With Fitch in Control, the Clippers Freak Out

If Bill Fitch is a dinosaur, as has been suggested, he isn’t one of the amiable ones nibbling on leaves. He’s a Tyrannosaurus rex and last week he took a nip out of Rodney Rogers.

The week before, Fitch took a bite of Pooh Richardson. He’s in his third season--the old L.A. Clipper record was Don Chaney’s two, plus 21 games--and his players have all felt his hot breath and seen his big teeth.

If he can be charming and droll, he is always demanding and in charge. One former staffer says Fitch “yelled at me all the time, but he does that to everyone.” Another says he’s a control freak.

The Clippers might, indeed, be more relaxed without him but, lacking a center, with nine of them shooting under 45%, they wouldn’t be as respectable.

The definitive Fitch anecdote goes back to his Celtic days, when he and General Manager Red Auerbach engineered the Robert Parish-Kevin McHale heist. Fitch had talked for months about Parish. He planned to break him in slowly, but Dave Cowens retired in the exhibition season, informing stunned teammates on a bus in Terre Haute, Ind.

“That night,” says Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe, “Parish starts the game in Evansville and he gets five fouls the first quarter. Fitch leaves him out there to die.”

Parish didn’t expire that night or the next six weeks of Fitch’s personal boot camp, although as far as Parish was concerned, it was too close for comfort.

By Thanksgiving, the Celtics were en route to their first title in the ‘80s. However, Parish only grudgingly acknowledged his debt to the man who put him on the road to the Hall of Fame. As Fitch, himself, says, “Robert never had much time for me.”

The Clippers, however, aren’t the Celtics, in case anyone hadn’t noticed.

Fitch was furious last week when a Clipper told The Times’ Chris Baker that Fitch had yelled at Rogers in practice, prompting Rodney’s walkout.

Fitch then warned his players against further disclosures, publicly branding them “lies”--even as team sources corroborated Baker’s account of the practice incident.

Front-office grumbling about Fitch, simmering all season, bubbled up. Fitch had hinted he was upset at not getting a center; team officials said the ones they could get--Zan Tabak, George Zidek--Fitch didn’t want.

More dismaying upstairs is the Brent Barry situation. To put it delicately, Fitch is disappointed in Barry’s attitude. Barry has told intimates he thinks Fitch just doesn’t like him.

One general manager says Fitch is so hard on Barry because he sees so much in him. Barry won’t complain but won’t completely fall in line, either.

Barry did a public mea culpa, turning down an invitation to defend his dunk title at the All-Star game, vowing to get serious, but little has changed. He still plays minimally, has flashes of brilliance and does the hot-dog stuff that has Fitch writhing on the bench.

In the front office, where they spent the summer splashing Barry’s picture on brochures, they still consider him the franchise’s bright hope. If Fitch spends more time with him than they do, they still wonder when Barry stopped being the gifted gym rat everyone thought he was.

However, in Clipperdom, officials’ grumbling is just that. Any change will be mandated by owner Donald T. Sterling, according to his whim.

There’s speculation about Larry Brown and, in fact, sources say Brown and Sterling have been flirting since Larry left, bumping into each other in Malibu in the summer.

However, Brown makes $2.5 million a year. A five-year deal would cost $12.5 million, or more than The Donald has paid all his coaches put together.

Brown has said in his next job, he wants some control, something Sterling has never granted anyone, coach or administrator.

In Clipperdom, hope, however desperate, dominates reason, but this is still the Fitch era, if no longer the honeymoon phase.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN INDIANA . . .

If Bob Knight sounded this distraught, you would wonder how long his career in Indiana was going to last.

Since it’s Brown, moving companies must be calling the house to see if they can be of service.

“I’m sitting here watching and I don’t see any passionate play,” Brown says of the Pacers, 4-6 since the All-Star break, now 3 1/2 games behind the eighth-place Orlando Magic.

“I’m talking about effort and unselfishness and responsibility and that’s on me. They fire coaches all the time and move on. If I’m my owner or general manager and looking at our team, I’d be sick to my stomach.

“Coaches get a lot of credit when things go good, and I really, truly believe when the team doesn’t respond you can’t look anywhere else. Especially now with the kind of athletes we have and long-term contracts and guaranteed money. You’ve got to look at the coach.”

Not only that, he doesn’t expect things to get better.

“I don’t think so,” Brown said. “That doesn’t mean you don’t go out there every single day and try to figure it out.”

LIFE AFTER BRIAN: THE MUTINEERS’ BALL

In Orlando, there were these developments after the players’ coup that unseated Coach Brian Hill:

Derek Strong said the good thing under Coach Richie Adubato--who coached Hill in high school--is, “There’s more freedom.”

Penny Hardaway said the good thing under Adubato is, they’ve got better team defense.

Sports Illustrated’s Jack McCallum, ghostwriter of Shaquille O’Neal’s autobiography, wrote that Shaq kept telling him, “We’ve got to get Matty [Guokas, then the coach] out and Brian [then an assistant] in.”

The Magic is 6-0 under Adubato.

NAMES AND NUMBERS

It’s getting deep in here: In light of the big numbers Michael Jordan laid on the Knicks and SuperSonics after perceived insults by Jeff Van Gundy and George Karl, opposing coaches are taking no chances. The Washington Bullets’ Bernie Bickerstaff said Jordan “represents what’s really good” about the NBA. Cleveland’s Mike Fratello, proclaimed eternal kinship, declaring, “I think he and I have known each other long enough that he understands I appreciate his talent and his work ethic and what he’s accomplished. I’m just happy he came back to basketball and allowed all these people who were too young to appreciate him and realize the greatness. Hopefully, down the road they’ll understand the greatness they were able to see.”

Meanwhile, Dennis Rodman’s non-honeymoon continues. He has matched his 15-rebound average twice in nine games as Coach Phil Jackson rations his minutes. Said Jackson, after Rodman hurled himself out of bounds chasing the ball: “It’s part of his show. You have to take that with a grain of salt. I don’t think he had a chance to get the ball. But at least it looked good.”

Having dealt nine of their 12 players, the Dallas Mavericks face reunions all over the league but won a big one at Phoenix, where former Sun Michael Finley dropped a game-winning three-pointer on his ex-mates. Ex-Maverick Jason Kidd had 10 points, eight assists and three turnovers and didn’t acknowledge Jim Cleamons. “He’s not my coach,” Kidd said. “I don’t have any ties with the man. I’m not from Ohio.” Jimmy Jackson, of course, is from Ohio, as is Cleamons.

Rocket medical update: Often-injured Brent Price, handed an oversized pair of scissors at a charity ribbon-cutting ceremony last week, said: “The way this season has gone, are you sure you want me walking around with these?” The next day, Price tore up his right knee and was lost for the season. . . . Charles Barkley to Clyde Drexler, returning to practice with his sore hamstring reported healing ahead of schedule: “Ahead of schedule? There are guys who had bypass surgery who came back quicker than Clyde.”

And Barkley, vowing the Rockets will finish atop the West: “We’re going to be favored in our next 21 games. We’ll be favored in every game in March, except for maybe the game at Miami. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a schedule like this before. If we lose more than two games from now to the end of March, I’ll be crushed.” Oops: They lost the next game, at home, to Charlotte.

Former Cavalier star Ron Harper on the retirement of Brad Daugherty’s jersey: “They’re not going to retire my jersey. They might set it on fire, though.”