The Present Seems Tense for Team of the Future

Adolescence can be such a fun and terrifying time for an NBA basketball team.

If you get a nice growth spurt, mental and physical, it can lead you to clear-eyed maturity and breakthrough success.

Or, it can give you a nervous breakdown.

The Lakers, still growing and loaded with energy, talent and anxieties, are on the verge of something, but it will take this jam-packed, pedal-down season to determine exactly what.

They have spent the last two postseasons getting deflated by the older, wiser, less-talented Utah Jazz and spent the last two off-seasons trying to figure out why--and retooling to prevent a recurrence.

They watched Michael Jordan, the king of the league, retire last month, and they have seen the doors swing open to all those who had been also-rans and pretenders while he reigned.

They have a dominant player, Shaquille O’Neal, intent to earn his first crown. They have a varied and vaunted collection of players around him--from Eddie Jones to Kobe Bryant to the two Dereks, Fisher and Harper.

They have gotten rid of their angriest, most complicated player, point guard Nick Van Exel, and added the leadership qualities and defense of Harper.

They have undergone the same trials that Chicago went through in Jordan’s first few years, when he couldn’t get past Detroit.

Maybe they’re the heirs to Air?

“But Chicago hasn’t been our problem,” Laker Coach Del Harris kept reminding everyone during training camp. “We’ve never gotten to play Chicago.”

There’s the problem, and there’s the source of all the recent intrigue surrounding the team of late.

How do they get good enough to beat Utah, or whoever else stands in their way in the Western Conference? Is what they have, one year older, good enough?

The Lakers are young--no starter is 30 yet and O’Neal is only 26--and they are extremely talented, perhaps the most talented team in the league.

But they have been experiencing quite the drama recently, and if you haven’t noticed, things are far from settled with this Laker team.

“Oh yeah, I think we’re the team of the future,” said the youngest Laker, Kobe Bryant. “I think what we have now can win it this year.

“But we’re nowhere near set. We don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle here, if you’re talking about a team winning six or seven championships. It’s not in place yet.”

The recent fun involving the most talented (and titillating) team of the post-lockout NBA:

* O’Neal has spent much of the past month pleading for the team to acquire a few shooters and a bookend power forward and was not at all pleased when the proposed trade for Tom Gugliotta was rejected by Minnesota.

As the days have crept toward the season opener, and the Lakers still are planning to go with Robert Horry and Travis Knight at power forward, O’Neal staged a concerted public effort to persuade a reluctant Laker management to pursue Dennis Rodman, a man he had only days earlier derided as a “cross-dresser.”

* Executive Vice President Jerry West has assembled what might be the Lakers’ most athletic squad ever, top to bottom, but one that still might not match up perfectly against rival Utah, which, after all, still has John Stockton, Karl Malone and a system that drives the Lakers bonkers.

West concedes that the team is a little overloaded at one position (shooting guard), and might be lacking at another (true power forward), and has spent the weeks since the lockout ended trying to “get a better fit” for his team.

Stay tuned for more trade speculation for at least a few more weeks.

* Harris is in the final year of his contract, with owner Jerry Buss showing no movement yet toward an early extension, so Harris understandably is rather interested in winning it all this season.

* Bryant got a six-year, $70.8-million contract extension, and he hasn’t yet turned 21 or earned a starting spot--though that starting spot might come faster than the birthday.

* And the Lakers, through all this, still might win the championship, because the Jazz is one year older, the Bulls are blown up, the Rockets are still introducing themselves to each other, and who else is better?

Who else is ready?

Will the Lakers win it this year just because, well, they have to?

“You know,” West said, when explaining the ferocity of this season’s training camp workouts, “the players know there’s an urgency. That’s not something they don’t know.”

The main issue, no matter what other personnel moves are made, is the mental state of the Lakers.

Nobody doubts that when things are going well, and O’Neal is scoring 30 a night and Jones is flying around and Horry, Knight and Rick Fox are providing consistent performances, the Lakers are nearly untouchable.

Those aren’t the nights to worry about.

“Unless we can get to where the most important thing is the team and what we do together, then we won’t make it,” Harris said. “I mean, how many times does some championship team have to teach that lesson to the also-ran teams? It’s just so fundamental to winning a championship.

“As a coach you’re just trying to do everything you can to keep everybody thinking ‘team’ first. Whatever that entails, that will be my job, to try to keep our team focused on this grand purpose, which is to win this championship, as opposed to having seven guys on the All-Star team or having certain guys leading statistical categories.”

When the opponent slows it down and grinds it out, when the Lakers are forced to think about making each other better instead of getting their own shots up, they don’t respond as well.

Against Utah, for instance.

“I felt almost a letdown in confidence, a letdown in trust amongst each other on the floor to get the job done,” Fox said of the last Utah series, an embarrassing 4-0 sweep in the Western Conference finals, including the last two at the Great Western Forum.

“It’s like a punch in the face. You can either regroup and defend yourself and come back with a better game plan or you just keep taking beatings. We kept getting pushed on and finally we kind of just sat in our own pity. And that’s the worst feeling.”

For the players, the pain of losing the last two years hasn’t gone unnoticed.

