THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : After Fast Fall to Bottom, Lakers Face Tough Climb

Rebuilding, it’s not as much fun as it looks: It’s a new, dark day for the Lakers, now engaged in a battle for sixth place in the seven-team Pacific Division while the celebrities and many of their fans abandon the Forum.

Old Laker dynasts, unaccustomed to listless losses in empty halls, chafe at the process. Jerry Buss almost punched Randy Pfund’s ticket last season. Jerry West has to put his fist in his mouth to keep from exploding. Magic Johnson went off last week, accusing the young Lakers of lacking pride, suggesting they weren’t developing as fast as they should because they weren’t working as hard as they should.

Indeed, the progress of Doug Christie, and especially Anthony Peeler, has been uncertain but there are some fallacies at work, too, and you hear them all the time around the Forum.

The Lakers will get a lottery pick plus a free agent such as Danny Manning or Derrick Coleman and turn this thing back around in a year.

It’s not that easy.

Manning seems to have turned his sights toward Orlando and Charlotte. Coleman is a thorny rose, indeed.

You have to be lucky in the lottery. Ask the Sacramento Kings and Washington Bullets, who are in annually without ever getting the player they need. Even if there’s another undergrad rush into the draft to beat the new collective bargaining agreement, this won’t resemble the Shaquille O’Neal-Alonzo Mourning-Christian Laettner-Jim Jackson-Tom Gugliotta ’92 crop.

The Lakers lack pride.

I don’t want to endorse a lack of pride; pride means everything to good teams. The Lakers are a great player or two away from being a good team. Pride or lack thereof isn’t their problem.

The young players aren’t developing.

It’s true, Peeler was such a disappointment after a fine rookie season, Pfund actually rejoiced when he learned he had a stress fracture in his foot; it explained why Peeler had stopped going to the basket. Christie looks like the second coming of Scottie Pippen one moment, a mad stork the next. Vlade Divac is Vlade Divac. Nick Van Exel is adventurous. For months George Lynch was known as “the 6-foot-6 power forward.”

That’s how it goes. It’s easier to break in one young player like James Worthy, Byron Scott or A.C. Green slowly with a veteran nucleus than to break in a half-dozen kids all at once with no great player alongside for a role model.

Actually, as such things go, the Lakers are doing well.

Without having yet bottomed out--remember, they still haven’t missed the playoffs or drawn in the lottery--they turned an old roster into a young one, with five players 26 or younger in regular rotation.

The bad news for Laker fans, wherever you are, is not that they are losing a lot of games. It’s that they may have a lot more to lose.

Just because it’s intolerable doesn’t mean it has to be quick.

THE CONTENDERS: SUNSET, SUNRISE

Teams change over a season. The way it is in November or February probably won’t be the way it will be in April.

With that in mind, let’s look at the powers:

Houston Rockets--They started 22-1. Since, they’re 10-10.

Worse, they are bickering among themselves. Hakeem Olajuwon is trying to keep everyone together, but point guard/clubhouse lawyer Kenny Smith (“The guys look to me for leadership”) is complaining about Scottie Brooks finishing all the games. Forward Robert Horry, whose unselfishness was considered a key to their chemistry, said he wanted to play more, too.

Coach Rudy Tomjanovich, asked about the possibility he would coach the West in the All-Star game, answered: “Who needs that? I’m having trouble keeping nine guys in a rotation happy.”

Tomjanovich was having so much trouble he traded Horry, a bulwark in his prized defense, to Detroit for Sean Elliott, a softy.

Seattle SuperSonics--They started 26-3. Since, they’re 8-7.

“Everybody knows the problem we have,” Coach George Karl said through clenched teeth after an upset in New Jersey last week. “It’s attitude. I just don’t understand how you can feel the way you feel after a game like this. I would rather die than . . . feel like this.”

The SuperSonics have a roster full of volatiles, including Gary Payton, pouting about not making the All-Star team, scoring 17 points in the first half against the Nets, looking at press row and yelling, “Tell that to the damn West Coast coaches!”

Said captain Nate McMillan: “Right now our minds are somewhere else. This is a team sport. There’s too many guys who think they’re All-Stars or should be All-Stars or consider themselves superstars. That’s BS.”

Phoenix Suns--They started 24-6. Since, they’re 5-8.

Their problem isn’t chemistry but injuries to Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson and Danny Ainge. On the other hand, Cedric Ceballos and Oliver Miller have stepped up. Given good health, the Suns will be back.

New York Knicks--The good news is their 24-3 record against the small fry. The bad news is their 8-9 record against teams better than .500.

