Road Show

Somewhere near the end of this, when the arena lights dimmed in a nameless NBA precinct and the latest three-hour jam was complete, I had my epiphany, even as my ears rang and the roadies cleared me out:

The Laker journey that ended here Monday night was more than a 3-3 trip, it was a landmark rock ‘n’ roll tour, a visit to the NBA limits.

It was loud, unsettling, unpredictable and adolescent, moving us all to frustration, rebellion, and, at times, something close to awe.

For six sold-out shows over nine nights in six cities, it was the Beatles on hardwood, trading jibes and solos, threatening breakups and cementing friendships, enraging and delighting the faithful and the obnoxious alike.

The only differences were that the Lakers need no opening act and the troupe had to wade through four cities before Ringo Rodman finally joined us.

He missed the really fun stuff, though.

You had to sit through the clunky misfiring times to fully experience the great parts--Kobe Bryant plugging in and creating a whole new sound, Shaquille O’Neal’s routine of pregame riffing and during-game slamming, Kurt Rambis’ heart-on-sleeve noodling, the entire team searching to find itself in public view, night after night, and all the tiny, itchy quiet moments that make a grueling trip a rite of passage.

Maybe it was meaningless. But for many days in March, it seemed that the Lakers-on-and-on-and-on-the-road was the only thing there was.

THE PHANTOM DENNIS

* L.A. SOUTHWEST COLLEGE, Saturday, March 13

It was getaway day--the flight to Sacramento was to go after a light practice, but there was a slight problem: no Dennis Rodman.

In the gym, O’Neal pondered the Lakers’ journey into Dennisland, and, chuckling, shared the what-can-we-do attitude of the entire, championship-starved franchise: “If I get a couple rings, I’m doing the same stuff. I ain’t going to training camp, I ain’t going to practice, I ain’t going to games . . . “

The Lakers hadn’t hit the road yet, hadn’t seen their 10-game winning streak blasted into smithereens, didn’t know Rodman would be gone for four games to deal with “personal issues,” so the crisis was a few days away.

Back inside, O’Neal repeated that the trade three days earlier that netted the Lakers Glen Rice and J.R. Reid for Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell had him thinking big.

“We’ve won 10 straight, but I ain’t got no champagne in my nose yet,” he said. “But I guarantee you, when we do win the championship, I’ll be pouring it down your throat.”

ODD MAN OUT

* SACRAMENTO, Saturday night and Sunday, March 13-14

THE SHOW: The Lakers got their first dose of what would be many Rodman questions, but easily laughed it off. A few weeks earlier, then-coach Del Harris had implored them not to discuss Rodman. And while Rick Fox was quietly discussing Rodman’s absence before the game-day shoot-around, Robert Horry, the team humorist, dead-panned, “Psst, Del told us not to talk about him.”

THE FINALE: During the game, Derek Harper, sidelined by a sore ankle, strength and conditioning coach Jim Cotta, O’Neal’s bodyguard, Jerome Crawford and several fans donned thick, black-framed Rambis-style glasses.

“I can’t believe Kurt wore these,” Harper said.

The Sacramento game was exciting, but almost wholly defense-free, and Jason Williams and Predrag Stojakovic toasted the Lakers. The 10-game winning streak was history in the Lakers’ first game without Rodman.

GUEST APPEARANCE BY: Magic Johnson. He said Rambis, the former power forward, was precisely the man for this often-bickering, occasionally brilliant team.

“Kurt is fine,” Johnson said. “He’s a guy who can deal with stuff like this. He’s been through this. He’s been through everything. When we were winning championships, we didn’t let anything disturb us. Guys went through stuff then. He’s already been through it.”

BACKSTAGE ACCESS: Saturday night, most of the team got together in their Sacramento hotel and watched the pay-per-view telecast of the Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield draw fiasco.

‘We haven’t done that since I’ve been here,” Fox said. “Spending time together, creating chemistry.”

