KNICK NOTES

Mark Bartlestein, Brian Grant’s agent, was infuriated yesterday with a headline in The Post stating his client is using the Knicks as a bargaining chip.

The Post reported that Grant was still going to go through with his visits to Detroit and Orlando despite saying upon his departure from Newark Airport Friday that he had pared his choices to Portland and the Knicks. However, the Blazers, sources say, are not willing to give Grant the maximum seven-year, $86 million deal he seeks.

Grant, the free agent power forward, will visit the Pistons later this week or early next week. “I emphatically deny Brian has any interest in using the Knicks as a bargaining chip,” Bartlestein said. “He has way too much respect for the Knicks and way too much respect for Paul Allen [Portland’s owner]. That’s not the way Brian operates. He would not do that.”

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There is a first-round Knick pick here at the Boston summer league after all. It’s not AWOL Frederic Weis, their ’99 first-rounder. It’s not Donnell Harvey, their 2000 first-rounder traded to Dallas. It’s Dontae Jones, trying to make another comeback, this time with the Pacers after being cut by a CBA team late in the season. The Knicks drafted Jones in 1996 but he never played a game with them because of injuries, then was traded to Boston in ’97 and eventaully wound up in prison