SUMMER STOCK

Joe Bottanu flipped through the pages of his autograph book and perused the scribbled signatures he collected one day last week at the Fila Summer Pro League at the Pyramid in Long Beach.

“This is the very first time I’ve done this,” said Bottanu, 13, as he waited outside the locker room door. “I don’t know who any of these guys are. I just hope some of them are in the NBA.”

Most of the players taking part in the 30th anniversary season of the summer league have not yet logged a minute in a real NBA game. Most never will.

Second-year pros such as Michael Olowokandi of the Clippers, Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics and some of the recent first- and second-round NBA draft picks give the league its marquee value. But the vast majority of players are free agents looking for an opportunity to make a name for themselves, to catch the eye of an NBA or foreign league team.

“A guy can definitely make an impression here,” said Paul Westphal, coach of the Seattle SuperSonics and a summer league participant in the 1970s. “It won’t prove he can be a real good player in the NBA, but it will get him a chance to take a step in that direction.”

The league, a monthlong summer camp of sorts, offers that opportunity for players and a similar one for the aspiring referees, trainers, sportscasters, autograph seekers and other assorted hangers-on who are part of the scene at the Pyramid.

All are learning how the pro basketball game is played, on and off the court.

For players such as Devean George, it has been a crash course.

When the Lakers drafted George from Division III Augsburg College with their No. 1 pick in June, he knew he had a lot to learn. George, 6 feet 7 and 220 pounds, didn’t realize just how much until Laker assistant Jim Cleamons began teaching the triangle offense.

“The coaches told us whatever learning we had done in college did not even prepare us for this graduate-school learning,” George said. “They’re right so far.”

George, the first Division III player chosen in the first round since 1985, said there is no shortage of tutoring from coaches and team executives.

“I get feedback before the game, during the game and after the game,” he said with a chuckle. “Believe me, I get a lot of feedback.”

So do the referees.

Ed Rush, the NBA’s director of officiating, stands in the bleachers high above the court and points toward the three-person crew preparing to work a game between the Clippers and SuperSonics. One referee is preparing for his second NBA season. Another works in the Southeastern Conference. The other member of the crew is a woman who has worked at various NCAA levels.

They are three of the 40 referees invited to Long Beach to work one five-day rotation under the eye of Rush and his staff.

“It’s a combination of training, recruiting and evaluating,” says Rush, who worked as an NBA official for 32 years. “It’s like they’re in for a five-day job interview.”

The referees officiate one game a day, but they study or practice their craft for 12 hours. They attend class in the morning, chart and officiate games in the afternoon and evening and break down their performance with an experienced NBA official after their game is over.

“The hardest thing is the adjustment to the speed, jumping and quickness of the game,” said Donn Berdahl, who has worked NCAA Division II and Division III games in Northern California. “Guys like me are here to get exposure to that. To be out on the floor and see plays that we’ve never seen because physically the college players can’t do it.”

John Gaffney is back for a second tour of duty after parlaying his work in the league last year into a job as an official in the Continental Basketball Assn.

“My biggest adjustment when I came here was getting the mechanics of the three-man system within the NBA,” said Gaffney, who lives in Philadelphia. “The biggest challenge is staying focused, not only during every minute that you’re on the court, but during the charting and tape work as well.”

Progressing to the NBA, of course, is the primary goal. But not the only one.

“The worst thing that can happen is we become better referees,” Gaffney said. “We can go back home and teach some of the techniques and philosophies of the NBA to our colleagues.”

Though the 12 teams sponsored by NBA franchises supply their own athletic training personnel, 18 free-agent and foreign teams rely on staff supplied by the summer league. Brian Chavarin, the league’s director of medical personnel, supervises a staff of 15 to 20 athletic trainers. The majority are certified, but some are students or interns.

“We have a doctor here today who is a chief resident and he’s getting his first taste of what we do when an injury happens on the floor, when the trainer goes out and looks at it and when he gets it in the training room,” Chavarin said. “It’s a learning curve for him. And also for the students, because for some, it’s their first exposure outside a controlled setting.”

The Pyramid’s layout and acoustics provide a favorable setting for other students who annually take part in an independently run camp for sportscasters. The would-be Chick Hearns and Ralph Lawlers sit in pairs at tables situated along the top row of the stands, chattering into microphones and tape recorders.

“They can go back home and say they called an NBA-quality game, plus the league offers us the sights and sounds that make for a good audition tape,” said Roy Englebrecht, founder of Sportscaster Camps of America. “When you listen to a camper’s tape, you don’t know whether he’s sitting at the Pyramid or the Sports Arena for a Clippers game what with the whistles, the [public address] system, the music and so forth.”

Chris Rogers, 26, said accessibility to the players and coaches helped him add elements to his practice broadcasts.

“You don’t have to be nervous about approaching anyone here,” he said. “It’s not like you’re at the Staples Center or a major arena. Everyone seems happy to cooperate and help you out. If you want to talk to someone, all you have to do is ask them politely.”

That’s the strategy novice autograph-seeker Bottanu found worked best. The Long Beach youth watched players brush past others who were pushy and demanding. He learned that courtesy paid dividends.

“I just ask them to please sign my book and then I say, ‘Thank you,’ ” he said. “Most of the time, I can’t read it because it’s scribbled. But I know someday, some of these guys are going to be famous.”