DUMPING MR. NICE GUY FOLLOWS A DISTURBING TREND.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

If your eyes have been stinging lately, maybe even watering a bit, blame the air quality in Southern California. The Pollutant Standard Index has risen to hazardous levels, the Los Angeles basin reduced to a miasmatic mess by all the impurities spewing forth these days from our professional sports facilities.

The L.A. sports scene grew ever more polluted Monday with the discharge of Larry Robinson, the Kings' coach for the past four years. Robinson was a breath of fresh air - a class act in an increasingly corporate world - so it figured he'd be driven from L.A. by a cold wind just like Del Harris and Eddie Jones and Loy Vaught before him.

The Kings, with personnel only an IHL coach could love, finished 11th in the Western Conference standings, a year after being swept in the first round of the playoffs by St. Louis. Say this for the franchise; as sorry as it is now, it gave L.A. sports fans its last great adrenaline rush. That would be its Stanley Cup runner-up finish in 1993.

The Dodgers haven't won a playoff game since 1988. The Lakers have wandered around lost in the desert since their last appearance in the NBA Finals, in 1991. It's telling that of all the L.A. sports franchises, only the Clippers are living up to their past.

Angelenos awoke Monday to find their four local sports teams with a combined record of 71-100-5. It's not enough that mediocrity has settled over the L.A. sports scene like a blanket of smog, suffocating all of our sunshiny scenes. For so many years the Lakers and the Dodgers seemed above the fray, their family-owned operations veritable beacons for other franchises. But now, instead of defining the times, the Lakers and the Dodgers simply reflect them.

Under the O'Malley reign, the Dodgers exuded class. Now they're just plain crass. The difference is perhaps best exemplified by the rubbish recycled by first-year general manager Kevin Malone. Malone has engaged his counterpart to the south, Kevin Towers, in the kind of trash-talking that used to be anathema in Chavez Ravine. We'd like it better if Malone would stop gloating about the World Series until the Dodgers at least get there. Until then, he should give the Padres, who did advance to the Fall Classic last year, their due.

Lakers general manager Jerry West is as quiet these days as Malone is contrary. Sadly, the franchise that brought us Showtime has been commandeered by its capricious owner, Jerry Buss, for a joyride that you just know is going to end badly (we're already seeing the first skid marks).

The Lakers, under Buss' directive, pursued troublemaker Dennis Rodman, only to banish him after 23 games for doing nothing more than living up to every bit of his bad-boy reputation.

Rodman's behavior, however erratic, was at least consistent with his recent past. Sadly, the same could not be said for the Lakers, soldiers of fortune masquerading as troubleshooters. The truth? They got rid of Rodman because their record wasn't good enough, not because his behavior wasn't good enough.

If that sullied chapter in L.A. sports didn't cause a certain tightening in the chest of any respectable fan, along came Robinson's termination. You didn't need designer shades to see that one coming.

We're not sure how much more Robinson could have been expected to coax out of a team that had one of its most productive forwards (Glen Murray) on the injured list for seemingly forever and one of its most promising defensemen (Aki Berg) on another continent the whole season as a result of a contract impasse.

In the end, the Kings had too few players with pride equal to their bulging salaries. In another city, say Montreal, a few of them would have been ``run out of (town) the way they played,'' Robinson said.

Of course, the main thing we Angelenos pride ourselves on is doing things differently. So we chase away coaches and front-office personnel, if we have to, and give the pampered athletes a wide berth. No wonder we can't see the sunshine for the haze.