Webber saw the writing on the wall last month

The wheels began turning as Chris Webber sat out games, in part because of right foot and ankle problems, in part because the gap between the veteran forward and the 76ers was becoming a chasm.

Neither had any use for each other any longer, and neither of them meant that disrespectfully. The Sixers wanted very much to get younger, to get some salary-cap relief, to try to bring their payroll below the luxury tax trigger-point. Webber, in his 14th NBA season, wanted a more meaningful role on a team with immediate designs on winning.

That brought Webber to a meeting with coach Maurice Cheeks in Portland Dec. 29 during the recently completed seven-game Western swing. Webber said the Sixers' plan was to cut his minutes. He remembered being told, "There will be some games where you start, some games you won't; some games you'll play, some you won't."

"At that point, I knew that I no longer was going to be used here anymore," Webber said later in the trip.

In a telephone conversation last night, Webber told the Daily News: "If Mo wasn't going to use me, I wish he had told me during the summer. But now, we hadn't won five games and he was telling me I can't play. I knew the relationship was over."

He is listed on the salary cap at $20,718,750 this season and $22,312,500 next season, and supposedly will give back about $5 million of that.

He should clear the 48-hour business-day waiver period by Monday or Tuesday, but he said he hoped to have a new destination by Sunday night. He listed the Los Angeles Lakers, the Detroit Pistons, the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat as "the most serious" possibilities, adding he had "spoken with a coach or general manager of each of those teams." He also said the Orlando Magic has "an outside chance."

Ironically, his last appearance with the Sixers was Dec. 27 in Sacramento, against the team that had traded him to the Sixers Feb. 23, 2005. After that game, he had a lengthy conversation with his agent, Aaron Goodwin, in the back end of Arco Arena.

Webber says that, even before Allen Iverson was traded to Denver on Dec. 19, Goodwin already had permission from the Sixers to seek out potential deals. Webber said he could understand how that could be construed as asking to be traded.

When Webber stepped on the court for his first game as a Sixer, Allen Iverson looked at him and said, "Come on, Chris, let's make history." They never did.

They were the NBA's highest-scoring duo last season, averaging more than 50 points, but they won only 38 games. This season was worse. Iverson asked - demanded? - to be traded. Webber agreed to a buyout of the remainder of his contract Wednesday night in New York. The Sixers came out of the two transactions with point guard Andre Miller, Joe Smith, two first-round draft choices, some cap relief and, in the words of president/general manager Billy King, "clarity for the organization."

Webber doesn't argue with the Sixers' plan.

"If I were them, I would work on the youth of this team, see what we have, so that next year we can go forward full steam," he said.

The Iverson/Webber plan was a major bust. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth trying.

"I don't look back on it," King said. "You make decisions at the time, and then you go and make other decisions . . . I think at that time we were at a different place and point than we are now.

"I think we said that already, that we are in the process of rebuilding, and this gives us some flexibility. But we're going to evaluate the young guys and see how they develop.

"There are going to be nights when we aren't going to be the sharpest, and nights when we're going to be sharp. I think that's what you get when you're trying to give young guys an opportunity."

Webber doesn't qualify as "a young guy." But he insists his surgically repaired knee is stronger than at any time last season, when he averaged 20 points and nearly 10 rebounds.

"I'm 4 to 5 months off a good year," he said this week. "I know it's still in me. If playing above the rim is what people want to see, you're going to get that sometimes. But if you want to see a good player that has skill, you're going to get that every game."

Whatever you're going to get, it will be somewhere else.

The Sixers have dropped their last four games and seven of nine. Detroit and New York, the last two opponents, shot 56.3 and 53.1 percent, respectively; the Sixers have been outshot by six of their last nine opponents . . . In the last nine games, the opponents have outscored the Sixers, 216-69, from three-point range . . . Kyle Korver has hit his last 34 free throws, stretching back to Dec. 13 against Boston; he has not attempted a free throw in the last two games. At .938 (75-for-80), he is tied for the highest percentage in the league with Charlotte's Matt Carroll (61-for-65) for players with at least 65 attempts . . . Andre Iguodala leads the league with 73 total steals. *