It Might Be Easy to Mock These Picks

OK, it’s time for our annual mock draft.

1. Chicago--Who knows?

2. Vancouver--Your guess is as good as mine.

Nope, it wasn’t your normal season and it won’t be your usual draft.

By now, everyone generally knows who’s headed where, but not this year, with no clear-cut No. 1 player, everyone shopping their picks, starting with the Bulls and Grizzlies, and, worst of all, Chicago’s secretive Jerry Krause controlling the whole thing.

Krause won’t even tell anyone in his organization except owner Jerry Reinsdorf whom he wants until it’s time to phone it in. Of course, the prickly Krause’s many friends around the league are on tenterhooks.

“With Jerry Krause, who has the slightest idea?� Grizzly Coach Brian Hill said. “It might be some guy from Bolivia, for all we know.�

“I think you’ve got a situation where Jerry Reinsdorf with the top spot will be like Inspector Clouseau,� Golden State General Manager Garry St. Jean said.

The consensus No. 1 player is Maryland’s Steve Francis, who may or may not be a point guard but is a great athlete and can shoot. Duke’s Elton Brand turned out to be 6 feet 8 with huge hands and a wingspan of a 7-footer, but some general managers still don’t think he’s an NBA power forward. Moving up fast is UCLA’s Baron Davis, who should go in the top four (which may give the Clippers a shot)--or the top two.

The Charlotte Hornets, at No. 3, want Davis. So do the Toronto Raptors, who have Nos. 5 and 12 but are trying to move up.

Said Davis recently: “I think I’ve been traded about 20 times and I’ve yet to play a game.�

Then there’s Lamar Odom, the 6-10 do-everything guy who was No. 1 or 2, before he began no-showing (only the Grizzlies got him in), then announced he was going back to Rhode Island, despite having hired an agent.

The best we can do is whittle it down to about 10 possibilities apiece for the top 10:

1. Chicago: Krause, who assembled the last dynasty (except for Michael Jordan, whom he inherited), is determined to parlay this pick into two players. He’d like Michael Olowokandi and the Clippers’ No. 4 or Tracy McGrady and the Raptors’ No. 5 but has been turned down. Coach Tim Floyd is begging him to forget trades and take Francis, who had a smoking workout for them.

Reinsdorf has told Krause not to take any longshots or unknown Europeans, as he did when he was drafting No. 29. This pick is supposed to be someone safe, since they’re already in enough trouble with Chicago fans.

At the risk of trying to read the unreadable Krause, it looks like Francis or Brand or a trade down for a player and a pick they could use for Wally Szczerbiak or Corey Maggette.

2. Vancouver: The Grizzlies want to trade for a veteran power forward or a scoring guard. So far, Pat Riley says he won’t part with P.J. Brown, but Larry Brown may move Theo Ratliff. If the 76ers trade into this slot, they may take Brand. If Toronto gets here for Doug Christie, it’s for Francis or Davis.

3. Charlotte: Davis wouldn’t work out for them, but the Hornets say they may take him anyway.

4. Clippers: They want Francis or Davis. Plan B could be Andre Miller, or Szczerbiak.

5. Toronto: If they stay here, they could take Miller, if he’s still on the board.

6. Minnesota: The Timberwolves need a point guard too, with free agent Terrell Brandon expected to leave. William Avery?

7. Washington: Wizards are hoping Odom falls this far.

8. Cleveland: Cavaliers are aching to trade up (they have No. 11 too) for local hero Szczerbiak. If they stay here, say Richard Hamilton.

9. Phoenix: After spending their cap money for a slow-footed front line of Luc Longley and Tom Gugliotta, the Suns roll the dice with Jonathon Bender, the 6-10, 205-pound high school kid from Picayune, Miss.

10. Golden State: Point guard. Miller, Avery or Jason Terry.

START SPREADING THE NEWS: SAN ANTONIO, SAN ANTONIO

Well, as David Stern pointed out last week, given the fact they almost didn’t have a season at all, this wasn’t too bad.

The ’99 Knicks were a great story, there just wasn’t enough left of them. Nevertheless, with Patrick Ewing back next season, they may be tunneling back into the sunlight.