If they can’t always play together on the court, they could at least agree on woeful boxing decisions. Said Derek Fisher, raging, minutes after the decision, “That was horrible, man.”

PERSONAL KARMA: For me, the trip did not begin auspiciously. During the game, Reid heaved a long, wild screwball that landed on my stale cup of coffee, emptying the tepid remainder all over me--with eight more days of wardrobe planning left.

“Yeah,” Reid joked later about the wayward toss, “my receivers ran bad routes on that one.”

COME TOGETHER

* MINNEAPOLIS, Monday and Tuesday, March 15-16

THE SHOW: Who says this is a dysfunctional team? Two days after Lewis-Holyfield, the Lakers had a rare off-night after flying into Minneapolis, so O’Neal arranged for luxury box accommodations for any teammates who wanted to watch the Timberwolves play the Utah Jazz. O’Neal, Crawford, Harper, Tyronn Lue, Rice and Fisher went to the Target Center--the first time any of them could remember watching a game together.

“You hear Utah, and you definitely want to go and check it out, you know what I’m saying?” Harper said.

“Nothing against Eddie, against Elden, but we’ve come together as a basketball team. I think the way you do it is to spend time together, is to do little things together. You don’t have to sleep together or eat every meal together. But it’s good for a team to be around each other--and you can do that on a road trip.”

Said O’Neal, “I think it’s good. The guys pretty much like each other. . . . But nothing really matters but playing together out on the court.”

THE FINALE: Three games into his Laker career, Rice shot them to victory over the Timberwolves. And afterward, Reid listened to Rice’s measured postgame words about scorching Minnesota’s Kevin Garnett, and bellowed: “Tell the truth, Glen, you destroyed him!”

BACKSTAGE ACCESS: Two games into it, the Rodman episode--”I hear your boy is back in Vegas, what’s up with that?” O’Neal demanded of Crawford, who had become friendly with Rodman--began to penetrate the team’s peace.

Grilled again after the game, Rambis slipped a little, saying, “If . . . well, when Dennis gets back . . . “

GUEST APPEARANCE BY: Dennis Scott. O’Neal’s good friend and former Magic teammate who was about to be signed by Minnesota popped into the Laker locker room after the game, getting a big hug from O’Neal.

PERSONAL KARMA: The most chilling moment of the trip arose from a sheet of paper. It was a statement from Rodman’s talent agency, released by the agency’s public relations firm, and vetted by the Lakers, which said nothing.

CH-CH-CHANGES

* CLEVELAND, Wednesday and Thursday, March 17-18

THE SHOW: The Lakers guffawed when asked about a TNT report that they had voted to authorize Rodman’s being fined for his Vegas venture. When Rambis was stopped by a particularly daffy TV interviewer, O’Neal strolled by and unplugged the camera.

“There’s no votes on this team,” O’Neal said. “I vote. That’s it.”

On the bigger canvas, though, Rodman’s stretched-out absence provoked a question: Were all the Lakers’ moves in such a short period of time--the firing of Harris, Rodman’s signing, the trade--too much to throw on a title-contending but still young team? Without Rodman--and, by the way, Jones--in the lineup to buck up the defense, Bryant was having to adjust on the fly to quicker guards, the Laker point guards weren’t getting enough help defending the pick-and-roll and who knew who the Laker power forward was?

“Well,” Executive Vice President Jerry West had said earlier, “our owner likes change.”

THE FINALE: Rambis fumed after the worst loss of the trip, against an undermanned, not particularly sharp Cavalier team that took full advantage of Bryant’s inexperience and the lack of weak-side Laker defense.

BACKSTAGE ACCESS: The clearest sign that Rambis has his heart--and soul--in the right place was his determination to maintain his pregame workouts with the three Laker rookies. Can you imagine Harris or Pat Riley donning shorts and feeding bounce passes at 5 p.m.?

The rookies love the attention, are able to bond as a unit--in Sacramento, they stormed off the court together, refusing to remain after Horry had teased them--and Rambis gets sweaty therapy.