Chicago Bulls--They were 5-7 when Scottie Pippen rejoined the team, 27-5 since.

Go figure. Phil Jackson, who didn’t get one coach-of-the-year vote while taking the Bulls to a third consecutive title, was named coach of the month recently.

Atlanta Hawks--They started 1-4. Since, they’re 31-8.

Go figure II. Everyone’s waiting for them to fade, but they haven’t. Mookie Blaylock, now considered by some the East’s best point guard, and Stacey Augmon lead a tenacious defense. Lenny Wilkens is a shoo-in for coach of the year.

HE’S GONZO, TALES OF YOUNG ALONZO

Charlotte’s ferocious Alonzo Mourning, like Will Rogers, has the same feeling about everyone he meets.

Unlike Rogers, it’s not a warm feeling.

In New Jersey, Mourning snarled at Net Coach Chuck Daly, who was checking his wrist watch to protest Mourning’s deliberate free-throw style.

Said Allan Bristow, Mourning’s coach and constant defender: “Talk about something dragging out a game, look at them running their half-court offense.”

Mourning, who once growled, “I’ll see you again” to referee Jack Madden, is constantly warned by officials about physical play.

“It seems like Zo’s always getting tugged on or roughed up,” says Bristow. “But Zo’s the one who’s always being talked to by the refs.”

Every time Bristow complains to the league office, he is reminded Mourning is No. 2 in the league in free-throw attempts.

Then there’s that Nike ad Mourning did, using an off-day to fly to Phoenix, flying back to Charlotte on the red-eye that night to make practice the next day, drawing a request from Bristow not to do it again.

With a world of athletes to select from, why is the sneaker company promoting this prickly pear? Mourning even managed to tick off Nike’s hirelings who were shooting the commercial.

Said Stacey Wall, a Portland ad agency exec: “Alonzo Mourning got out of his limo and said, ‘No dribbling, no rebounds, two dunks. That’s all I’m doing.’ ”

DERRICK VS. THE NETS

Negotiations continue, after a fashion.

After a week of talks, New Jersey General Manager Willis Reed and Coleman’s agent, Harold MacDonald, arrived at a figure--$75 million for eight seasons, with a ninth at club option for $15 million.

MacDonald said the Nets had made them an offer. Reed said he had to show it to the Secaucus Seven owners, who rarely agree on anything.

Maybe it was the reception he got, but Reed didn’t come back sounding too enthusiastic.

“We’re looking at all factors including Derrick’s personality,” Reed said. “He laughs with his teammates, but on the other side, he yells at those guys, too. That’s something I don’t like. With the kind of money we’re talking about giving Derrick, he should be one of the main reasons we should win. He should be our leader.”

Replied MacDonald: “If they don’t sign him, people are going to say it’s symptomatic of the same old sorry Nets. They can say he’s a problem child, a head case, this and that. They can make all kinds of excuses. They can put whatever spin they want to on it, but if they pay him, they can step up to the highest level.”

What can you say? They’re both right, except for that bit about the highest level, still unrealized despite three years of Coleman.

FACES AND FIGURES

I don’t understand it, honey, they’re still following us: Scottie Pippen, who said he needed a gun to protect himself, was arrested while driving a car with a vanity plate that read: “DA PIP.” Pippen has plates on other cars that read, “MR. PIP” and “BULLS 33.” . . . Old Laker Byron Scott on the young Lakers: “I hear young guys talking about how the coach should be gone or the offense is terrible, this and that. You can’t win when you’ve got that going on. I just go by what I read in the newspaper, and what I read is a lot of disarray.”

The source: Pacer General Manager Donnie Walsh is vowing not to tell Coach Larry Brown about any more trade talks because Larry blabs it to the nearest writer. Latest package to get out: Antonio Davis, Malik Sealy and Sam Mitchell to Sacramento for Lionel Simmons and Randy Brown. . . . The comeback: The Bullets are dismayed at the lack of progress of (Never in Service) Pervis Ellison, still plagued by sore knees. “Obviously, he’s not close to being what Pervis Ellison was at his best,” General Manager John Nash said. “That’s the single greatest disappointment of this season.” . . . The fox: Dallas Maverick Coach Quinn Buckner continues to pack the front office with enemies of General Manager Norm Sonju and personnel director Rick Sund. The latest is former coach Dick Motta, hired as a consultant shortly after publicly ripping Sonju and Sund for putting “self-preservation” before the team. . . . Our Hardest Working Man in Showtime Award goes to Laker assistant publicist Raymond Ridder, one of the few who wasn’t awakened by the recent earthquake. At 4:31 a.m. on Jan. 17, Ridder was in the office, working on game notes.