David Stern

Commissioner David Stern predicted Wednesday that the Clippers will announce a move to a new arena by the end of the 1997-98 season. "We have Houston building a new arena," Stern said before Wednesday night's Knick-Heat game, "we have Toronto building that new arena, we have the Clippers--we just have the Clippers, that's all, playing in the Sports Arena. I don't know what else to say. " . . .

Dear Shaq: You're on your own in this one. Sincerely, David Stern. The NBA commissioner, who had suggested he might ask the league's competition committee to change the rules to discourage intentional fouling--as in Game 2 of this series when Indiana Pacer Coach Larry Bird put Shaquille O'Neal on the free-throw line 39 times--reversed himself and said Monday that things will stay the way they are.

Six days since the last negotiating session aimed at ending the NBA lockout, the players met Wednesday--among themselves. About 30 player representatives and members of the negotiating committee gathered at the National Basketball Players Assn. offices in New York to discuss the situation. At a news conference, union director Billy Hunter repeated his charges that the league has stopped negotiating to starve the players out.

An arbitrator will decide in the next few days whether NBA Commissioner David Stern had the authority to void Joe Smith's previous two contracts with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Arbitrator Kenneth Dam presided over an 8 1/2-hour hearing Thursday at a Manhattan law office and said he would issue his ruling in a timely manner. "We're waiting for a decision. It won't be tonight," NBA spokeswoman Teri Washington said.

Dennis Rodman will return from his 11-game suspension Tuesday, with David Stern, the commissioner who imposed it, as his new best friend. "I told Dennis we're not going to be sitting in the stands with a magnifying glass or a telescope," Stern said Saturday night. "Dennis Rodman is a great player who has performed in an extraordinary way. He's welcome to play his game. The issues we've had with Dennis relate to what has happened after the whistle blows. "He understands the difference.

Leaders of professional football, basketball and baseball leagues urged members of a Senate panel in Washington Wednesday to approve legislation that would ban gambling on professional and college sports, except in the two states where it is already allowed.

Commissioner David Stern, speaking Saturday at what he wryly termed "like it or not, sort of a post-lockout, post-Michael [Jordan]-coming-out All-Star Weekend," nevertheless pronounced the NBA in sound shape, for his 16th consecutive midseason news conference.

Nearly an hour before the start of Game 2, a buzz began to grow around Staples Center when legendary center Bill Russell appeared. With each step, Russell attracted more and more attention until it finally seemed that everyone in the arena, including players for both the Lakers and Detroit Pistons, had their eyes on him. And that's the way it should be, according to Commissioner David Stern, who began the NBA's Legends Tour two years ago to help promote great players of the past.

Not more than five minutes after last year's NBA lottery, my phone rang. It was a friend calling to say that the lottery was fixed. How else could you explain the New York Knicks getting Patrick Ewing? Luck, I said. Luck, he said, had nothing to do with it. It was a conspiracy. As proof he offered the conspiratorial smiles of David Stern and Dave DeBusschere. Why, he wondered, was Stern smiling if he hadn't wanted Ewing in New York?