In the End, All Is Well in Laker Universe

Once upon a time, the NBA opener was a starry, starry night. Everyone was optimistic, even the dog teams, who had fallen in love with their rosters after the June draft and talked of their glowing prospects so often, they now believed it.

The curtain went up Friday on a different landscape, full of injured stars, which denoted bad luck, and suspended stars, which denoted bad judgment, and stars such as Shaquille O’Neal, who may wind up with one of each.

“Obviously, we’d prefer a calm sea,” said Laker Coach Del Harris before the game, laughing.

“Unfortunately, we work in the NBA. As I’ve said many times, it’s not always fun working in the NBA, but it’s always interesting.”

This season it’s really interesting, since so many teams are only using their opening night rosters as a starting place.

The Kings, shopping Mitch Richmond, were supposedly set to send him to the Lakers for Eddie Jones and some $1-million body.

Then Richmond was going to the Knicks with Corliss Williamson and Bobby Hurley for Allan Houston and Chris Childs.

Then the Knicks said they had never offered anything like that, suggesting the news came from Miami, home of their archnemesis, Pat Riley, who was also trying to get Richmond but couldn’t interest Sacramento in the likes of Todd Day or Voshon Lenard.

Then there are Derrick Coleman, Jerry Stackhouse, Nick Anderson, Cedric Ceballos and any of Rick Pitino’s players who are also available. To make a long story short, the 12 Lakers who opened the season Friday night had better not pose for the team picture just yet. Usually you start a season with more assurance than that, but these are the ‘90s.

Usually, you hope to start your season with your first team, but the Lakers started this one without O’Neal and Elden Campbell. The Jazz, of course, was without John Stockton. Played, appropriately enough, on Halloween, this looked like an exhibition masquerading as a grudge match.

Well, the Lakers wanted a test of their depth and poise. This was it.

Midway through the first half, they were trailing by 16 and looking, as they did last spring, like boys playing men. The crowd was so desperate, it was chanting “Elden! Elden!”

Karl Malone vs. Robert Horry? Get serious.

Karl Malone vs. the fans? A couple of them behind the north baseline heckled him during the first half.

“You suit up, guys,” yelled Malone, grinning, obviously relishing the prospect, “we’ll play.”

Moments later, he turned to the fans. “We play on this team,” he said, an allusion to O’Neal, the hometown hero who wasn’t.

They play on the Lakers too. Nick Van Exel, he of the tortured summer and diminished reputation, dropped in six three-point baskets in a row and finished with 22 points. Kobe Bryant started doing the voodoo that only he do, scoring 23 off the bench, busting so many Jazz defenders with his crossover dribble, they may have had to get their ankles retaped just to fly home.

“I just can’t keep from breaking up from time to time,” Harris said later. “Sometimes when you watch the things Kobe does, you can’t keep a straight face.

“By the way, there hasn’t been anybody who asked me why I let Kobe take the last shot. That’s going to turn out to be one of the dumbest questions ever asked.”

So it turned out to be a payback game, after all. The clouds cleared. The stars shone, even if they were new stars. It was everything an opening night was supposed to be.