Of course, they’ll have to patch up their fractured organization. Dave Checketts, the able but no longer Teflon-coated Madison Square Garden boss, tells friends he’s riding a “bucking bronco,� having survived several ownership changes before this season’s high-wire act. Nor will it get any easier as the weight of expectations, which increase with ticket prices, presses down on them.

(As if they ever intend to give the suckers a break in that building. Prices are going up again.)

Not that everyone in town is buying that gritty-guys-who-remind-us-of-ourselves line. Clyde Haberman, the New York Times’ metro columnist, notes that last fall, everyone was saying the Yankees reminded New Yorkers of themselves too, and the two rosters are “polar opposites.�

“It’s hard to shake the feeling that what really counts for sports-minded New Yorkers is winning,� Haberman wrote. “All the psychobabble about a team’s inner self comes later.

“If the Knicks had missed the playoffs, and they came close, you would have had some fans at the Garden screaming that [Latrell] Sprewell belonged in Attica. And a small wager here says that if Slobodan Milosevic could only score from three-point range, his critics would be told to pipe down and give him a second chance.�

It’s an ill, lockout-delayed-and-shortened transition-from-Mike season that doesn’t do somebody some good. The good-guy Spurs won. The Knicks revived. The league’s great marquee hope, the Lakers, lost their minds but found them again.

Things are looking up. As Stern might say, after this season, where else can they go?

FACES AND FIGURES

After all that in-house alarm, the NBA’s committee to boost scoring dumped the problem in the referees’ laps, telling them to clean up physical play. This is what you get when you appoint players, coaches, general managers, owners and broadcasters to the committee--and no referees. . . . There’s a growing concern the problem is the three-point shot, which takes away the incentive to run, or work for better shots, by awarding a 50% bonus for makes. “The major culprit for lack of scoring is that field-goal attempts are down,� says Riley, a member of the committee. “The only thing in direct correlation to a drop in scoring is when we put the three-point shot in. Ever since, field-goal percentage from the two-point area, field goals attempted and field goals made went down.�

The Wall Street Journal reports Chinese viewers were mystified by the Chinese characters tattooed on Marcus Camby’s shoulder. Said Zhang Xiaomei, a young woman in Beijing: “Maybe it’s the name of a team, but that’s only a guess.� Camby says the top character means “I strive to be the best� and the bottom one, “I love my family.� Or at least that’s what the guy at the tattoo parlor told him. . . . Former Bull Steve Kerr, on the Lakers’ switch to the triangle offense: “I think the hardest part for them will be the fact they’re just starting out with it. They don’t have anyone who’s ever played it. When I got to Chicago, they’d been running it for years and they still had three-four-five guys from their old teams.�

Sure enough, the Celtics are shopping Ron Mercer, who has signaled he won’t re-sign this summer and will leave as a free agent in 2000. Of course, Rick Pitino says they’re not really shopping him: “We have to go out and talk to every team to see what they will offer us for our players,� Pitino said. “If we were to miss something that could make us a better team because we weren’t willing to talk about trading our players, then we wouldn’t be doing our job. The unfortunate thing is that it gets out and it looks like you’re trying to get rid of your players.� . . . Oh yes, the Celtics are going out and talking to every team to see what they will offer for Kenny Anderson too.

Remember when the Clippers named Chris Ford their coach the same day Jordan retired, in one of their more sparsely attended news conferences ever? The Wizards just hired Gar Heard the same day the Lakers announced Phil Jackson. . . . Meanwhile, inquiring minds in Washington want to know why the Wizards were so shocked and upset when Isiah Thomas tried an end run around General Manager Wes Unseld and talked to incoming owner Ted Leonsis. Everyone knows Zeke always has a trick up his sleeve. Besides, after his days in Detroit, he probably doesn’t know there’s anything wrong in going to the owner. . . . Isn’t it amazing how every year at this time, the wackos, coach-killers and guys who are hated by their teammates suddenly zoom in value, especially if they’re centers or point guards? Utah, Miami, Philadelphia and Milwaukee have made pitches to Detroit for Bison Dele.