PRO BASKETBALL NBA MEETINGS : Lakers Try to Deal, End Up Standing Pat

The Lakers had a long summer’s shopping list but if the season started today, they still would have Larry Drew and Mychal Thompson.

This would be only a little awkward for Thompson, who spent last spring bidding everyone a sad farewell in advance of the ax that never fell.

It’s been a slow off-season, all around.

Only three free agents changed teams.

The eight West playoff teams, locked in an arms race a year ago, haven’t added a player since the draft. The problem, or complication, is a salary cap that rose only $500,000 after annual bumps of $2.5 and $2 million.

Teams are squeezed between rising costs for rookies--spurred by the possibility of European bids--and renegotiating superstars. In three seasons, the price of the top draft pick has gone from Danny Manning’s $1.5-million salary, to Pervis Ellison’s $1.8 million to Derrick Coleman’s $3.1 million.

Fourteen teams are over the salary cap, with another five in striking distance. By the time the No. 1 picks are signed, 22 of the 27 teams may be capped.

Thus, a big-market general manager who would like to wheel and deal, such as the Lakers’ Jerry West, finds his options limited.

“I always think you owe it to your fans to at least say to them, ‘We’re trying to get better,’ ” West said. “Just sitting there with the same team every year is not trying to get better.”

Until this weekend, there was a prospect of loosening the cap by easing some rules. However, a league presentation showed that even exploratory moves toward fine-tuning the system were controversial, producing a big-market, little-market split.

The Lakers, Celtics and Knicks were thought to favor liberalization, but more than 10 general managers reportedly said they like the system the way it is.

Any changes, if proposed, must be ratified by the board of governors--which won’t meet until Oct. 30--so this initiative can be considered a longshot.

NBA Notes

The meetings, completed Sunday, weren’t expected to produce any fireworks and didn’t. Proposals to put in instant replay and make adjustments in the zone-defense and delay-of-game rules were defeated. The rules won’t change this season. . . . The NBA players making up the 1992 Olympic team will be named this week but suspense ebbs. Will Michael Jordan participate? Yes. He hasn’t said so, but a TV hookup has been set up from New York, where the squad is being announced, to Chicago where Jordan and Magic Johnson will appear together. This is expected to be the squad: Centers: David Robinson, Patrick Ewing. Forwards: Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen. Guards: Jordan, Johnson, John Stockton, Chris Mullin.

Former UCLA Coach Larry Farmer is among those interested in the Clippers’ vacant assistant coaching job. The list includes Mack Calvin, a Milwaukee Buck assistant who played at USC; Caldwell Jones, who retired in 1990 after a 14-year career that included time with Clipper Coach Mike Schuler in Portland, and Bill Berry, the former San Jose State Coach who spent last season an a scout and assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings.