THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : Moving Not in Plans for Clippers

Wakeup call for the Donald: It’s almost March 1, do you know where your Clippers are?

Friday brings their annual deadline for exercising their option to get out of their Sports Arena lease. Of course, they won’t--but they should.

At the risk of rushing to judgment, this isn’t working out. The Clippers moved here 11 years ago (it only seems like 100), drafted some good players, saw them all flee and are accumulating more in the hope they can persuade this batch to stay.

Of course, players aren’t excited playing in front of 3,500 people and 12,000 empty seats, even if the club is considerate enough to announce it as 6,000 people and 9,500 empty seats.

As a matter of fact, this team doesn’t seem psyched at all. A year ago, Coach Bill Fitch, the noted hard case, won widespread praise for squeezing 17 victories out of an overmatched roster, and he probably didn’t forget how to motivate over the summer. Even some top Clipper officials now subscribe to the “circle of despair” theory: Clipper players don’t expect to win, don’t feel like part of anything successful and accept their fate as easily as ownership accepts its.

After 11 years, this is still an organization flat on its downtown location. Team sources say every top Clipper official favors a move to the Pond except the only one with a vote--owner Donald T. Sterling.

The Clippers aren’t running out of time. That happened years ago. One of their legion of former officials says their one hope was to get a new arena on the drawing board before the Lakers, to beat them to the corporate luxury box money. The Lakers are now hard at work with the new owners of the Kings, hoping to announce something this summer. The Clippers are nowhere, still sorting their offers, as they say.

The game is only getting harder for the reputationally challenged. Players become free agents faster and can flee sooner.

It was sweet of Brian Williams to announce he’ll stay until his work is done and the Clippers are beating the Lakers regularly. He has already demonstrated he’s one in a million, but there will be teams lined up offering him $5 million a year. He may want to do something selfish, like make the playoffs and play before more people than he did at St. Monica High in Santa Monica.

The contracts of Malik Sealy and Stanley Roberts are up in 1997. Long-suffering Loy Vaught and promising Brent Barry will be free in 1998.

Dear Donald: Better move while you’ve got something to move.

JUST WARMING UP FOR THE BIG ONE

With 20 teams ready to dive under the salary cap, the frenetic midseason trades were only a skirmish before the summer of free-agent shopping that promises to realign this league.

All the deals were dumps of one sort of another, getting rid of disagreeable players (Christian Laettner), disappointing ones under contract (Charles Smith) or entire teams (Miami Heat).

To review the action:

New York Knicks--They dumped $6 million in salary by acquiring upcoming free agents, putting them in position to drop $9 million under the cap. Insiders say they’re not going after Juwan Howard or Reggie Miller, as New York papers speculate, but Alonzo Mourning.

On July 1, Knick President Dave Checketts will call Mourning’s agent, David Falk, and offer to beat any Miami bid, even the $15 million a year they may have already informally agreed to.

Checketts’ center, Patrick Ewing, is Falk’s client and Mourning’s close friend--and Patrick’s contract ends in 1997. By then, Ewing will be 35 and well past his prime, but Checketts will offer to re-sign him.

Falk will ask for tens of millions of dollars and a contract that will keep Ewing playing until he’s 40, or 50.

Checketts, with the resources of mighty Madison Square Garden behind him, will make a fabulous offer, knowing it’s his only chance at remaking the Knicks on the fly.

This will infuriate Mourning’s current coach, and Checketts’ old one--Pat Riley. Of course, Riley’s deal with Charlotte for Mourning infuriated the Knicks. Riley and Checketts, one-time friends, are now bitter enemies. This tug of war could shake the Eastern Conference.

Minnesota Timberwolves--Laettner was having his best season but remained the same pouty pain in the neck. He teed them off one last time, getting in the face of rookie Kevin Garnett, then telling reporters:

“We’ve got a lot of complaining going on, a lot of finger pointing. We don’t have the coaches or the leaders of the team saying, ‘We can’t have that crap.’

“We need an attitude adjustment. But none of these kids has ever won anything so they don’t know about that. There’s not a winner on our team. Name a winner on our team besides me.”

Not that he minded being traded: He gained 13 games in the standings going to the Atlanta Hawks, putting him over .500 for the first time since he left Duke. Now he’s a winner on someone else’s team. Lucky Atlanta (or not).