And the echo of Jordan’s struggle against the Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Bill Laimbeer-led Pistons is not lost, either.

So if Shaq can be like Michael, and Eddie like Scottie Pippen, and Fisher like John Paxson. . . .

“I see a lot of similarities because within their team struggle, there were some individual struggles,” Fisher said. “Michael was going through the process of becoming more of a team player, still scoring 30 points but finding ways to get other people involved.

“They went through the trade with Charles Oakley [for] Bill Cartwright, where Michael didn’t think that was a very good trade. . . . Then he found out later that Cartwright was kind of the missing piece they needed. . . .

“Scottie growing and becoming more experienced and learning how to deal with adverse situations and playing against physical teams like Detroit. I see a lot of similarities in that.

“You can’t just wake up in the morning and be NBA champions.”

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ROSTER

CORIE BLOUNT (forward)

No.: 43. Size: 6-10, 242.

Age: 30. Sixth season.

The team’s only physical tall forward, Blount may see more minutes against the bigger forwards on the Laker schedule, but probably will play behind Robert Horry and Travis Knight most of the time.

KOBE BRYANT

(guard/forward)

No.: 8. Size: 6-7, 215.

Age: 20. Third season.

Has bulked up noticeably in the upper body. Should start the season backing up at shooting guard and small forward. Bryant more than doubled his scoring average from his first to second season (7.6 to 15.4), and, with $70.8 million in hand, could be eyeing another big jump.

ELDEN CAMPBELL

(center/forward)

No.: 41. Size: 7-0, 255.

Age: 30. Ninth season.

The Lakers tried to trade him, but couldn’t get equal value for a player who has proven he can score consistently on the low post. For Lakers, he is only a 12-minutes-a-game backup to Shaquille O’Neal; when O’Neal has been hurt, he has flourished, including a 17.7 scoring and 8.2 rebounding average in December 1997.

DEREK FISHER (guard)

No.: 2. Size: 6-1, 200.

Age: 24. Third season.

If he can keep things calm and distribute the ball--a vast departure from Nick Van Exel’s storm and fury--the Lakers believe he can be the perfect low-key complement. He started the last 33 games of the regular season (averaging 8.7 points and 5.7 assists), when the Lakers were 26-7.

RICK FOX (forward)

No. 17, 6-7, 242.

Age: 29. Eighth season.

Served as a steadying presence at small forward last season, averaging 12 points and 3.4 assists, and was the only Laker to start all 82 games. May lose some playing time to Bryant.

DEREK HARPER (guard)

No.: 12. Size: 6-4, 206.

Age: 37. 16th season.

Brought in as much for his experience (90 playoff games) as his defensive and ballhandling abilities. Last season, he played in 66 games with Orlando, averaging 8.6 points and 3.5 assists.

ROBERT HORRY (forward)

No.: 5. Size: 6-10, 235.

Age: 28. Seventh season.

Probably will start the season slightly out of position again at power forward. Horry averaged a career-high 7.5 rebounds last season. But his three-point shooting, once a strength, all but disappeared: He made only 19, compared to his career-high 142 in 1995-96, his final season in Houston.

SAM JACOBSON (guard)

No.: 7. Size: 6-4, 215.

Age: 23. Rookie.

First-round draft pick from Minnesota has displayed high-flying athletic skills and a shooting touch, but he has been slowed by a hip injury and probably will not see much playing time early.

EDDIE JONES (guard)

No.: 6. Size: 6-6, 200.

Age: 27. Fifth season.

After seeing his friend Van Exel traded, then hearing his name in trade rumors, this could be Jones’ pivotal season. He is the Lakers’ most reliable outside shooter and best defensive player, but how Coach Del Harris decides to split his time with Bryant might be a very delicate issue.

TRAVIS KNIGHT (forward)

No.: 40, 7-0, 235.

Age: 24. Third season.

Returned to Lakers in a trade for Tony Battie after one season with the Celtics. Lakers are looking for him to expound on his rookie season, when he worked well with O’Neal and showed he could find open spaces and make the medium-range jump shot.

TYRONN LUE (guard)

No.: 10. Size: 6-0, 175.

Age: 21. Rookie.

Though the team doesn’t have a great need for a third point guard, Lue has explosive abilities as an acrobatic dunker, a shooter and an up-tempo speed demon. Acquired from Denver in the Van Exel trade.

SHAQUILLE O’NEAL (center)

No.: 34. Size: 7-1, 315.

Age: 26. Seventh season.

O’Neal and David Robinson are the only two active players to have won an NBA scoring title, and O’Neal, who averaged 28.3 points last season, is a favorite to do it this season. But he must remain healthy. O’Neal has missed an average of 27 games the last three seasons, and any lingering injury this shortened season could be devastating.

RUBEN PATTERSON (forward)

No.: 21. Size: 6-6, 227.

Age: 23. Rookie.

The one Laker rookie who might see some minutes in the early going, Patterson impressed the coaches, and got the attention of his teammates, with his physical toughness and readiness to use it.

SEAN ROOKS (center)

No.: 45. Size:, 6-10, 260.

Age: 29. Seventh season.

A journeyman starting his third season with the Lakers, he played in a career-low 41 games last season.