Fox Is a Laker, for Starters

They took another step in recasting the Lake Show on Thursday, signing Rick Fox to a one-year contract and raising the level of expectations in the process, leaving only one small matter to be determined:

The lineup.

With training camp five weeks away, Coach Del Harris, having anxiously awaited Fox’s decision, can now contemplate in earnest the change he has been kicking around for more than a month.

Fox could become the new starter at small forward, his role when he was with the Boston Celtics.

Robert Horry could move from small forward to power forward, a role he has not played full-time but was marvelous in against Horace Grant while helping the Houston Rockets sweep Shaquille O’Neal and the Orlando Magic in the 1995 finals.

And unpredictable Elden Campbell could become a $7-million reserve.

Fox said he wasn’t assured of any such move during the recruiting process that ended this week--”Being part of a championship team is more important” he insisted when asked--but Harris said he’s leaning in that direction, hoping to generate more fastbreaks. He just won’t commit to it, or to any lineup, until late October.

“It really won’t reduce Elden’s time any, I expect,” the coach said. “The advantage of doing it that way, if it turns out we do it, would be that we could establish the running game, the quicker game, with ball movement. That’s a better transition game at both ends of the court.

“The direction I’d really like to do, or at least like to look at, is to start Robert and Rick and bring Elden off the bench at both center and power forward. But I want to leave that open. I don’t want to set in stone how I’m going to do it.

“One of our strengths is flexibility. And the worst thing you can do when going for flexibility is to put things in ironclad.”

So he won’t.

“It gives us that option,” Harris said of Fox’s arrival. “But I want the players to kind of slug it out in training camp. One thing I don’t want to do is put Elden in a panic.”

Harris has already talked to Campbell about the possible change. And this is not, Harris is quick to point out, born from a belief that Campbell and O’Neal cannot effectively play together.

If a lineup change is Harris’ gamble, this contract is Fox’s. He opted out of the final three years of his contract with the Celtics to become a free agent, leaving a guaranteed $5.4 million behind, then passed up about $20 million over four seasons from the Cleveland Cavaliers a few days ago, as well as a certain starting job with the Atlanta Hawks, to become a Laker for $1 million.

Also given the option of a two-year, $2.15-million package to come to Los Angeles, he took the one season, hoping that it will pay off next summer with a reworked collective bargaining agreement and a rule change that will allow the Lakers unlimited spending power. Under the current system, Fox would again be forced to take a deal below market value, not becoming eligible for a big deal until the summer of 1999.

But Fox said Thursday he would do the baby steps thing if that’s the only way. Or, as he put it in terms more comforting to the Lakers:

“I didn’t make this move with the idea of moving again.”

Good thing. The Lakers didn’t wait this long, having heartily pursued him through trade up until last season’s February deadline and then through nearly two months of free agency, to have him leave in a year.

“I’ll be candid with you,” Executive Vice President Jerry West said in the aftermath of Fox’s signing. “We have a championship-caliber team. Period.”

No matter the starting lineup, apparently.