Lue, a point guard, emerged as a workout star. After one Cleveland shoot-around, the players buzzed about his making about 95% of his shots, and in Dallas, he crowed about beating Rice in a pregame shooting contest.

You can’t totally grasp the charismatic chaos of the Lakers until you hear a classic O’Neal pregame spiel.

“I don’t believe in ifs,” O’Neal said. “Because if I would’ve said something to Halle Berry that one time, maybe she would’ve married me. Because I had her right there, and I didn’t say nothing to her. Just me and her.

“I met her at an awards show, she was right here. The only thing I could do, ‘How are you doing?’ . . . If I would’ve said something to her, maybe she would’ve married me. Because I had her alone. No fans. . . . Me and Jerome [Crawford] and Jerome turned his back and walked away. I can’t believe it. Big Daddy froze!”

GUEST APPEARANCE BY: Corie Blount. The recently released forward was picked up by the Cavaliers, saw Horry, who hadn’t played the previous game, and teased, “Hey, I hear you took my place!”

LIKE A ROLLING STONE

* PHILADELPHIA, Friday, March 16

THE SHOW: There was a glamorous atmosphere in the Four Seasons hotel, and it had nothing to do with the Lakers. The Rolling Stones had played some Philly shows a few days earlier, and were still hanging around.

“The Rolling Stones? Oh, that’s who must’ve been calling me in my room,” Rambis joked.

Having visited the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame a day earlier in Cleveland, I am in a musical mind-set, and I can’t help wondering if Bryant is the Lakers’ young Elvis. He’s raw, but no matter who’s on stage with him, he’s pretty much the show.

He is also alone. Away from the games, Bryant is almost always removed. Even wedged into the same small locker room with his teammates, Kobe seems apart from his teammates, not by his own choice but by the touch of a higher hand.

O’Neal, of course, is following his own, title-hungry, giant-heart fate. Bryant, it seems, is following something more, biding his time before leading an NBA reformation.

“I just stay in myself,” Bryant said. “I think I get it from my mother. My dad is more of a people person. I’d rather not go out. I stay in my hotel room. . . . I’ve always been by myself. Remember, I was raised overseas. It was always just me, by myself. Just me and the game.”

Even at the highest level of the sport, it still is.

THE FINALE: Against the 76ers, Bryant had Allen Iverson and the Philadelphia pick-and-roll to deal with, and after Iverson scored 41 and the Lakers had lost their second in a row, Bryant accepted the blame, saying that defending the pick-and-roll was “foreign land for me.”

In the game’s final seconds, a frustrated Rambis had to be restrained from going into the stands after a taunting fan. Afterward, he took a quick shower, then answered a question about the flash abruptly: “We can leave that alone.”

Said longtime assistant Bill Bertka, “There’s nobody in a good mood right now. We’re positive this group is going to jell and be productive. . . . It’s just a matter of time. But it’s been rough in the channel, you know?”

GUEST APPEARANCE BY: Billy Hunter. The union chief who led the players into the money-losing lockout that helped cause this brutal schedule. Union dissident O’Neal, on the floor doing stomach exercises, stayed on the floor but extended his hand when Hunter came to greet him.

PERSONAL KARMA: I forgot my room number after wandering downstairs, and it just so happened that I was on the same floor as the Stones. The posted security guard grimaced as I tried door after door--513? 523? 531? I disturbed no Stones, as far as I could tell, and safely made it to 521 after 15 minutes or so.

Really, having legendary rockers around helped put Rodman--a day from his re-arrival--into perspective. He isn’t so much a basketball player as a character of fiction delivered into our laps, a semi-real Elmore Leonard plot-contrivance. The regular rules of logic and nature just don’t apply to him. We all have to react to him. That’s how the story gets written.

REVELATION

* ORLANDO, Saturday and Sunday, March 21-22

THE SHOW: They spent the last four games proving they needed him, and yes, Rodman arrived in the early-morning hours Sunday.

