POST YOUTH : Former Laker Rambis Adjusts to Charlotte Life

Clark Kent lives, but he’s not in Metropolis anymore. He’s in a land far, far away.

The archenemies come much faster, now, and Kryptonite is around every turn.

That’s how it is when you play for an expansion team in the National Basketball Assn.

For Kurt Rambis, former Laker now playing forward with the Charlotte Hornets, the look is different. He still has the trademark black horn-rimmed glasses, and the Hornets are happy that he still has his tough inside game, but that’s about where the similarities end.

The Hornets may not win as many games during the entire course of his 4-year, $2.4-million dollar guaranteed contract as the Lakers did last season in the regular season alone, when they won 62.

There is no Rambis Youth group to cheer its hero. “Other than my own two little boys, no,” he said.

And then there are the Hornet uniforms. Fashion designer Alexander Julian, a North Carolina native who took monthly shipments of Carolina barbecue as payment, developed an ensemble in the team colors of teal, purple and white. The outfit includes pleated shorts that are baggy at the bottom and V-neck tank tops with subtle vertical stripes of green, purple and light blue.

“It’s almost like the steel construction worker putting on his tuxedo to go watch Pavarotti perform,” Hornet swing man Robert Reid said.

Rambis said he doesn’t like the pants--something about being able to fit another person in them. He’ll also miss wandering around the Manhattan Beach pier, and there aren’t any nearby beaches available for bodyboarding, one of his favorite pastimes.

But his complaints these days are few, with his new home or new team.

“It’s great here,” Rambis said Monday after the Hornets’ practice for tonight’s game against the Clippers at the 23,500-seat Charlotte Coliseum. “Every place you drive, you’re driving down tree-lined streets. You don’t get that kind of peacefulness in L.A.”

Rambis also couldn’t get the kind of playing time in Los Angeles that he is getting here, his minutes per game having dropped from 21.3 to 19.4 and finally last season to a career-low 12.1. So after 7 years and 4 NBA championships with the Lakers, he became a free agent and signed with the Hornets in July.

“I don’t know at what point (he decided to leave the Lakers), but I had no desire to come back,” he said, adding that there are no bad feelings toward his former employer. “I love L.A., people were unbelievably nice to me and the fans were great. But one of the reasons I’m a pro basketball player is because I love to play, and I wasn’t playing with the Lakers.

“I think, if there is such a thing, it was a perfect divorce. They were very good to me and I was very good to them, but it was time to move on.”

The Rambis legacy?

“I just hope everyone remembers me as somebody who gave the fans their money’s worth,” he said. “They may not have always known if the Lakers were going to win or lose some nights, but they knew Kurt Rambis was going to go all out.”

When he and wife Linda, the former vice president of the tennis and volleyball division at the Forum, did leave, it was not without fanfare.

A soft-drink company sold its lemon-lime soda in commemorative Rambis cans in Southern California with a drawing of his face on the side and a message to fans. So although he left the Lakers on his own, he was canned at the same time.

Magic Johnson and Michael Cooper, suddenly former teammates, roasted him at a going-away party not far from his Manhattan Beach home. Finally, when it came time to leave for Charlotte in September, there were impromptu outpourings of emotion.

Strangers said goodby at curbside at LAX. An airport shuttle bus came to a screeching halt, the door flew open and the driver leaned out from behind the wheel to wish him good luck.

“My situation was really unique,” Rambis said. “If I had been traded or waived, it would have been more emotional. But this time, the decision was my own.”

The Hornets (0-2) are glad to have him.

“I think he’ll be the blue-collar type of guy again,” said Ed Badger, the Hornets’ director of basketball operations and an assistant coach. “I kid him sometimes. If he has a bad session during practice, I’ll say I’d better get the phone booth so he can change into Superman.”

But the reality of the situation is that even Superman can’t bring the Hornets a winning record in their inaugural season. Clark Kent Rambis knows that.

“Losing is something you could look at rationally,” said Rambis, who is averaging 28 minutes and 11 points. “If you just improve as a team every time out, you can handle losing better. But if you’re getting blown out by 40 points every night, it’s not fun. If you can keep it close, we’re looking at what can happen here 2 or 3 years down the line.”

But, for a while at least, nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina, where fans are just happy to have an NBA team.

“The enthusiasm is unbelievable,” said Badger, a former scout at Boston, assistant coach at Cleveland and head coach at Chicago. “(The fans) gave us a standing ovation when we came off the court after losing the first game by 40 points. That had to be a first in NBA history. A lot of places, you would have had to run off as fast as you can so you don’t get hit by anything.”

So far, nobody is running scared. Not even Rambis, whose planet daily now revolves around a new address.