THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : Lakers Too Heavy for Van Exel : Time Is Fleeting on Playoff Stage

For you die-hards, Thursday night brought more suggestions the playoffs had caught the Lakers at an inconvenient time, either a year early or three weeks late.

In a free fall for most of April, they hurtled through here and absorbed another pasting, 96-71, at the hands of the Seattle SuperSonics to make it eight losses in nine games and 0-1 in this series.

Your Laker star of the game was Nick Van Exel, who scored 29 points.

All your other Lakers totaled 42.

Vlade Divac, the only other Laker in double figures, did his version of the old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sky hook. Vlade’s hit nothing and was immediately named the Air Hook. Cedric Ceballos went one for 10. Star rookie Eddie Jones was benched as Coach Del Harris went looking for a new combination before it was too late.

“Not really,” said Harris, asked if he was running a risk. “Not when you’ve won two out of 10.

“We’re not in the developmental stage any more.”

They’re in the “desperate” stage. Unless things change fast, they’ll move to the “threatened-with-extinction” stage, followed by the “vacation” stage.

Harris, joking before the game, said he’d be worried if he was replacing Jones with “some guy with a tin cup” rather than Anthony Peeler. The distinction became blurred as Peeler began throwing up bricks. Jones came off the bench with more. Fifteen minutes into the game, Harris was up to his third shooting guard--Sedale Threatt--and hadn’t yet found one who could make a jumper.

All he had all night was Van Exel, the local scourge.

Van Exel has a kind of following in reverse here, which started on his famous workout tour that left him a Laker pick midway through the second round.

As you may have heard, Van Exel has an attitude. So does SuperSonic Coach George Karl.

Karl, a North Carolina alum, bristling at Van Exel’s suggestion that Dean Smith should have won more championships with all his talent, showed up for the interview wearing a Carolina T-shirt and cap and inquired of Van Exel just what he knew about coaching, anyway.

After that, the interview didn’t go so well.

“Most of the confrontation,” admitted Karl, “was between he and I.”

General Manager Bob Whitsitt didn’t like Nick, nor did Gary Payton. Payton and Van Exel, two of Generation X’s finest point guards, have started a promising rivalry--which Payton still refuses to acknowledge. In Payton’s head, John Stockton is a rival and Van Exel is just some kid.

Van Exel says he gets up for Payton. Payton’s response is more like what- was- that- name- again?

“If he gets up, he gets up,” sniffed Payton recently. “I hope he gets up for everybody.

“The young guys all want to come at me. . . . I’m an all-star. They think if they play as well as I play, they should be where I am. That’s the way I looked at it two, three years ago.”

OK, Gary, it’s N-I-C-K V-A-N E-X-E-L. The little guy was wonderful in a lost cause Thursday. He had 25 midway through the third quarter, including seven points in a row that pulled the Lakers within 58-55, before his teammates collapsed anew.

It’s been that kind of April but at least, at their current pace, they won’t have to worry about much of May.