He Disappears More Than Doug Henning

NEW YORK —  I couldn’t pass on the chance while I was back here to see Michael perform and do the amazing unbelievable things he has been doing, and you know how he likes playing in Madison Square Garden.

I arrived early, joined the visiting team at the Plaza Hotel before they boarded the team bus, and watched with fascination as a crowd gathered outside trying to get his autograph--a security guard doing his best to keep the admirers back.

I was a little surprised no one was chanting, “Michael, Michael,” but I guess that was just out of respect. But as you would expect, the media horde descended on Michael as soon as he arrived at the Garden, and so I waited patiently for my turn to talk to Michael Olowokandi.

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I REPEAT, I waited patiently for my turn to talk with Michael Olowokandi, and I swear to you, I’m feeling just fine. I’ve come all the way to New York, and all I’m hearing is Michael this, and Michael that--a New York newspaper even suggesting the Knicks should consider making a run at Olowokandi when he becomes a free agent--and so I really am waiting for an audience with “Michael.”

“Has anyone suggested you submit to a DNA test?” I said when I got my chance. “I’m sorry, sir, but you are not the Michael Olowokandi the folks in L.A. know so well.”

I got this puzzled look in return, which should have been the dead give-away I was talking to Olowokandi, but recent statistics suggest we might have one of those “Heaven Can Wait” scenarios taking place.

I tried calling him “Joe Pendleton,” to see if I was really on to something, but right away he tells me he’s the same old Michael Olowokandi he has always been, like the Big Stiff we know has ever averaged 19.6 points and 10.6 rebounds during any five-game stretch?

You could take the other team off the court and the Michael Olowokandi we know would get in foul trouble. In most games, it’s touch and go whether he will have more points or more fouls by halftime.

But twice on this trip, Joe Pendleton has scored 27 points in a game.

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I WOULD think it would be tough for anyone to be overshadowed by the NHL All-Star festivities, but the most consistent play of Olowokandi’s career has probably gone unnoticed with hockey, the Super Bowl and the Winter Games dominating sports recently, and the Clippers on an East Coast trip.

So we can only go on what we know and what we have seen--the Big Stiff playing in 82 games a year ago, and only 10 times managing to get double figures in points and rebounds in the same game. Joe Pendleton, meanwhile, has done that 10 times in the past 19 games--after having two double-doubles in the first 30.

“I don’t know if I have ever seen the light go on and a player change so quickly as I’ve seen with Michael,” Clipper Coach Alvin Gentry said. “You look at the numbers he’s putting up, and other than the elite-elite like Duncan and Shaq at that position, no one is doing that.”

Wait until Tim Duncan and Shaq learn they’ve been mentioned in the same sentence as the Big Stiff.

“You should have seen it--he had a dunk on the baseline in Boston that was just amazing,” said a Clipper official, and I would think if the Olowokandi I know had a dunk against Boston, it would be amazing.

“None of the criticism means a thing to me--nothing anyone says about me can bother me,” said Olowokandi, so I tried to meet the challenge before the game in the Clippers’ locker room.

I called him names, and he smiled. I’m pretty good at this, I told him, and he said he doesn’t think the first three years of his career have been anywhere near the waste everyone else does. I said picture F.P. Santangelo dribbling, and he didn’t even blink. I told him if the Clippers were really sold on him as their center of the future, they could have already signed him to a long-term contract.

“We’re talking about the Clippers,” he said, and I never said he isn’t smart. “I’ll look [owner Donald Sterling] in the face and tell him if he doesn’t want to give me a long-term contract, that’s fine, but there’s a price to be paid for that.”

I know what you are thinking--maybe the Clippers should pay him to go away, but that’s the Olowokandi you and I know so well, and not the one who has kept this team in the race for the playoffs recently with Lamar Odom sidelined and Elton Brand handicapped because of a sore hip. They say this is a different guy.

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SO I was sitting at court-side just down the row from Gary Sheffield, Magic Johnson and Star Jones to watch Michael play the Knicks, and it was just a great game, a thriller to the very end with Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson putting on a show--the Clippers winning by two points to climb to .500 again.

And let me tell you, the Clippers would not have won this game had the Michael-we-know-so-well not scored his two points during his 26-minute stint on the court. In fact, at the end of the game, I’m not sure anyone on the bench was rooting any harder for the Clippers than the Big Stiff.

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OLOWAKANDI MADE one of seven shots, had four rebounds, two personal fouls and two turnovers.

“Even the good ones have an off night,” said a Clipper official.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Joanne:

“You continue to write ‘Plaschke and myself.’ The correct way to really write it is, ‘Plaschke and me.’ ”

Why should be it be “Plaschke and you?”

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T.J. Simers can be reached at [email protected]