If Laker Plan C Is KG, Think Again

Hunkering down for the long haul in Lakerdom ...

It’s a new day with Phil Jackson, who once said, “You win with men,” starting Smush Parker and Brian Cook, each 24, with 18-year-old Andrew Bynum and 21-year-old Sasha Vujacic, once ticketed for the developmental league, in the rotation.

The good news for the Lakers is that they’re all showing something and anything remains possible.

The bad news is that for the Lakers, this is the D-league.

Jerry Buss had the guts to adopt a long-range salary cap strategy, but it won’t be easy to wait two seasons (at least) for the major piece (at least) they need to go back to being the Lakers and contending for titles.

They hoped Yao Ming would be available in 2007 (they held out less hope for Amare Stoudemire), but it wasn’t a Yao Strategy. It was a Whoever Strategy, assuming a star would become available (as one always has) and would want to come, as one always did (now there’s the question).

Meanwhile, the Lakers and their fans are, like all have-nots, reduced to drooling over other teams’ stars. Unfortunately, in the Internet-cable-talk-show age, this is a way of life, spent in the protracted discussion of overblown “reports.”

Take Kevin Garnett, who recently told TNT’s Cheryl Miller he was upset about the Timberwolves’ failure to extend the contracts of Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell, turning last season into “pure hell

“Decisions will have to be made,” Garnett said. “I’m trying to win. I’m not trying to restart. I’m not trying to revamp. To play to win is now. Not tomorrow.”

This led to speculation that Garnett might leave ... which quickly crossed over from “possible,” jumped “probable” and “imminent” and turned into “already happening,” with reports of trade talks with specific players being offered and rejected.

On the set, Charles Barkley followed Miller’s interview, announcing with the usual certainty that Garnett had to go.

In New York, where it’s still held as gospel that everyone wants to be a Knick, despite the evidence of the last 10 years, it was not only a given that Minnesota would trade Garnett but that Gotham was a likely destination.

“If they want a new start, they’re going to have to trade him,” said an unusually emotive Stephon Marbury. “If you don’t start over, you can’t rebuild and they’ve got to rebuild. If they’re going to do it, this is the time to do it.”

Of course, this ignored all the prior reports that Isiah Thomas had been shopping Marbury, et al., under the very same logic, without locating any interest, which suggested once again that the Knicks had little that anyone wanted.

An ESPN Insider said that despite the Pistons’ heated denials, they’d offered Rasheed Wallace and Darko Milicic, and that the Knicks had offered the expiring contracts of Antonio Davis and Penny Hardaway, but that Garnett wanted to be a Knick and even made “back-channel” overtures.

“I would bet money,” the Insider source said, “he will be wearing a Knicks’ uniform by the end of February.”

Not a lot of money, if he’s smart. Minnesota owner Glen Taylor announced he had no intention of trading Garnett by the end of February, or ever. Garnett insisted he wanted to stay -- “I’m Minnesota. The Target Center, that’s the Garnett Center!”

Not that you should put that much faith in anything anyone says (ever).

This is actually a disinformation assembly line. The local media looks for reasons the player will stay. Everyone else works on exit scenarios, often guided by the agent, the one who really wants the player in a bigger market because he gets 4% for doing his contract but 10%-20% of his endorsement money. The general manager denies everything or the player will pout and the agent will burn out the GM’s cellphone.

Good luck figuring out what’s going on in that Tower of Babel. Nevertheless, there are signals that mean something.

While the Lakers gazed longingly at Yao and his representatives said he liked the idea of being near a large Chinese community, people close to him, like ESPN’s Ric Bucher, who wrote a book with Yao, said all signals suggested he would stay.

Indeed, Yao signed an extension as soon as he was eligible, without a thought to the Lakers.

Garnett, a small-town guy from South Carolina, is very much a creature of habit, wants to stay and is pressuring Taylor and GM Kevin McHale to build up the roster they just slashed. (OK, in the event it ever means anything, Garnett has a place in Malibu and spends summers here.)

“For every signal Garnett gives off that he would welcome a move to a more competitive franchise, he gives off two that he likes and wants to stay in Minnesota,” says a Minneapolis insider. “He gets rattled if the assistant towel picker-upper gets fired and he was a basket case in a game at Houston the night the Wolves traded Dean Garrett. Dean Garrett!”

Meanwhile, LeBron James is saying privately he really wants to stay in Cleveland. It’s home, which means something to James, who surrounds himself with people he goes way back with. Maverick Carter, his No. 1 guy and a factor in dumping agent Aaron Goodwin, was LeBron’s teammate in high school.

James can sign an extension next August. Until he lets that go by, you can scratch him off the list too.

Of course, Toronto’s Chris Bosh comes up for an extension next August too.

To quote Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Life is real, life is earnest.” In this life, the Lakers’ task is to demonstrate they’re someone anyone with a choice would choose, or they can forget the next life.

Faces and Figures

If you don’t like this Kobe Bryant, it’s OK, there’ll be another along in a minute (cont.): Our hero chilled, taking 31 shots at Utah, most late in the game when the Lakers needed him. The next night while the ESPN studio crew, getting the news late, savaged him (“uncoachable ... selfish”), he took 16. Who knows where it might go from here? Up? Down? Around and around?

The Road Warrior: The Bulls will pay off Tim Thomas’ last season, worth $13.9 million. Thomas may go back to the Knicks, one of the teams with which he has already underachieved. “Yeah, I like Timmy Thomas a lot,” said Larry Brown. “I drafted him.” ... As the New York Post’s Pete Vecsey noted, this was a joke. Brown acquired Thomas’ draft rights in Philadelphia in 1997 and traded him in 1998.... Thomas says he asked Bull Coach Scott Skiles, “Do you think I’m dogging it in practice? He told me no. He told me I wasn’t playing on the level the guys were playing on at that particular time. I thought that was another laughing matter. The last time I checked, we don’t get our checks for our wins and losses in practice.” ... Thomas is 6-10, 240, a major athlete, can shoot (37% career on three-pointers) and, of course, can talk, but he never averaged 15 points or five rebounds. Actually, the Bulls set the price, offering a maximum deal in 2000 and were dismayed when he re-signed in Milwaukee.

Why the Bulls traded Eddy Curry, obliging them to take Thomas, is another question. They’re now reduced to throwing the ball inside to 6-7 Michael Sweetney instead of the 6-10 Curry. “That’s the one issue, size,” Skiles said. “Eddy’s just flat bigger, taller. Other than that, there’s not a whole lot. Mike statistically has been a better defensive rebounder but they’re very similar-type players.”

Lifestyles of the rich and out of it: Gary Payton, asked by the Miami Herald’s Israel Gutierrez about selling a Bentley on EBay, replied: “What did it look like? Was it brown?” Gutierrez: “How many Bentleys do you have to have to not know that you’re selling one on EBay?” Payton: “I’ve got about four or five of them.” Gutierrez: “Well, this one’s definitely yours because it says it belongs to an NBA player and it has GP embroidered on all the head rests. Why sell it on EBay?” Payton: “That’s just the way the people do it in L.A.”

Which Southwest coach said this? “I’m not down on our guys. We haven’t played the way we had hoped to. I’m just an optimist by nature. That’s just who I am.” ... You’ll never get it. It was Houston’s Jeff Van Gundy, cheered by Tracy McGrady’s return after a month of bashing his players. A few days before, Van Gundy had announced after losing at Dallas: “We can’t guard a pick-and-roll. Just lead with that every story.”