Daniels Tries Again With the Raptors

Lloyd Daniels is getting another shot at the NBA, this time with the Toronto Raptors.

Toronto on Tuesday signed Daniels and Bob McCann to 10-day contracts.

Daniels, a 6-foot-7 guard, had been with the Idaho Stampede of the Continental Basketball Assn. since Dec. 12. He had the second-best scoring average in the CBA, averaging 21 points a game after 12 games.

Daniels, 30, never played college basketball, though he enrolled at Nevada Las Vegas, before signing his first NBA contract in 1992. Daniels was a schoolboy star in New York before experiencing personal problems--including a drug arrest and getting shot during an alleged drug dispute.

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The San Antonio Spurs, tired of waiting for forward Charles Smith’s knee injury to heal, waived the $4-million former Clipper and New York Knick.

“You know, you found out about the waiving before I did,” Smith told the San Antonio Express-News. “I didn’t get the decency of being told about it before the media. That’s how much regard they have for the players.

“I’m just a piece of furniture to them.”

Smith has a contract that pays him $3.9 million this season, $4 million next year and $4.5 million in 1999-2000.

“We felt that it was the appropriate time to waive him since it was obvious he would not be part of the team,” General Manager Gregg Popovich said.

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The New Jersey Nets waived forward Xavier McDaniel, 34, and center Jack Haley, 33.

McDaniel, a 12-year veteran, played in 19 games this season, averaging 1.3 points. Haley, a 10-year veteran, played in 11 games for a total of 32 minutes.

No roster moves were made to fill their spots, although the Nets are expected to activate Chris Gatling and Lucious Harris from the injured list.

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A desperately indebted businessman who tried to extort $150,000 from Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller avoided prison time in Salt Lake City when a sympathetic judge sentenced him to five years’ probation.

A pre-sentence report recommended that Richard Lewis Christiansen serve up to three years in prison. But U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Greene said Christiansen’s threats to bomb the Delta Center unless the millionaire car dealer paid him were “pathetic” and out of character.

The 44-year-old man, who did not know Miller, was trying to recover from crushing debts from his failed used car lot. Christiansen had threatened to blow up Miller’s Delta Center, the 19,911-seat home of the Utah Jazz, if the money was not paid.