Heat--Riley, making his debut as general manager, has turned over 11 of 12 players and will have three new starters: Tim Hardaway at point guard, holdover reserve Kurt Thomas or Chris Gatling at power forward and Walt Williams at small forward.

In all, Riley traded three upcoming free agents and two players under contract for five upcoming free agents, a saving of $2.4 million, suggesting: 1) he knows what the Knicks are up to, and 2) with the Heat sliding out of the playoff picture, he is eager to show Mourning there’s a reason to stay.

Riley has only five players under contract for next season: Mourning, Thomas, Williams, Sasha Danilovic and Keith Askins. He’ll be a whopping $12.5 million under the cap, enough to sign two prime-time free agents.

Of course, if he loses Mourning, he’s got an expansion franchise.

NAMES AND NUMBERS

The new order arriveth: Knick players, alarmed at the trades, wondered out loud if management had written the season off. In the next game, with Ewing and Charles Oakley injured and backup center Herb Williams gone, Don Nelson started a front line of Anthony Mason, Brad Lohaus and Willie Anderson and lost at home to the Hawks. . . . The Washington Post asked readers whether the Bullets should keep their nickname, adopt one of the nominees (Wizards, Sea Dogs, Stallions, Express or Dragons) or none of the above. None of the above won with 45%. Bullets was second with 41%. The team picked Wizards, along with 6% of the fans.

Follow my client: It’s getting tense in Milwaukee with Coach Mike Dunleavy and Glenn Robinson on the outs. Vin Baker went off after a rout at Charlotte, instructing agent Lou Albanese to brief the press. “Vin wants more of a team concept, and it’s not happening,” Albanese said. “It’s not directed at any player or coach, [but] they’ve got to be more disciplined as far as who the leader is. The leader is Vin Baker.” . . . Sparking the New Jersey Nets’ surprising five-game winning streak was, bigger surprise, Shawn Bradley, who had 27 points against the Bullets’ Gheorge Muresan, 11 points and 15 rebounds against Ewing and 30 points and 14 rebounds in two games against the Pacers’ Rik Smits. Said teammate Jayson Williams, noting Bradley’s history of taking the off-season off: “No Mormon missions to help the needy. We’re the needy. He’s got to do some serious training. No way he’s going off to Australia with those kangaroos.”

Minnesota Coach Flip Saunders on Laettner’s rip of Garnett: “Is there jealousy of Kevin Garnett? There sure as heck might be. The sad thing is they can say whatever they want, but that kid knows how to play basketball and he’s better than anyone in that locker room.” Two days later, Garnett had 17 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and three blocks against the Houston Rockets, breaking open a close game by scoring four consecutive baskets, blocking two shots and making a steal. “That was amazing, that’s the only way I can say it,” Tom Gugliotta said. “That’s the best performance I’ve ever seen from a teammate.” . . .

Portland Trail Blazer General Manager Bob Whitsitt, thought to be dreaming of bringing in George Karl, again failed to find a trade for Coach P.J. Carlesimo’s problem child, Rod Strickland. Strickland stormed out of a practice last week, railing, “I’m getting out of here one way or another.” Instead, all Carlesimo got to do was suspend him. P.J.’s future is something else that may be realigned this summer. . . .

Still Isiah after all these years: The Pistons retired Isiah Thomas’ number in a ceremony neither side was up for. Said a somber Thomas to his old fans: “When I came here, I was 19 years old. You watched me grow up. You’ve seen some of my sins and my bad parts. You watched a young man grow into an adult, you got to see that before your eyes. Not only did you get to see it, but you got to judge and critique it. It was very tough for me. At night, when I would go home from the arena and I would crawl into that bed next to my wife and lay there and cry, it was her hand that guided me through the night. . . . You see us run up and down the court and entertain you, but we have families. The things you whisper about us, the rumors you spread about us--we have families.” . . . When the Nets’ Yinka Dare gets his first assist, he’ll have the worst assist-turnover ratio in history. Going into the weekend, however, his career total was 44 games, 59 turnovers and no assists so his ratio remained mathematically undefined. Said Dare, refusing to cave in to the pressure: “I’m not going to rush it. I’m not going to force it.”