“We had the meeting this morning, and I’m sitting there doing my own thinking, paying attention, or whatever, and I hear the coach say something about Dennis,” Bryant said. “I was like, ‘Dennis?’ I look around, he’s sitting in the room. I’m like, ‘Dang, when did he get here?’ I didn’t even know.”

Bryant showed a flair for drama too, with a performance that shook the league--a career-high 38 points, 33 in the second half, single-handedly dragging the Lakers back from a 20-point halftime deficit to the exhilarating victory on national television.

During the display, Bryant seemed to cross an invisible line and he, the Lakers, and the NBA may never be the same again.

Said Magic Coach Chuck Daly, “They’re a traveling all-star team.”

GUEST APPEARANCE BY: Julius Erving. The former star turned Magic executive visited the Laker locker room to bond with Bryant.

BACKSTAGE ACCESS: Bryant was reluctant to talk about his virtuoso performance--”I’ve done it before in high school”--but burbled with animation when he talked about the previous day’s trip to Walt Disney World.

“Disney is like the greatest place in the world,” Bryant said. “It’s like the happiest place on earth. If I could, I’d live there. . . . You go there, it takes all your worries away.”

PERSONAL KARMA: I drove at a high rate of speed to the Lakers’ hotel Saturday night, knowing that Rodman was due to arrive and that he had been blowing off flights all day.

I stepped into the lobby, and my heart stopped: Someone in a beautiful white wedding dress. Dennis?

No. The bride was blond, about 21, and a female--not tall, male and tattooed. I exhaled. Rubbed my blurry eyes. And exited.

Observed Bertka, “The aspect that Dennis brought to this team by his play in that run, by his hustle and work on the floor, it made other guys work. In his absence, we haven’t played with that same intensity.

“See, that’s the other dimension that he brings as a silent leader to the team, and it’s not BS, that’s straight. I called him ‘the silent leader,’ and I hope that’s restored.”

I LOVE L.A.

* DALLAS, Monday, March 22

THE FINALE: By the end of the trail, Shaq had lost his luggage in Orlando--”They’re probably going to auction my stuff off on the courtroom steps like they did O.J.’s stuff,” he joked--and the Lakers had pretty much lost their taste for hotel living.

And I had to write this story, which was not so hard as I thought it might be.

The Lakers, who beat the Mavericks running on fumes, are larger than life, full of pageantry and jealousies. They hate each other at times, love each other sporadically, and will fight for each other, usually.

But they won’t escape the chaos--not this season, at least. If that is the cost of a championship, Laker management is all too willing to pay. The Lakers travel now with an entourage of camera crews and supplicants, by far the most interesting, complicated, talented and perhaps foolhardy team in the league. That’s worth something.

GUEST APPEARANCE BY: Deion Sanders.

KARMA CONCLUSION: When I told one Laker player that I wouldn’t get back to L.A. until Tuesday afternoon, with a laugh, he said, “Watch out, you might miss something.”

But I am going to take a brief time away from the hurly-burly anyway, to clear my mind and deal with things other than hoops, hideaways, two-hours-a-night sleeps and three-hour flights.

Personal issues, you see.

LAKER TRIP REPORT

March 14 at Sacramento / L 101-105

March 16 at Minnesota / W 107-101

March 18 at Cleveland / L 93-100

March 19 at Philadelphia / L 90-105

March 21 at Orlando / W 115-104

March 22 at Dallas / W 96-93

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A Long, Strange Trip

West Coast, Midwest, East Coast, South and Southwest: The Lakers touched all the bases during their nine-day journey and had to win the last two-games to get a split after a 1-3 start to the trip.

START

Los Angeles to Sacramento: 390 miles

Sacramento to Minneapolis: 1,970 miles

Minneapolis to Cleveland: 750 miles

Cleveland to Philadelphia: 440 miles

Philadelphia to Orlando: 1,010 miles

Orlando to Dallas: 1,125 miles

Dallas to Los Angeles: 1,450 miles

TOTAL ROAD TRIP MILEAGE: 7,135 MILES