Streak Served With Big Helping of Rice

Glen Rice has Elden Campbell’s old No. 41. There’s no truth to the rumor that when he put his uniform on, his blood pressure dropped to 90/50.

Talk about your long preseasons.

After an extended warmup that consisted of a six-month lockout and two rumor-saturated weeks of training camp, followed by the strangest month of ball any of them had ever been through, the Lakers finally unveiled the team they had so long envisioned Friday night.

Of course, things didn’t always go smoothly. Ask Glen Rice. The first time he touched the ball, he put up a 20-footer and missed. The second time, he put up another 20-footer and missed again.

The third time he touched it, he was fouled. His first free throw barely grazed the rim and dropped into the lane.

“I think he’s rusty,” said Sacramento assistant Byron Scott, scouting at courtside.

It was supposed to take a while for the Lakers to get used to each other, but the Golden State Warriors were hoping it would be a little longer than one quarter. The visitors were within 23-21 at the end of the first period but by halftime, the Lakers led, 57-36. So much for their lost cohesion.

Not that the Warriors came in overly optimistic. When Coach P.J. Carlesimo saw Rambis in a Forum hallway before the game, he yelled, “I envy you!”

Replied Rambis: “Why would anyone envy me?”

Go down to P.J.’s dressing room and check out the view from there. That’s why.

In the newly aligned dressing room, Dennis Rodman has Nick Van Exel’s old cubicle, two seats from Shaquille O’Neal, although Rodman is never there when reporters are around and doesn’t say much to teammates when he’s in the room. Rice sits between Rodman’s stall and O’Neal’s.

Of course, it was Shaq who pleaded so poignantly in camp for a “shooter” and a “thug.” Now that he has them, maybe he wants to keep them close at hand.

Not that everyone wanted to make either of these changes.

By the time Rodman ended his three-week holdout, if anyone had polled the players and the front office, the vote might have been 100-1 against signing him, with Jerry Buss the lone dissenting vote.

The Rice deal was Jerry West’s idea, but there were suggestions, as the Lakers’ winning streak mounted, that Rambis and some players had misgivings about messing with something that was working so well.

Rambis acknowledges he felt some “apprehension,” but noted, laughing, “I was a pawn in that chess game.”

Several days before the trade, Derek Harper, whose influence among his teammates increases daily, said he liked the team they had, but now they have another one.

Now Harper has to get used to a new teammate, although he isn’t worrying about it.

“A shooter,” mused Harper, “you just got to give them the basketball.”

Friday, Rice was giving new dimension to the word “shooter.” Obviously eager to impress his new fans and teammates, Rice launched eight of the first nine times he touched the ball, making two.

Rice played only 27 minutes. Rodman, who is still trying to catch up, went eight. It’ll take a lot longer than one game for the Lakers to move beyond their transition phase.

J.R. Reid now has a locker next to his college teammate, Rick Fox, on Tar Heel Row. Friday, of course, wasn’t their best day, with everyone asking where Weber State was.

One small forward, Rice, steps up. Another, Fox, steps back.

Fox, last season’s starter, left last summer, intending never to return, disillusioned by the strife within the dressing room.

However, for the second time, he turned down a $10-million, multiyear offer from Atlanta for a one-year Laker deal, because he thought they could win.

Then he went out with bone spurs, lost his job to Kobe Bryant, then saw himself superseded by Rice.

“I couldn’t have foreseen this,” he says, “but if we win, I think I’ll be just as happy. I know I have the ability to contribute in a lot of ways. And my career, no way it’s going to be over after this year.

“It [coming back] was just something I had to do, you know? I don’t regret it. What I wanted out of basketball in the second half of my career--I couldn’t have lived with myself without giving myself that opportunity.”

The opportunity is still there. The Laker transition isn’t over, but Friday it had its moments.