Kerr, Perdue Say Lakers Won’t Be Hearing Any Bull

Imagine Kobe Bryant going through a two-hand chest pass drill for an entire practice. Or Shaquille O’Neal running sprints and setting picks for two hours without a basketball in sight.

That’s what the Lakers should expect for their first training camp practice under new Coach Phil Jackson in the fall, according to San Antonio’s Steve Kerr and Will Perdue, two former Chicago Bulls who said Wednesday that the Lakers will get more Basketball 101 than Zen.

“[Jackson] pays more attention to the basic fundamentals than any coach I’ve ever had,” said Kerr, who played on three consecutive NBA title teams with Chicago. “I think we spent the first half-hour of practice just going over footwork and basic passes. I think that’s the biggest shock for people who [have never] played for him. Everyone is expecting all that Zen stuff and the meditation, but I don’t think people really realize how important he regards the fundamentals of the game. It showed in our play because we were always one of the most fundamentally sound teams in the league.”

Although the timing of Jackson taking over the Lakers came as a surprise to many, it didn’t to Kerr.

“I haven’t talked to him but we keep in touch through e-mail. . . . We get in contact once every couple of weeks,” said Kerr, who is trying to become the 11th player in league history to play on four consecutive championship teams as a backup guard with the Spurs in this year’s finals.

“I just knew all along that the [Laker] job is the job that he wanted. He never had any interest in New York or New Jersey. . . . He’s not stupid. That’s a job that gives him some bullets to play around with. He knows what he’s doing. A high-profile team with a couple of superstars and they’re going to be on NBC three times a week next season.”

Perdue agreed with Kerr about the weapons Jackson will have and added that if players such as O’Neal and Bryant take to the triangle offense, the Lakers will be a difficult team to play.

“I think he’ll help them, he’s proven in his history, even though it’s only been with one team, that he can mesh a bunch of different guys from different backgrounds,” Perdue said. “I don’t know if people think he’s going to [take the Lakers] immediately to the finals. I’m not sure if that’s going to happen. I think it’ll take patience. It’s going to take a lot of work for those guys because they’ve been through a lot of coaches.”

Because he played center for Jackson, Perdue knows from experience that O’Neal will benefit playing in a triangle offense.

“One of the things you saw this year with Shaq is that he definitely improved his passing out of double-teams,” Perdue said. “When you run the triangle offense and you don’t have a Michael Jordan to bail you out, you need a guy in the post who can really score and be a threat. When they do double-team, you just play off all the other options. Right now when you look at that team, they’ve got the outside shooting in [Glen] Rice; they’ve got the slasher and the drive in Kobe and they’ve got the guy in the middle in Shaquille.”

Even if the Lakers don’t win right away, their experience under Jackson is sure to be different.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that I saw eye-to-eye with him at all times but he did make it interesting,” Perdue said. “He made it fun. In an 82-game season, there’s ups and downs and there are lulls. He did some things that would keep your attention. You were never exactly sure what he was going to pull out. I was always waiting for the day when that white buffalo was going to go wandering through the gym.”