More Unrest for Weary Lakers

Hits and myths as the Lakers once more take on their ancient foe, each other....

Distress wafts in on little media feet at their practice site as a minicam stampede awaits Shaquille O’Neal’s further thoughts on his teammates’ inadequacy but settles for teammates’ reaction when His Immensity stalks off without comment.

It’s still true: Nobody does the holiday season the way the Lakers do.

Even for zany three-time champions who while away the season by gnawing on each other, this is no ordinary December, shivering in the basement, with 15 losses and the big guys taking turns cold-shouldering the little guys.

They’ve already lost as many as in Phil Jackson’s entire first season here. Even amid the skirmishes that followed, they still didn’t lose that many in his second and third seasons until Jan. 28 and Feb. 17, respectively.

On the bright side(?), after Friday’s lethargic loss to the Hornets, Jackson says his players now know “how lousy they are.”

That’s something, I guess, although it probably wouldn’t make a good advertising slogan.

It’s still early, but if the Lakers are to crawl back up the cellar steps, big guy and little guy alike will have to understand what the problems and solutions are, and are not.

The big guys have to stop ripping the little guys.

As my 9-year-old daughter says, I’m down with that.

Look at it from a practical standpoint, Your Highnesses. Someone has to inbound the ball.

Teammates say Kobe Bryant remains a little distant but has calmed down. O’Neal, on the other hand, visited the royal displeasure upon them in waves last week, smoldering in silence with teammate, team official and reporter alike.

Not that that should have been a surprise. Let’s see: Shaq vs. Phil last season, vs. Kobe the season before, vs. Brian Hill, Del Harris, Nick Van Exel, Fred Hickman, Penny Hardaway ...

See if you can detect a pattern.

It’s still not easy being Shaq, whose greatness is manifest but whose feelings are easily hurt. His inner child, which keeps getting out, wants what he wants when he wants it. Typically, his adult side then surfaces later in the season to collect all the MVP awards not already spoken for.

Two seasons ago, O’Neal wanted Bryant traded for Jason Kidd, which Phoenix would have loved to do.

Now Shaq is OK with Kobe but seems to want the other 10 guys traded for Kidd, which I don’t think New Jersey will go for.

In this league, big guys take care of little guys ... or they’re not really big guys.

The way it works, the big guys do what they do, enabling the little guys to do what they do. In return, the big guys get most of the money and all the credit (or blame.) Derek Fisher’s problem isn’t trying or caring, so putting more pressure on him doesn’t help.

At this late date, it’s silly to go on about whether O’Neal waited too long to undergo surgery. If he made a mistake, it’s over and done with.

Of course, if Jackson, Jerry Buss and Mitch Kupchak miscalculated what they could spend and how much help the team needed, that’s over and done with too.

They have to go on from here and what they have is all they’re likely to have.

They’ve got to make a trade.

What a great idea! Let’s do it the tabloid/talk show way: How about Fisher and Samaki Walker for ... Latrell Sprewell!

If anyone harbors any illusions about what can be done at this late date, the reality is, not much.

They’re a two-superstar operation, with O’Neal and Bryant getting $37 million of the $63-million payroll and $26 million spread over 12 players.

Now, either A) the Lakers are getting away with underpaying some prodigy or B) the other 12 players don’t figure to have much trade value.

And the answer is: B!

The only players with any value are tall ones at the end of their contracts -- Robert Horry and Walker. Horry has his uses. If they move Walker, they have to take back a player making the same $1.5 million, and there aren’t many of those averaging 7.0 points and 7.6 rebounds in 26 minutes, as Walker is.

Meanwhile, the speculation further trips out the little guys, who are continually asked to speculate upon the extent of their futures here.

“We’re mired in conversations about how poor we’ve played, whether there should be changes, whether there should be trades,” says Rick Fox, the local king of all media who likes it here.

“These are all conversations we had when I was in Boston and we were terrible.”

It’s more pertinent to ask what the Lakers can get off the waiver wire. Try: Horace Grant, who’s 37, coming off knee surgery and isn’t what he was when he left here two seasons ago, to say nothing of what he was in the ‘90s.

That’s as good as it’s likely to get. The cavalry isn’t riding to the rescue. They have to deal with it.

Their supporting cast stinks.

It’s true, the little guys aren’t having banner years ... and the bosses were cavalier in the off-season about staying ahead of the competition.

On the other hand, the little guys are what they are and they do what they do.

Horry has always been a twiggy power forward who causes mismatch problems and specializes in big shots -- in spring. Fisher always tries to step up, for better (the 2001 playoffs when his three-point shooting finished off San Antonio) or worse (now). Fox is a hard-nosed role player, if deferential on offense. Walker doesn’t get confused with Karl Malone but is a bargain at $1.5 million. Brian Shaw is a prototype Jackson player. Devean George may not be a bargain at $4.5 million, but he’s useful. So is Mark Madsen’s gung-ho spirit. Like Glen Rice, Tracy Murray can shoot, but he isn’t a Jackson prototype. Kareem Rush isn’t ready but didn’t figure to be.

Horry, Fisher, Fox, George and Shaw have been here for three title runs, or as Jackson was obliged to note in their defense last week, “They’re not chopped liver.”

If things are different, it has as much to do with the big guys. Since O’Neal’s return, their defensive average has gone from 95 to 99, and that’s something they did together.

Phil better wake up and start coaching.

Tex Winter even tells Jackson that on the bench when Phil watches the other team score 10 points in a row without getting up, much less calling a timeout.

Nevertheless, it ignores what Jackson does best, which is keeping everyone calm, no matter how bad things look, by staying calm, himself.

Larry Brown makes players crazy with constant teaching, even if he’s right. Pat Riley rubs his players’ noses in misery, making it so unbearable, they give their all to surmount it, so by season’s end, one way or another, they’re wasted.

Jackson, the easiest-riding great pro coach, measures problems against time, in the sure knowledge that the season is a trackless wasteland, in which you can stage a comeback against Dallas that will never be forgotten -- at least, for four days until you lose to Golden State.

Jackson tried gently reining in Bryant, when it looked as though any Laker who said he was hurt would have to bring Kobe a note from his doctor. Phil and Kobe went at it two seasons ago and it was too early for one of those.

Jackson needs O’Neal to stop staring daggers at everyone, but Phil and Shaq went at it last spring and it’s too early for one of those too.

To be sure, the Lakers are in a deeper hole than the far-sighted Jackson expected. The problem, though, isn’t that he isn’t on the case, but that it’s such a hard case.

It’s all about us.

If it once seemed like the Lakers’ world, that’s over.

One reason the big guys are upset goes unexpressed, since a Laker never worries about lowly Dallas or Sacramento. Nevertheless, it’s unnerving to see them so far above them, pulling away.

“This is going to be a long process to get ourselves back on track,” Fox said. “I think we wanted it quickly. We wanted it with the return of Shaquille. We wanted it to happen overnight and it hasn’t.”

It hasn’t even started yet. If they settle down and go to work, they’ll get their chance to rise to the challenge, as they did last spring. If not ...

Well, we’ll always have the Angels. Won’t we?

At present, the Mavericks and Kings are better than they were, hungrier than the Lakers and more together. If crunch time is a ways off, the Laker superstars should thank their lucky stars.