Timberwolves Suffer Growing Pains With Laettner

How would you like it if your prize rookie turned out to be the second coming of Dennis the Menace?

If you're the Minnesota Timberwolves, you would have very mixed feelings.

Christian Laettner has been irritating everyone since the day he arrived, and even before. At Duke, he had run-ins with teammates who resented his yelling. On the Dream Team, his high-handed behavior had NBA officials raising eyebrows.

He had an early crisis with his T-wolves teammates, responding to suggestions that he was selfish - or in the words of Doug West, "brain dead" - by ignoring West alone under the basket and dribbling in for a dunk. After the ensuing firestorm, Laettner agreed that he needed to pass more.

Interim Coach Sidney Lowe made it a priority to warm Christian up.

Said Lowe, "What I tried to do with Christian, I said, `You can do this two ways. You can decide you're right and something's wrong with the people who don't like you. Or you can say, `What can I do to make them like me better?'

"Sometimes he comes over to the bench and says things and I'll say, `Are you talking to me or are you mad at yourself?' And he'll say he's mad at himself."

Or not.

Shortly thereafter, Laettner flipped out at assistant coach Chuck Davison, telling him to shut up.

Then Laettner missed a practice after the All-Star break to fly to North Carolina to accept an award. Lowe suspended him for one game - $25,609 worth.

Said Laettner, not exactly repentant: "I asked them if I could go and they said no. I knew while I was away there would be some kind of repercussion. I feel like I'm being dealt with like a child. I'm still being punished. I thought this was the pros."

Laettner's agent, Ed Tiryakian, released a statement that conceded his client is "not going to become Mr. Congeniality overnight but I'm not sure anyone wants him to be."

Just be glad it's their problem and not yours.

LUCKY BOUNCE FOR ORLANDO -- LANDOVER, Md. - What do you call a 27-foot shot that bounces off the glass and drops through the net for the game-winning points?

"A lucky shot," said Orlando center Shaquille O'Neal.

"Orlando's shot was lucky," echoed Washington coach Wes Unseld.

"That's just pure luck," added Bullets' forward Tom Gugliotta.

There's really no other way to describe Nick Anderson's three-pointer with 1.8 seconds left that gave Orlando a 92-91 victory over the Bullets.

O'Neal scored 28 points and 11 rebounds and Scott Skiles scored 20, but it was Anderson's improbable three-pointer that enabled Orlando to end its four-game road losing streak.

Orlando trailed 91-89 when Anthony Bowie threw the ball in from midcourt with 4.4 seconds to go. Anderson got the ball on the left side and heaved a shot that bounced low off the glass and in.

"I just turned, got a good look at the basket and let it loose," Anderson said. "I got a good shot off. I don't care how it went in, as long as it did."

NOTES -- Rookie Doug Christie signed a contract with the Los Angeles Lakers yesterday. Terms were not disclosed. The rights to Christie, 22, the Seattle Supersonics' first-round draft choice in last June's NBA draft, were traded to the Lakers, along with Sonic center Benoit Benjamin, on Monday in exchange for Sam Perkins. The 6-foot-6 guard-forward averaged 19.5 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.8 assists at Pepperdine. He was a two-time West Coast Conference player of the year in his three seasons at Pepperdine and led the Waves to two NCAA tournament appearances. -- Mitch Richmond, the Sacramento Kings' All-Star guard, will undergo surgery on his fractured right thumb and miss the rest of the season. Richmond was injured Feb. 11 while trying to steal the ball from Atlanta's Mookie Blaylock. Richmond leads the Kings in scoring with 21.9 points per game, and is averaging 4.9 assists and 3.4 rebounds. -- Scottie Pippen of the Chicago Bulls was fined $5,000 and suspended for one game without pay for slugging Jeff Turner of Orlando in a game Thursday night. Both players were ejected. Pippen must sit out Chicago's home game tonight against Atlanta. Turner also was fined $2,500 for retaliating. -- Miami's starting center, John Salley, injured his left foot in the first quarter of last night's 93-86 victory over San Antonio and did not return. -- Former NBA star Sidney Moncrief has been acquitted on an aggravated assault charge brought by a Phoenix-area business associate whom Moncrief hit with a golf club during an argument last year. A Maricopa County judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to rebut Moncrief's claim that he acted in self-defense when he thought Taylor reached into a briefcase for a gun. -- The city of Phoenix, which had the Super Bowl taken away from it two years ago, was named site of the 1995 NBA All-Star Game. The game will be played Feb. 12, 1995, at the Phoenix Suns' 19,023-seat American West Arena, which opened this season.