Sonic Report / Seattle 118, Washington 100 -- Family Makes Pack Feel At Home In Puget Sound

Robert Pack, the Bullets' point guard, has come to regard the Puget Sound area as his second home since his parents and three sisters moved to Tacoma several years ago.

Pack has spent part of each summer for the past five years working on his game in Tacoma. Although his parents have since moved to Houston, they were at last night's game during a Christmas visit with their daughters in Tacoma.

Pack was a prep teammate of former Washington Husky Eldridge Recasner, now of the Houston Rockets. He was a sophomore starter at Lawless High School in New Orleans when Recasner was a senior.

The two are still good friends and had lunch together earlier this month when the Bullets played in Houston.

Pack, who played at USC, said he identifies with Recasner, because neither of them was selected in the NBA draft but each managed to make it the hard way.

Recasner played in Europe and was the MVP of the CBA last season as a Yakima Sun King after finally getting a brief taste of the NBA with the Denver Nuggets.

Pack was also with the Nuggets last season, although he missed several months after knee surgery.

"I felt pretty much the same as he did," Pack said. "I just got my break a little sooner."

Note

-- The Bullets' projected starter at point guard, Mark Price, has missed the season so far after foot surgery Nov. 10. Price, acquired from Cleveland in September for Washington's 1996 first-round draft pick, may be back in mid-January. But Pack, who is tied for fifth in the league in assists (8.6 per game) and is sixth in steals (2.21), as well as averaging 18.2 points per game, has played so well that reports have begun circulating that Price, who will be a free agent after this season, may be traded to Atlanta or Indiana.