riley signed May 31.

Riley and Checketts laugh at some of the stories of Riley’s supposedly wanting significantly more money than the reported five-year, $6-million contract Checketts offered, or of some of the other supposed hang-ups.

“It had nothing to do with money,” said Riley, whose network contract, endorsement deals and speaker’s fees already have him making a seven-figure income.

And it also had to do with Riley’s need to be a coach. After leaving the Lakers, Riley remarked on several occasions that he was not a “lifer.” He still says he is not.

“A lifer to me is somebody that is plus 20 or 25 years,” Riley said. “I’ve only been at it for nine.”

A non-lifer, however, is someone who can experience a great deal of success, walk away from the job, experience success in a new field and reject the temptation to return to coaching. Riley couldn’t, and Checketts realized that when they had dinner in Riley’s hotel room May 11.

“That was a key time,” Checketts said. “Even though I knew I was going to go interview other guys, I could tell he had the fire. And if we could put something together that could work for both of us, there was a chance that he would come.”

Checketts, however, detected a reluctance on Riley’s part to relocate. Riley has lived in Southern California since 1967. His children are 6 and 2. Checketts thought Riley’s ties to the West Coast might have been stronger than his desire to return to coaching. So Checketts, who already had interviewed Knick assistant Paul Silas, interviewed Texas Coach Tom Penders and former Bull coach Doug Collins.

After the initial meeting between Riley and Checketts, Riley returned home to discuss moving. He and his wife, Chris, were attracted by the new family adventure. By the time Riley met with Checketts a second time, his family was committed to moving.

“Once you explore it and think about it and look at it, you actually say to yourself, ‘This is great for us as a family; this is great for the kids,’ ” said Riley, who was born in Schenectady, N.Y. “East Coast. Four seasons. I don’t care what anybody says about the weather, I used to live in New York, and it’s not all that bad. Even though things are good in California, you get out of a rut and change. It can be invigorating, and I think that’s how we look at it.”

Riley and Checketts had dinner again in Riley’s hotel room May 17. The next night, Riley had dinner with Grunfeld, the vice president of player personnel. Three days later, Checketts offered the contract. After that, it was a matter of working out details.

“I know Dave probably doesn’t want to hear this from a negotiating standpoint,” Riley said. “But I got to the point where it got down to the 11th hour and the last thing I would have ever done is not take the job. I think he knew and I knew that we weren’t going to back out. It was a matter of who was going to outlast the other one.”

For each, the union seems ideal. Checketts and the Knicks gain Riley’s credibility. Riley gains the challenge and finds an outlet for his competitiveness.

“I’m really excited,” Riley said. “I was intrigued all along, obviously because of this competitive thing that I was missing. I was also intrigued by it because I thought the team was an underachiever and had some good parts to it.”

Today, Riley will begin in earnest in his attempt to mold the Knicks. When he left the Lakers, he said he thought he might return to coaching in three or four years. That it happened in only one year says something about the opportunity, the place and the challenge.

“If the Knick job wasn’t open, I would have turned down any other job,” Riley said.