Several Hornets players and staffers took a tour of Ground Zero during this weekend's trip to New York, as workers continue to clean up the remains of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Guard Bryce Drew said he was overcome by a wide range of emotions as he looked over the area. He was saddened by knowledge that more than 3,000 people died in tragedy, yet comforted to see the many of the tributes at the site.

"To see it on TV and to see it in person is a whole different thing," Drew said after the Hornets' 111-68 win over the Knicks yesterday.

"Just the impact of all the pictures and all the stuff people have out in memory of everyone is pretty strong. You come away with a different perspective. It makes you feel very fortunate to be an American, and it makes you very grateful for people who help other people."

Drew said the thing that had the biggest impact on him was seeing a mother and daughter at one of the areas where signs, flowers and other tributes were put up.

"I think it was one of the families of a man that died, because they were like, 'There's Dad's card,' " Drew said. "You could see the tears in their eyes, where they were pointing out the tribute to the dad. It was so sad. The memory of that will stay with me a long time."

? Yesterday afternoon's matinee between the Hornets and Knicks on Dr. Martin Luther King Day carried personal significance to Coach Paul Silas.

Silas met Dr. King while in college, when King gave a short talk to the Creighton basketball team during a layover in a Chicago airport.

"I'll never forget that deep voice, 'How you boys doin?' " Silas said. "We were just in awe. He encouraged us to continue our education and he gave us all autographs and he was just a very gracious man."

Silas said he was not a follower of King at the time, but he has come to admire King greatly since.

"During that time, I was kinda going the other way and taking more of a militant stance," Silas said. "He was all for non-violence and I was leaning more to the Malcolm X viewpoint.

"But as you look back on it, his ideas and ideals were exactly right, because he had studied what worked, the Ghandi movement in India. That was the exact thing to do because it played on people's consciences. That changed things more than anything. You weren't going to pick up a rifle and get it done. Ghandi realized that and so did Dr. King. Fortunately, he had enough people who did have faith in him to follow him, and things did change."