Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News reports that despite the pleadings of many Knick fans, don't expect GM Scott Layden to get pink-slipped any time soon. In fact, perhaps not for another four years.

The reason? According to a person with knowledge of the deal, Layden, now in his third season in New York, signed a seven-year deal worth $30 million. That's more than Jerry West made with the Lakers and is considered to be the most for any GM in the league who doesn't also handle coaching duties.

"Dave Checketts really took care of Scott," said one league executive, when told of the numbers.

Lawrence also ponders the current contract scale of Jason Kidd, a bonafide NBA star who is still working on the 9-year $56 million contract he signed as a rookie. Kidd's contract was signed before the advent of Rookie Scale contracts. And unlike Juwan Howard, Kidd didn't plant an Early Termination Clause in his contract. Howard cashed in after 2 seasons in the NBA.

And what about those rumors of Michael Jordan telling potential free agents to avoid Chicago at all costs? There's one question that will strike a nerve in Jordan.

"All the rumors about me not recruiting for Chicago or telling guys not to go ? that is all false," he said. "I didn't have any dialogue with any player that they were involved trying to get. And if they did ask me, I wouldn't give a comment. I wouldn't try to pollute the situation. Especially now that I'm not part of it, I'm not going to say anything that's going to hurt them. None of those guys ever talked to me and I never tried to steer them away from Chicago."

Lawrence reports that the Knicks are trying to deal for Marc Jackson or Raef LaFrentz. The Nuggets don't want to part with LaFrentz... unless they can purge Nick Van Exel from their payroll in the same move. The Knicks, however, have no interest in Van Exel.  The Knicks also called Seattle to express interest in Gary Payton and Desmond Mason, but the Sonics don't like any of the players on the Knicks' roster, at their current salaries. Like a lot of teams, Seattle feels that except for Kurt Thomas and Othella Harrington, just about every other Knick is overpaid.

The Bucks, looking for a backup point to Sam Cassell, took a pass on Charlie Ward because he's making too much money. The Bucks tried to make a move for Stephon Marbury last summer, offering Cassell and Tim Thomas to the Nets, but were told, "We can do better than that." Said George Karl: "When they told us that, I was like, yeah, right. But getting Jason Kidd, you can't do much better than that. So I'm not surprised that they're good. I'm just surprised they're this good, this soon.''