They Are What They Are, and It Is What It Is

Hits and myths from the first half of the season: OK, let’s start with the Lakers’ disappointment that they underachieved.

They wish.

They did lose some they should have won but after Kobe Bryant goes for 55 in the second half to bring them back from 18 down against Toronto, you’d have to say they won some they should have lost too. To quote Chuck Daly: “You are what your record says you are. No better. No worse.”

This is no underachievement. At 26-26, this is who the Lakers are.

Not that they’ve ever understood it. They were going to be an exciting, running team last season with coach Rudy Tomjanovich. When they collapsed, it was because they didn’t have Vlade Divac and Brian Grant -- but Phil Jackson was back to save the day.

Actually, this is who they were from the moment they traded Shaquille O’Neal. This is what a lose-lose decision looks like. Heads, you lose. Tails, you lose too.

O’Neal’s decline shows it would have been a disaster to keep him if that meant losing Bryant. Nevertheless, if trading Shaq was the percentage move in the long run, the Lakers were on their own in the short and intermediate run.

Some things are hard to predict but these weren’t:

Without Shaq, they wouldn’t be anywhere near title contention.

The Lakers were shallow in their Shaq-Kobe heyday with one other player, Derek Fisher, averaging in double figures in the three seasons before Karl Malone and Gary Payton arrived. O’Neal, Malone, Payton and Fisher were gone, along with their next highest scorer, Rick Fox.

They were going back to being an exciting, running team.

The game has changed since the ‘80s and even then they needed Magic Johnson for Showtime. Without Jason Kidd or Steve Nash, it’s hard to open up the modern game.

Lamar Odom was a good fit with Bryant.

This wasn’t ridiculous on its face since then, as now, NBA people admire Odom’s rare combination of size and skills, but there were always questions about him. In his best seasons, he was his team’s No. 1 guy, as when he broke in with the Clippers, but from the day Elton Brand arrived, Odom was barely a factor.

Odom may score if he gets hot early and doesn’t get sidetracked by the referees, or if he’s making a point -- as in November when he predicted he’d average 20 for four games and almost did -- or if Bryant is off the floor.

Otherwise, Odom settles for his 13.9 points -- his low since his last forlorn Clipper seasons -- insisting he doesn’t have to score more because he’s an all-around player. Because he’s an $11.5-million all-around player and the Lakers have no other second star waiting in the wings, it’s not.

Jackson would turn them around.

Jackson’s return was hailed as if he were bringing Shaq back with him and all was forgiven. The coach even had hopes of turning Odom into a latter-day Scottie Pippen and Kwame Brown into a latter-day Horace Grant.

Of course, if Jackson had known how much Odom would miss by, that Brown would average 6.1 points and 6.0 rebounds, and he’d be starting Brian Cook and someone named Smush Parker, he might not have been in such a hurry to return.

Without Jackson, they’d probably be reenacting last season, right down to everyone blaming Bryant. Except instead of everybody merely being upset at each other, Kobe might have demanded a trade and they might have accommodated him.

As it is, Bryant has gone a long way toward reclaiming his image, at least within the game, which was job No. 1 all along.

Kwame is a bust.

There’s no getting around that one, is there? It was worth a shot because he had so much potential, Odom was going back to small forward and all they had up front was Chris Mihm, Cook, Slava Medvedenko and Andrew Bynum.

Nevertheless, the key to getting Brown was their limited exposure: a two-year deal that didn’t complicate their salary-cap strategy.

They shouldn’t have drafted Bynum.

The only way to get a great player at No. 10 is to gamble and Bynum has flashed the potential they thought they saw. If he hits, they’ll have taken a quantum leap. If not, where do you think they’d be with Sean May?

Laker fans weren’t going to be blown away by making the first round of the playoffs.

This was another easy one no one wanted to acknowledge. This was the party no one wanted to be over.

The Laker moves haven’t been inspired but in the aggregate, they were OK. They bit the bullet and dumped Shaq but held onto Kobe, although it was closer than people realize.

It would have been better to get Dwyane Wade in the O’Neal trade but he wasn’t on the table -- yet -- and the Lakers didn’t think they could wait with Bryant still making up his mind. Tomjanovich was a mistake, but he gave the money back and Jackson returned against all logic. They have a long-range salary-cap strategy and a great player, if little else.

The problem is failing to understand, and communicate, the magnitude of the task they set for themselves. Jerry West built a dynasty out of the ruins of another but it took five seasons to get Shaq and Kobe and four more to win a title, with nothing like the current anguish. The Lakers haven’t managed expectations, they have sailed before them.

Unpredictable things do happen, like the Pistons losing Grant Hill in free agency, the Magic trading them some players so Hill could get seven years instead of six and one of the throw-ins turning out to be Ben Wallace.

The problem is you can’t depend on them happening and, for the Lakers, none has recently.

Faces and Figures

The Pistons not only gave up on lazy, soft, sulky Darko Milicic, they didn’t even hold out for much in return, settling for career dud Kelvin Cato’s expiring $8.7-million contract and a No. 1 pick from Orlando. Milicic, the No. 2 pick in 2003, may be the biggest bust of all time, worse than 1972 No. 1 pick LaRue Martin of Portland, who lasted only four seasons. The difference is 1972 was a down year and 2003 was a monster draft with LeBron James No. 1 and Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Wade going after Milicic. ... To be or not to be: The Rockets must now play around the moods of Tracy McGrady, who’s moping around because of undisclosed “personal problems.” After averaging 14 points and shooting 28% for four games, he scored 28 as the Rockets bombed the Clippers, announcing, “On the bus ride over here and sitting in the training room, I felt good. I told the guys, ‘I exorcised the demons.’ I felt good today. When I stepped out on the basketball court, I knew it was going to be a good day.” Unfortunately, the demons returned the next game as McGrady got 10 and Phoenix beat the Rockets, 109-75. ... Kids say the darndest things: Portland’s Sebastian Telfair, caught carrying a pistol on the team’s chartered plane, said it was his girlfriend’s and he grabbed her purse instead of his. This is the best one since teammate Zach Randolph said he was late because the electronic eye on his gate broke and he couldn’t get out of his driveway.

Not that the Clippers and SuperSonics exchanged problems, but while Brand said former teammate Chris Wilcox often tried hard, Seattle’s Rashard Lewis said departing Vladimir Radmanovic is “a good guy but he’s arrogant and unrealistic about just how skilled he is.”