The Point Is Woods Can Take His Time : Clippers: After years as a shooter, first-round draft choice learns a new position without pressure.

LA JOLLA — He was the 16th pick in the draft, the first for the Clippers, and an investment that might take time to develop. That also makes him something of a gamble.

But Randy Woods is unfazed. Inexperienced, but unfazed.

The Clippers want him to be a point guard, although with Mark Jackson and Gary Grant available, they aren’t too concerned with immediate production. But Woods has played shooting guard since high school in Philadelphia--where he was a teammate of Pooh Richardson’s for a year--and then at La Salle.

It raised eyebrows when the Clippers picked him so high, but that’s nothing compared to how strange it is to have someone 5 feet 10 with so little experience at point guard. He averaged only 3.9 assists in college and has little experience at a position that is largely instinctive.

That makes his first NBA training camp more of a cram session than it is for most.

“Me not being a pure point, I have to work on my game,” said Woods, who averaged 27.3 points, fifth-best in the nation, as the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference player of the year last season. “And I’m not thinking just passing. It’s more decisions and approach. I have to know to make sure to get everyone involved--things like that.

“I’m comfortable in that. I think Coach (Larry) Brown has confidence in me. The best thing is that when I came in, I didn’t have to start at point right away. I can play behind Jackson and Grant and learn and improve.”

Brown agrees.

“He’s getting better,” he said. “It’s a nice situation here because of Mark and Gary, and (Woods) doesn’t need to step in right away and start or anything. And he’s in much better shape. He was real disappointing this summer. He was playing at 213 pounds. That’s good for a running back, but not good for a point guard.”

Woods says he now weighs 190 pounds, but that Brown wants him to get down to 180 to become even quicker. That would make him, the Clippers hope, the defensive answer to the Pacific Division’s lightning point guards--Kevin Johnson, Tim Hardaway and Spud Webb.

Danny Manning, who played all 82 games last season, is in the best shape of his NBA career, having dropped a dozen pounds since last season to get to 232 for the opening of camp. It is most noticeable in his legs.

“I asked my wife: ‘Do I look thin?’ ” Manning said. “I was working out with Ed Horton the last three weeks, and he said, ‘You’re losing weight. You’re losing weight.’ ”

Manning never did fit the description of the prototype power forward, but he heads into his first full season at the position even thinner.

He’s not concerned, and neither is Brown.

“He’s a lot stronger, I think,” Brown said. “He’ll play mostly (power forward), but with John (Williams) and Kenny (Norman), I think it will be a big help on some of the wide bodies. They can help with (Otis) Thorpe or (Karl) Malone or people like that.”

Said Horton, who was in camp with the Clippers before being waived: “He’s going to surprise a lot of people with his strength.”

Rookie center Elmore Spencer plans to wear eye-black, such as that worn by an outfielder or wide receiver, to help his sensitive eyes.

“Sometimes you can lose track of the ball,” he said. “Sometimes you can be blinded for a second. With eye-black, that lessons my blinking and gives me better focus.”

No NBA player in years has used eye-black, but Spencer did occasionally at UNLV. . . . John Williams, continuing to work at getting into shape, has started taking part in full-court drills. He might make his Clipper debut when the final exhibition trip starts Friday at Dallas.