There’s No Heir to Jordan, but Who Needs a Superhero?

PORTLAND, Ore. —  Well, it isn’t exactly old school, is it?

Even for a league in transition, it has been a different postseason, filled with grisly ball, 75-70 games and lightning-bolt highlights like Sean Elliott’s game-winning three-point play and Larry Johnson’s . . . four?

Maybe it had to go this way. Form went out the window when Michael Jordan, whose artistry obscured the fact that offense had deteriorated so dramatically, left.

Now we’re in the era of the non-transcendent player. From 1979, when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird broke in, to be followed by Jordan in 1984, there were giants walking the NBA circuit. Now, it has become a mechanical, tactical, coaches’ game and none of David Stern’s superhero candidates dominates it.

Of the top 10 most-valuable-player finishers, only No. 3 Tim Duncan got his team into the final four--helped in no small measure by playing alongside the No. 12 finisher, David Robinson.

The others--winner Karl Malone, Alonzo Mourning, Allen Iverson, Jason Kidd, Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Webber, Grant Hill, Gary Payton and Kevin Garnett--are watching on TV, making it the first time the MVP hasn’t played in the conference finals in 20 years, since Houston’s Moses Malone in 1979.

“Forget Magic on the run,” says Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune, “we’ve got Mark Jackson backing down Greg Anthony in Game 7 of the NBA finals. That’s our NBA.”

Actually, in one of the few developments the league can rejoice in, Anthony and his fellow head cases, also known as the Portland Trail Blazers, aren’t expected to make it, sparing us many NBC features on “complex” Rasheed Wallace and “misunderstood” Isaiah Rider.

They went blooey Friday, shooting a memorable 24.7% and falling behind, 3-0, to the San Antonio Spurs, a nice team which is 9-1 in the postseason, having won eight in a row. It isn’t hard to picture the Spurs rolling over the New York Knick-Indiana Pacer survivor, not that you’d want to nominate any team that depends on Mario Elie, Avery Johnson and Jaren Jackson to make outside shots as one of the NBA’s greatest ever.

Over in the consolation bracket, er, Eastern finals, things are really getting weird.

The Pacers, handed a stroll to the finals if they could handle the East’s Nos. 6, 7 and 8 seeds, were even having trouble with that. Then Patrick Ewing was ruled out for the playoffs.

That still might not do it. Playing against Ewing, who had a sore left Achilles’ tendon in one game and a partially torn Achilles’ in the second, Rik Smits was outscored, 26-18, and outrebounded, 20-9, before breaking out Saturday--with Ewing on the bench. When the Knicks don’t have to worry about Smits, their entire team can chase Reggie Miller around picks, which is why he’s getting about 12 shots a game.

(Poor Smits. Not only is he playing hurt, but he has to undergo his annual spring fashion torture. Last season, teammates voted to shave their heads so he had to cut off his blond hair. This season they’re doing black sneakers and socks, which make him look like a retiree in Florida.)

Of course, New York being New York, there’s always the diverting human drama of who’s going to pay.

This is a wild Cinderella story, with Ernie Grunfeld, the general manager who was reviled for bringing these players together, fired, and Dave Checketts, the heretofore-inviolate Madison Square Garden president busted for trying to hire Phil Jackson to replace Coach Jeff Van Gundy just as they were starting their miracle run, and having to acknowledge he lied to cover it up.

Now, when the Knicks are winning and the cameras zoom in on Checketts, you can almost see a comic balloon over his head, and in it the word “Gulp!”

Checketts won’t commit to Van Gundy for next season and, ominously, the New York Daily News’ Mike Lupica, who’s close to Checketts, wrote: “If Van Gundy beats the Pacers, he is sure to come back. After that, all bets are off. But understand something: He would survive a firing and so would the Knicks.”

Internecine warfare has broken out in the New York papers, with heavies like Lupica and the Post’s Peter Vecsey going against the popular tide, defending Checketts or zinging Van Gundy whom Lupica called “Jeff [of Arc]” and Vecsey “Treacherous Jeff.”

Not that the little guy’s wilting. After the Knicks shocked the Pacers in Game 1 in Indianapolis, courtsiders heard Van Gundy scream, “I ain’t going nowhere just yet!”

Meanwhile, just in case the Knicks prolong the miracle and make the finals, NBC is readying features on “misunderstood” Marcus Camby and “complex” Latrell Sprewell.

The question now is whether Phil Jackson wants to coach there (it doesn’t look like it) and if things are too bad between Checketts and Van Gundy to ever put them back together. If he’s smart, Van Gundy will walk, possibly only as far as the New Jersey Nets, who are holding off on hiring a coach until they see if he’s available.

Then there’s Sprewell’s still-unrescinded demand to be traded if he can’t start, which would mean benching their best player, Allan Houston. It’s going to be like one of those Shakespearean plays, where the final curtain falls on a stage littered with bodies. It may not be much in the way of basketball, but it’s our NBA.

LET’S HAVE LUNCH, BRING YOUR PLAYBOOK

Mike Fratello came to Cleveland with Mark Price and Brad Daugherty on their last legs, coached for six seasons while management broke up the Cavaliers and never finished below .500 until this season, when they finished with one starter (someone named Cedric Henderson) still standing.

Nevertheless, owner Gordon Gund canned Fratello last week and moved General Manager Wayne Embry, with whom the coach had engaged in a years-long battle of wills, aside, too.

The reasons were simple. Attendance in their six-year-old downtown arena had fallen from a high of 20,000 into the 14,000s and fans were restive with Fratello’s slow-the-game-down parlor trick.

Nor did Fratello endear himself to anyone. Calm and erudite on camera, he was volatile and controlling off it.

“I wouldn’t buy a ticket,” guard Derek Anderson said. “If you came to see us play, you wouldn’t see excitement. You know it [that’s why Fratello was fired]. I know it. Everybody knows it. . . .

“I’d say that he needs to run more one-on-one plays for players like me. Then he’d do it maybe once in a game. All we did was throw the ball into Shawn [Kemp]. We didn’t utilize all our weapons.”

Gund gave Fratello the news in person. Fratello said he was “shocked.

“It was a short meeting,” Fratello said. “He [Gund] felt that he wanted to make a change, create a new energy. Who knows? I just sat there listening.”

The good news for Fratello is, they owe him

$5 million.

FACES AND FIGURES

Ewing says he felt something tear in his Achilles’ before Game 2 and played on it. “There’s a thin line between desire and bad judgment,” John Thompson, his college coach, told the New York Times’ Bill Rhoden. “Patrick crossed that line a long time ago. I respect Patrick and I respectfully disagree with the fact that he made himself get out there and play but I know why. I know what he wants and I know how he is. . . . I told him that it was bordering on being dangerous and every time the final buzzer would go off, I’d breathe a sigh of relief.” . . . Sure enough, David Falk, who represents most of the Nets’ stars, reportedly tried to get them to hire another of his clients, Thompson. Nevertheless, the job is expected to go to former Clipper coach, and beloved current interim guy, Don Casey, or Van Gundy. . . .

The Cavaliers may go with Indiana assistant Rick Carlisle. The new Cleveland general manager, Jim Paxson, helped get Carlisle his first job when he was assistant general manager in Portland, and has always been high on him. . . . Prospects will be in Chicago this week for the pre-draft camp, where doctors will check Baron Davis’ knee and Elton Brand’s height. Going in, Davis looks like a top-five pick but Brand may be dropping. Nos. 1 and 2, Chicago and Vancouver, won’t take him, and No. 3 Charlotte is trying to pass the word to fans that it isn’t interested in an undersized power forward.