Riley’s Decision Not Fan-Tastic

Someday the basketball shoe will be on the other foot, and Laker fans will scream bloody murder. Some opponent will bench its best players and practically take a dive, just as Pat Riley’s Lakers did last Sunday at Portland, and every poor customer occupying every expensive seat in the Forum will start whining and belly-aching and begging for a refund.

The Lakers did a bad thing and got exactly what they deserved from the NBA this week.

They drew a $25,000 fine and a David Stern reprimand for deliberately refusing to use All-Stars Magic Johnson and James Worthy in a game that Los Angeles lost by 42 points, cheating people who paid full ticket prices to watch the Lakers’ second string.

Laker-likers have rallied behind Riley, supporting the coach’s claim that he did what was best for his ballclub’s general health and welfare. Well, it’s easy to root, root, root for the home team, isn’t it?

Someday, when you same people have paid 50 bucks apiece to see Michael Crawford in “Phantom of the Opera” and discover upon arrival that Crawford is healthy but doesn’t feel like performing so the Phantom will be played instead by Jim Nabors, maybe you won’t be quite so understanding.

You’ve got $500 ringside tickets to see Mike Tyson’s rematch with Buster Douglas, but, when you get to the ring, you find Tyson fighting a last-minute replacement, Bonecrusher Smith. Douglas’ manager says: “We decided to save Buster for some other night.”

You’ve got tickets to Prince or Madonna or Whitney or Sinatra that cost you a couple hundred bucks. You took off from work, drove to the concert, planned your whole week around it. Then the singer doesn’t even invent a sore throat. The singer just says: “Sorry, I don’t feel like singing tonight. Maybe some other night.”

Some editorial writer at my own newspaper took a break from the more dramatic issues of Lithuanian politics and photographic censorship to defend Pat Riley for keeping his players out of “a meaningless game.”

Whoever this person is who determined that this game was “meaningless” obviously was not one of the 12,884 paying customers in Oregon who came, expecting to see an authentic, competitive, advertised professional basketball game between the Western Conference’s two top teams. Nowhere on the marquee or in the morning newspaper were these poor suckers given a caveat emptor that warned them: “Tonight, 7 p.m.--Trail Blazers vs. Laker Subs.”

I think a lot of the people siding with the Lakers in this matter are people who have forgotten what it is like to pay for a ticket, including sportswriters.

That $25,000 ought to just about cover the cost of the rebates, and I hope every dollar of it is forwarded to the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

I give the Lakers credit for one thing and one thing only: At least they aren’t liars.

They could have fabricated a chest cold for Johnson and a back spasm for Worthy, and nobody would have been the wiser, except, of course, Earvin and James. We take it for granted that these two young sportsmen have too much integrity to be party to any such ruse.

The Lakers tanked the game.

They played Larry Drew for 44 minutes, and Portland’s ticket holders and cable-TV investors got to see Drew make one of his 16 shots.

They also got to see 19 minutes of Melvin (Magic) McCants, who made one of eight shots and ripped down two rebounds.

They got to see 220-pound forward Jay Vincent start at guard. They got to see 38 minutes of Michael Cooper, who made one of his 14 shots and could have easily missed two more if he had been given as much playing time as Larry Drew.

In defense of the Lakers, at least they did not suit up Dyan Cannon or Jerry Buss.

Some people are using major league baseball as evidence for the defense, reminding us that managers often bench their regular players after a division title has been clinched.

They say this as if it’s a good thing.

Do you like having tickets to a baseball game that day--tickets you bought months before, because it figured to be an important end-of-the-season series--and being forced to watch the scrubs, bench warmers, minor leaguers and injury rehabbers who take the field? Is that your idea of a good time? Does anybody offer you your money back? Or does it go right into the pockets of those multimillionaire starters who couldn’t be bothered with playing that day?

Frankly, I’m surprised that Magic Johnson didn’t make more of a fuss, that he didn’t stand up to Riley and say: “Coach, let’s at least try to win this game.”

In my mind, Magic is synonymous with winning. I can’t believe he and Worthy sat there and liked the fact that their team decided to let Portland win.

No wonder people in other cities chant: “Beat L.A.!” The Lakers have pulled this sort of thing before. They bill themselves as the actual Lakers, then come into town and play their B team.

It’s easy to say: “Well, we’re Laker fans, so what do we care what happens to anybody else?” Be sure to remember that the day you’re holding four tickets to a King hockey game, and Edmonton decides to leave Messier, Kurri and Ranford on the bench and play only its fourth line.

Wait a second; bad example.

Edmonton probably would still win.

I realize that Laker fans want to side with their team no matter what that team does. I’m sorry. I just always thought that this was an organization that prided itself on giving the public the very best in professional basketball, night after night. The Los Angeles Lakers I know and admire, they play to win .