Laker Trade Winds Blow More Hot Air

The latest Laker rumor is such a fun one, I can’t resist being a monger. So, here it is. Enjoy it this morning with your coffee and eggs.

James Worthy goes to the Washington Bullets for the No. 6 pick in the NBA draft June 24.

(James, as you know, gets traded every summer. James leads the league in being traded without ever actually leaving his team.)

Before draft day, however, the Lakers package this sixth pick with their own 15th pick and then overnight-express them--along with a player: Vlade? A.C.?--to the Houston Rockets for . . . (“2001: A Space Odyssey” drum roll here.)

Hakeem.

How does that grab you? Since the Lakers couldn’t get David Robinson and probably can’t get Shaquille O’Neal, then how about if Hakeem Olajuwon becomes the second coming of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?

Behold: Team Kareem transforms into Team Akeem.

I would pay to see this team. I wouldn’t pay Laker courtside prices, not being a zillionaire, but I would pay to see this team.

Before anyone gets too excited, I did check in Thursday with the Lakers to confirm their categorical denial. The unlucky Lakers get stuck denying all sorts of rumors.

Then again, Mike Dunleavy leaving was a rumor.

This one got started when Susan O’Malley, the general manager of the Bullets, reportedly leaked on a radio talk show that she and Laker General Manager Jerry West recently had discussed (were discussing?) (might discuss?) a deal for Worthy.

You can bet that one interested outside observer in all this is young Mr. Harold Miner, formerly of the University of Southern California.

Since it is not inconceivable that Miner could be the No. 6 pick in the NBA draft, it certainly will affect his future if Washington unloads it.

More than once it has been speculated that the top five choices will be O’Neal, Alonzo Mourning, Christian Laettner, Jim Jackson and Adam Keefe, not necessarily in that order. Miner presumably will go somewhere between fourth and eighth, although even if he goes 18th, Harold will have enough dough to pay back that scholarship.

First things first, though. Nobody can do anything, it seems to me, until O’Neal reassures Orlando that he has no intention of sitting out an entire season simply so he could play instead in Los Angeles. I don’t know how much truth there was to that, or just how far Shaq is willing to stick his neck out?

Let us say that O’Neal does become a Magic instead of a Laker. What’s the worst thing that can happen? That he has to wear an uglier uniform--right?

Charlotte goes next and selects Mourning, over the objections of the Hornet owner, who goes screaming into the night: “But Laettner’s from North Carolina! He’s from North Carolina!”

Laettner then gets to play his first pro game exactly where he played his last college game, in Minnesota.

Dallas picks fourth and will do something dopey, which is a Dallas tradition. (That team needs somebody big, not Jim Jackson.) Denver picks fifth and will pick somebody not the least bit dopey. (Hint: He’s from Stanford.)

Who picks next?

Will it be Washington, keeping the pick and possibly latching onto Miner? Or, will it be Houston, having acquired this pick from the Lakers at considerable cost? (OK, Olajuwon is special, but I can think of worse ways of rebuilding a team than adding Vlade Divac or A.C. Green or Sam Perkins plus the sixth and 15th picks from this incredibly deep draft.)

Or, would the Lakers fool everybody and keep the sixth pick after trading Worthy? (I know how tired James must be of being traded, but this time I think it actually might happen.)

West has my blessing, whatever he does, because I know how he feels about negative things in the press. I know this because during the news conference introducing Randy Pfund as the team’s new coach, West made a point of telling the press how he feels about negative things in the press.

I almost took a moment to mention that the Los Angeles Lakers have received the most consistently positive press coverage of any professional athletic organization in the history of the world, but then I decided, nahhhhh.

Besides, Hakeem will probably end up with the Clippers.