January 20, 1998

IF this was a rookie of the year statement game, then Tim Duncan tooted his horn just a bit louder than Keith Van Horn. No. 1 in the draft outscored number No. 2 by 24-21, outrebounded him by 17-10, and was such the long-armed defensive presence that Van Horn missed more shots (23) than Duncan took (17). Van Horn and the Nets won the game, though, and it was the three second-quarter 3-point bombs he dropped on Duncan that pointed the San Antonio Spurs toward a 95-84 defeat. ''It was just a game,'' Duncan shrugged after seeking out Van Horn for a warm post-game handshake. ''I hope we will get to play a lot of them.''

Yesterday was a time to reflect on the fight for racial justice, and many in New York and elsewhere did just that, recalling what was accomplished with marches along dusty Southern roads and sit-ins at the lunch counters of segregated five-and-dimes. Many people, however, commemorated a great man's dream by sleeping late.

Earlier this off season, the Yankees said that management experts on salary arbitration had told them the best salary Bernie Williams could gain in arbitration was about $7.5 million. That was the average salary they offered him for a five-year contract, and yesterday that was the number they submitted for arbitration for 1998. No team had ever submitted a salary that high, and Williams established an arbitration record, too, seeking $9 million. Other numbers exchanged by 59 players and their clubs yesterday paled in comparison.

By most accounts, Ned Rorem, who will turn 75 in October, should be deeply satisfied with what he has achieved. The world of American high culture tends to be suspicious of people who do not specialize in one area, yet Mr. Rorem has thrived in two. He is an accomplished composer, especially renowned for his songs, which number about 400 (though it is often forgotten that an orchestral suite, ''Air Music,'' earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1976). Yet he is equally famous, some might say notorious, for his voluminous writings. These include four books of diaries and a 1993 memoir of his early life, teeming with matter-of-fact accounts of his youthful homosexual exploits and spiked with score-settling, brilliant and compulsively readable observations on music, mores and cultural politics.

Call it insane, but Crazy Eddie is coming back. Relatives of the founders of the consumer electronics company are planning to open a Crazy Eddie store in Wayne, N.J., in late February as the first step in building a new chain. They even plan to resurrect the hyperkinetic, in-your-face pitchman, Jerry Carroll, whose television spots in the 1980's brayed that the chain's prices were ''insaaaaane.''