Lamp in Hand, Lakers Come to End of the Road

After a 13-day, 10,182-mile forced march that took the Lakers from one coast to the other and back again, there was a Lamp at the end of the tunnel.

Coach Pat Riley said that swingman Jeff Lamp--who already can write a travel guide to four National Basketball Assn. teams, not to mention Italy--has made the roster that will open the regular NBA season at home Friday against the Seattle SuperSonics.

That leaves the Lakers one roster move to make--cutting either incumbent Adrian Branch or free agent Milt Wagner--to get down to the 12-man limit. Second-year forward Billy Thompson, who has a severe bone bruise, will start the season on the injured list.

Riley said he will announce his decision this afternoon, after the Lakers return home from a 128-114 loss here to the Chicago Bulls in the annual Hall of Fame exhibition game. The rotation Riley used Tuesday didn’t offer much of a clue to which way he was leaning: Wagner made a cameo appearance, playing the last 4:18. Branch didn’t play at all.

The loss was the first on the practice schedule for the Lakers after seven wins, but at least there were no other dropouts from a trip that neither Magic Johnson nor Kareem Abdul-Jabbar survived intact.

Johnson stayed home out of consideration for his sore left Achilles tendon. Abdul-Jabbar begged off with a sinus infection. James Worthy, who missed two games with a sprained ankle, scored 31 points in 38 minutes Tuesday, during which he took an unWorthy-like 27 shots.

“He was really sick,” Riley said of Abdul-Jabbar. “It would have been insane to bring him back.”

The surprise is that there wasn’t a team-wide epidemic of sinus infections, anything to stop the treadmill that took the Lakers through Washington, Chapel Hill, N.C.; Nashville, Pittsburgh, Albuquerque and then back here.

“One of the most grueling trips we’ve ever had,” Riley said. “But we only have ourselves to blame. We’re the ones who scheduled all these games back East. Next year, I think we’ll try to make it less rigorous.”

As long as this trip was, it was still better than having to board a plane for Europe, as Lamp did last season in order to ply his trade for Rimini in the Italian League. A No. 1 draft choice in 1981, Lamp played for Portland, Milwaukee and San Antonio, and also made it to the last day of preseason with Indiana before being cut.

He’s not ready to find his own place in Los Angeles yet--he’s staying with his college roommate in a house near Westwood--but he’s glad he took up Jerry West on the general manager’s invitation this summer to try out with the Lakers.

“I had an idea, but I didn’t know for sure,” the 28-year-old Lamp said after making five of his seven shots in Tuesday’s loss, then hearing his uniform was his to keep. “I would have been real hurt if I didn’t make it.

“I felt that I did all that I can do.”

Wagner, who played in the Continental Basketball Assn. last season after leading Louisville to the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. title the previous spring, will be awaiting word today to whether he’s a Laker or an Albany Patroon, the Continental Basketball Assn. team that owns his rights.

“It’s down to the wire,” Wagner said. “It’s really hard to tell what coaches are thinking. Hopefully, it won’t be me that’s the one they call.”

Branch, who could have helped his cause by bulking up a little when he wasn’t lighting up the L.A. Summer League with 50-point nights but didn’t, wasn’t making any predictions.

“I can’t afford to,” he said. “But I’m here, for 24 hours’ service. That’s my job.”

Without Abdul-Jabbar and Johnson, the Lakers wound up being no match for the Bulls and Michael Jordan, who cranked out 36 points in 29 minutes. Rookie forwards Scottie Pippen (8 points, 4 rebounds, 4 steals) and Horace Grant (16 points on 8-of-10 shooting, including some jumpers from the 20-foot range) gave some signs that Jordan may have a supporting cast this season.