Daily Dish
Wit & Wisdom
Metro Sports

No basketball fan wants to face the fact that this may be Michael Jordan's last year. But the National Basketball Association is preparing for the worst.

NBA Commissioner David Stern and the Chicago Bulls star's superagent, David Falk, have begun talks about Jordan's farewell tour, a high-placed source said.

When an athlete of Jordan's stature leaves his game, he doesn't just tip his hat and head for the parking lot. In all likelihood, each team the Bulls visit will host a special ceremony in their own arena, as they did for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Larry Bird, to name just two. And this may be the 34-year-old's last year, judging by Jordan's comments in Chicago last week. Angered by Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf's insistence on pushing out Bulls head coach Phil Jackson, Jordan told the Chicago Tribune, "If Phil isn't going to be back here, I would say I'm not going to be back here . . . I would quit. I would say, 'I retire.' " This summer, Jordan signed a one-year contract reportedly paying him $36 million.

"We're aware of his comments, but let's revisit that at the end of his contract year," said Christopher Brienza, a spokesman for Stern, who is in Paris with Jordan and the Bulls as they compete in an international competition. "We never say 'never.' As [the Commissioner] has said, Michael has made no 'pronunciamentos.' Any conjecture about a farewell tour may be getting ahead of ourselves.

"The only person who knows what he's going to do beyond this year is Michael."

Through a spokesman, Falk called plans for the farewell tour "off base."

The Exes File

Is Patricia Duff ready to pair up again? Bill Clinton's fetching conduit for Hollywood money has kept to herself during her drawn-out divorce from Revlon billionaire Ronald Perelman. But things may be hotting up between Duff and financial services mogul Neil Hirsch.

Duff was spotted having a cozy dinner with Hirsch at 95 School Street in East Hampton at the end of last week. And, say our sources, she spent the weekend at Hirsch's house in Water Mill.

That spread is just one of the properties the 50-year-old chairman of Telerate -- a financial information service -- calls home. Hirsch, a well-liked guy who used to be married to Caroline Hirsch, founder of Caroline's Comedy Club, also has a jaw-dropping townhouse on Sutton Place. Then there's the Tara-sized mansion he's finishing off in Florida, near the Palm Beach Polo Club. (No accident there; Hirsch co-owns the Bridgehampton Polo Club.)

Perelman actually may be cheered by the prospect that Duff is moving on. Not only could Hirsch deliver Perelman from some hefty alimony payments, but Perelman also may be happy that Duff, the shiksa goddess, has fallen for another Jewish guy! That matters only because Perelman reportedly has insisted that his daughter, Caleigh, be reared in his faith.

Religion became an issue when he heard that Claudia Cohen, the mother of Perelman's daughter, Samantha, was dating Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, a Catholic. Cohen charged in court papers that Perelman tried to foil their romance.

But that was then. Nowadays people are actually wondering if Perelman and Cohen might get back together. Perelman has been seen out lately with Tatum O'Neal and Eleanor Mondale. But now that Cohen is said to have split with Museum of Television and Radio head Bob Batscha, whom did Perelman invite to a movie last week? Claudia Cohen. Ain't love grand?

Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk!

The heirs of the Three Stooges are ready to moitalize anybody who dares to trade on the proud family name of Stooge. Comedy III Productions, a company formed to control use of the screwball trio's names, likenesses and shticks, has taken a Web site to court. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeks to block the use of Curly's unique pronunciation of the word "certainly" -- as in "soitenly!"

The Stooge heirs have hired -- we're not joking here -- Attorney Bela G. Lugosi. The son of the famous horror film actor claims that the Web site (www.3-stooges.com) contains unauthorized photos, videos and other merchandise. The noive of them!

Seen and Heard

Sheryl Crow singing along to all the songs at Monday's David Bowie concert at the Supper Club. . . .

Little Tiffany Trump celebrated her 4th birthday a few days early Thursday night with her nanny and a playmate at Comedy Nation. Next day she was due to join her mother, Marla, in Palm Beach.

Going to the Source

Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Melissa Mathisonwent to the top when it came to getting technical advice for "Kundun," their controversial film about the Dalai Lama: They got the godhead himself. Mathison's husband, Harrison Ford, says that he and his wife spent six days in India, picking his holiness' brain for ideas. The Dalai Lama also talked to the film's production designer, helping draw the layout of Potala, the palace he was exiled from in 1959. The Tibetan leader has forged such close ties with the production that his niece is being cast as his mother and his sister-in-law is the chief technical adviser.

Itemizing

Donatella Versace seems to have skin as thin as her sexy outfits. Celebrated International Herald Tribune critic Suzy Menkes confirms to us that the sister of slain designer Gianni Versace barred her from last week's Versace show in Milan because Donatella didn't like some of things Menkes had written about her. Menkes, one of fashion's most important style commissars, didn't want to talk about the snub. She did write this week that Versace competitor Prada "is light years ahead of anything else on the Italian runways" . . .

Bruce Willis is keen on producing and starring in a film version of Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "The Breakfast of Champions," says the Hollywood Reporter. Willis would play a suicidal car dealer who loses touch with reality after reading a sci-fi comedy . . . .

Ruth Messinger has bagged Hillary Rodham Clinton for a fund-raiser. The mayoral candidate has invited supporters to join her for an "intimate cocktail reception" with the First Lady on Monday, Oct. 20, at the home of Walter and Selma Kaye at 475 Park Ave. Tickets for the cocktail reception are $1,000. The VIP reception will run you $2,500 . . .

More politics for Alec Baldwin. The actor/activist is opening his home Friday to raise money for the STAR, Stand for Truth About Radiation, which protests emissions coming from Brookhaven National Laboratory.

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