COMMENTARY : Despite Illusion, Emperor Had No Clothes

The fans never knew how close the Kings were to tumbling into the abyss last season,nearly being taken over by the Bank of America or the NHL.

Of course not.

All they knew was that the team was struggling on the ice, not looking one bit like a Stanley Cup finalist from the previous season, even with Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille, Jari Kurri and Rob Blake.

But the Kings’ slide was almost parallel to the declining fortunes of then majority owner Bruce McNall. They couldn’t pull themselves out of trouble and, as it turned out, neither could McNall. He was forced to sell 72% of the team, then enter into bankruptcy proceedings and now has agreed to plead guilty to four criminal counts stemming from a federal bank fraud investigation.

This season, the paths of McNall and the Kings will separate, an already evolving process. McNall, who is now the team’s president, started to distance himself from them last season by necessity because of his continuing legal and financial problems. He simply could not be overly involved in the club’s day-to-day activities.

Granted, the Kings will still be the Kings. They will start training camp in early September and, barring a player strike, the season will begin in October.

Still, there will be change on another scale. No matter what happens to McNall in the aftermath of his plea agreement with the government, one fact stands out--it is the end of the freewheeling McNall era. As one of the most high-profile and accessible owners in the country,McNall once seemed capable of trying and doing anything.

With him, the question wasn’t: What would he do? Rather it was: What wouldn’t he do?

He purchased Wayne Gretzky from the Edmonton Oilers for $15 million in 1988, helped by funding from European American Bank. He didn’t stop acquiring players and objects. Larry Robinson showed up in 1989. Jari Kurri in 1991. A private jet for the team.

McNall threw a preseason party in 1988 at Chasen’s to celebrate the arrival of Gretzky. Later, he held another bash in honor of Gretzky’s first 100 games with the Kings.

It was at his art gallery in Century City and who else but McNall could giggle and crack jokes when a reporter accidentally knocked over and broke a rare piece of art.

The man never seemed to get angry. Gretzky, in fact, once noted that McNall was the same all the time, saying: “It’s almost frightening.”

He was so successful at convincing everyone from lenders to reporters that everything was fine, that it became easy to overlook early signs of trouble. The image of success fit McNall so well that anything to the contrary didn’t add up. At first. As his problems began to emerge, McNall still insisted everything was fine, even making plans to write a book about his business successes.

Several familiar with his business operations were surprised it took so long for the house of cards to tumble, saying that McNall’s personal charm carried a great deal of influence with lenders and investors.

“It’s a combination of continued good salesmanship,” one source said. “Bruce could sell the Brooklyn Bridge . . . swampland in Florida. He’s good at playing the game.

“It’s no surprise--a guy like Bruce McNall. The bankers don’t have very exciting lives. They get to sit at the owners’ table for dinner. They meet Goldie (Hawn). Most of the time, bankers have never gotten close to something like this.”

In court papers filed in bankruptcy proceedings, McNall’s code name during the sale of the Kings was Prince Charles. It’s surprising that his code name wasn’t that of a Roman emperor, because he prided himself on his vast knowledge of rulers of those times.

You might say that McNall’s rapid rise and equally rapid fall are much like those of some of the Roman emperors he grew up reading about as a youngster in Arcadia, long before the Kings were even in existence.

* McNALL CASE: Bruce McNall has agreed to plead guilty to four criminal counts stemming from a federal bank fraud investigation. A1.