BRIEFLY : CLIPPERS IN NO RUSH TO HIRE A NEW COACH.

Byline: Daily News Wire Services

The still coach-less Clippers had indicated to their three candidates that a decision could unfold this week, but Tuesday's move by NBA commissioner David Stern to cancel the first two weeks of the season undoubtedly will delay those plans.

``We've always said since the beginning of the summer that we're going to use all the time we have available,'' Joe Safety, Clippers vice president for communications, said Wednesday.

After a summer in which they made informal inquiries to a number of people, the Clippers recently narrowed the list to former Sacramento Kings coach Eddie Jordan, former Clippers assistant Jim Brewer and former Milwaukee Bucks coach Chris Ford.

Jordan and Ford were fired by their teams this past summer. Brewer was let go in April when the Clippers fired coach Bill Fitch and his entire staff.

``I was told that something is supposed to happen this week,'' Jordan said from his home in Sacramento. ``Whether that means I'll be flying down to interview with them or whether they will be going with someone else, I don't know.''

Orlando Magic guard Miles Simon sued the University of Arizona, the Kansas City Star and several others, claiming defamation and invasion of privacy for the 1997 article, ``MVP Made Grade Only On The Court.''

Simon, who played for Arizona, claims the Oct. 10, 1997, article contained extensive information from his academic transcripts that never should have been made public, according to the player's attorney, Milton Grimes.

BOXING: Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis have agreed orally to meet in a heavyweight title unification fight. Only their signatures on contracts are needed to close the deal.

Holyfield, the WBA and IBF champion, and Lewis, the WBC world champion, are tentatively scheduled to fight in February or March. The venue will almost certainly be Las Vegas.

GOLF: Chi Chi Rodriguez, one of the most popular regulars on the Senior PGA Tour, underwent a successful angioplasty operation in Sacramento after suffering chest pains, his agent said.

Rodriguez, 62, had what he thought was severe indigestion Tuesday while preparing to play in the Raley's Gold Rush Classic senior tournament, which begins Friday at Serrano Country Club in nearby El Dorado Hills.

Mark Calcavecchia didn't come close to a bogey all day, shooting a 7-under-par 65 under nearly flawless conditions to tie Robert Damron for the first-round lead in the 90-hole Las Vegas Invitational.

SKIING: Three-time Olympic Alpine skier Kyle Rasmussen of Angels Camp, Calif., the only American man to win two World Cup ski races in the 1990s, announced his retirement after 13 years with the U.S. Ski Team.