Some Thoughts on Injured Penny

Penny Hardaway is weeks away from returning to the Orlando Magic . . . and months away from leaving?

Shaquille O’Neal--who knows the player, the organization, the town and the story line--predicts his former teammate and former team will part company at the end of the season as Hardaway bolts via free agency. His own history provides the perspective, though the noteworthy caveat is that O’Neal has not spoken to Hardaway on the matter.

“Put it this way,” O’Neal said Sunday on the eve of the Magic coming to the Great Western Forum, though minus Hardaway, sidelined because of torn cartilage in the left knee. “He bought a lot of land down there, and he hasn’t started building yet.

“Do I think he’s gone? Yeah, I think he’s gone. And ask the Orlando media why.”

The claim is that Hardaway has grown tired of the fishbowl existence that helped chase O’Neal to the Lakers in the summer of 1996.

“I look on the Internet, in the Orlando paper,” O’Neal said. “They’re dogging him out, and he doesn’t like that.”

*

By practice-time Sunday, Rick Fox had returned from whatever stratosphere he was visiting the night before, admitting he was, uh, just a little hyped to face the Miami Heat and counter the Lakers-are-soft comments by Tim Hardaway in Saturday’s Times. As if it was possible not to notice.

“I was too jacked up, too ready to go,” said Fox, who finished with five points, three assists, two rebounds and one two-hand shove of P.J. Brown into the padded basket standard. “It’s almost good to not be like that. You can’t be too jacked.

TODAY

vs. Orlando

* 1:30

* Fox Sports

West

Site--Great Western Forum.

Radio--KLAC (570), KWKW (1330).

Records--Lakers 29-9, Magic 20-20.

Record vs. Magic (1996-97)--1-1.

Update--Eddie Jones strained his groin Saturday in practice and is day-to-day. Shaquille O’Neal (sore left knee, sore abdominal muscle) and Robert Horry (sprained left ankle) sat out, but are expected to play.