Lakers Have Company in Negotiations With Scott

A week before the start of training camp, the Lakers have begun contract negotiations with free-agent guard Byron Scott.

They weren’t alone. According to Scott’s agent, Leigh Steinberg, another National Basketball Assn. team made contact Thursday, the day a moratorium on signing players or conducting rookie or free-agent camps expired.

The NBA and the players’ union agreed to the moratorium, to facilitate negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement. Those talks have stalled, though, and Thursday, the players’ union filed a class-action suit challenging the draft, salary cap and right-of-first-refusal policy.

Scott, who made $440,000 last season in the last year of a four-year contract he signed in 1983, would prefer to remain in Los Angeles, according to Steinberg, who talked with Laker General Manager Jerry West Thursday.

Scott will, however, entertain all offers, Steinberg said. Under current NBA policy, if Scott signed an offer sheet with another team, the Lakers would have 15 days to match it. He cannot report to camp without a contract, which adds a degree of urgency to the discussions.

Before the moratorium, the Lakers signed center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to a two-year, $5-million contract--$2 million this season, $3 million next. They also renegotiated the last two years of forward James Worthy’s contract, and added a multi-year extension that will give Worthy an average salary of about $1.3 million.

And at the start of last season, Michael Cooper, the Lakers’ sixth man and the league’s defensive player of the year, signed a contract that will pay him $612,500 this season.

There also is the matter of Earvin (Magic) Johnson, who has seven years remaining on his $25-million, 10-year contract--$1 million annually in salary, $1.5 million a year deferred--and has indicated he may be interested in renegotiating, as well.