So long as Artest stays out of trouble, Bird wants his teammates to welcome him back -- especially if Artest emerges as the top star on the Pacers. Could questions over who is "The Man" lead to new friction with Artest and O'Neal? Answers Bird, "Not with Ronnie."

A fresh start for Darko?

The assumption that the Detroit Pistons divorced coach Larry Brown in no small part because he let former No. 2 overall draft pick Darko Milicic rot on the bench couldn't be more off-base. "Darko and his situation was never a factor here with Larry Brown," Pistons president Joe Dumars said Wednesday as he prepared to hire Flip Saunders as Brown's replacement. "I make it very clear to every player that steps in this building that they have to earn minutes and no coach is obligated to play them."

After joining the Pistons via the 2003 draft -- going ahead of No. 3 pick Carmelo Anthony and No. 5 Dwyane Wade -- the 7-foot, 245-pound Milicic has played just 413 minutes over the last two years, averaging 1.6 points in 71 games. Dumars essentially predicted in the '04-05 preseason that Milicic would have trouble earning time because a championship team must devote minutes to its best players. "If he shows he's ready to get minutes this year then we'll put him out there; if he shows he needs more time, then he'll sit and watch," Dumars said in October. "A player gets better when he plays, but we're not going to play him at the expense of winning games just so he can get 10 or 15 minutes because you do a disservice to your team."

Nor will you hear agent Marc Cornstein complaining that Brown should have given more playing time to his client. But Cornstein hopes that Saunders does more than Brown to elevate Milicic's confidence. "It's as if Darko has come off a major injury -- in his case it's a psychological injury, which is sometimes more powerful than a torn knee or a broken ankle," Cornstein says. "When you batter someone's confidence, it takes a long time to repair. When you knock someone down and take away their confidence, and there's no question that is what happened the last two years, it takes some time to build it back up.

"Larry said earlier this season something to the effect of, 'Darko doesn't get it. He'd rather play 30 minutes a game for a bad team than not play for a championship team,'" recalls Cornstein. "I didn't understand why Larry would say that. Think about how many players in Darko's position would have demanded a trade by now. I think he's shown a pretty decent amount of class. He has made it very clear that he doesn't want to leave Detroit.

"The truth is that you don't feel like a winner when you're not contributing. Darko wasn't an integral part of the team this year or last year. This was never a case where Larry should have played Darko more minutes, because Larry's job is to win games, not to develop Darko. But has this been a positive two years? It's a pretty easy answer: No. His confidence has been eroded and I think that could have been avoided."

The 20-year-old Milicic averaged 29.8 minutes in five Pistons appearances earlier this month at the Reebok Las Vegas Summer League, but he shot only 36.7 percent while averaging 9.8 points. The Pistons say he'll be their fourth big man this season, creating limited opportunities for minutes and positioning him for a larger role should Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace or Antonio McDyess be sidelined. But the most important influence will come from Saunders, who will be asked to nurture Milicic every day at practice. "The first thing with Darko is to really build him back up," says Cornstein. "Not as a basketball player, but as a person."

Brown a good fit for Knicks

On Wednesday Knicks president Isiah Thomas spoke briefly with his potential future coach, Larry Brown, and the two were trying to arrange a meeting as soon as possible. A Knicks insider says that Thomas will try to encourage Brown to accept the job as quickly as possible, in order to stave off an ugly situation of daily rumor-mongering that could grow to poison the negotiations over the next several weeks.

Brown would be a terrific coach for the Knicks, who would likely return to the playoffs under his command. He would renew their homecourt advantage and begin to restore his reputation after his departure from the Pistons, who were fed up with him in spite of two Finals appearances.

NBA colleagues are supplying Thomas with two pieces of advice. First, to understand that his relationship with Brown will ultimately end badly, because it usually does with Brown. Second, Thomas is being told to maintain firm control over his team. The internal fire that makes Brown an exceptional coach also makes him an erratic judge of talent, as he changes his opinions about players frequently. In spite of their ugly divorce, the Pistons feel that they achieved their goals with Brown because he won them a championship without being allowed to meddle with their well-balanced roster. The Knicks' lineup still requires a lot of improvement, but Thomas needs to cautious about taking too much advice from Brown about personnel, and always keep in mind that he is still going to be running the Knicks long after Brown is gone.