Lakers Follow Line of Thinking

Camp Karma began Tuesday, with two hours of fundamental details and one last drill that had 20 Laker players laughing, panting and all heading in the same direction.

You did not have to be a psychology major to understand the symbolism.

And you only had to look at new Coach Phil Jackson’s large smile to see that the Lakers’ first training camp practice ended exactly as he had hoped.

“We try to make it fun, even though it’s kind of like a stilted practice,” Jackson said, referring to a host of drills that emphasized footwork and staying under control. “We try to just have a good time, and we finish on a high note.

“And I think we finished on a spectacular note.”

In his final drill of the morning practice at UC Santa Barbara’s Robertson Gym, Jackson instructed the Lakers to line up, from shortest to tallest--guard Tyronn Lue to Shaquille O’Neal--and start running, remaining in that straight line with the man in front deciding at which speed and in which direction the rest of the team would run.

When Jackson blew his whistle, the player at the back had to sprint to the front and become the new leader, until Jackson blew his whistle again.

“Everyone has to stay and keep up,” swingman Rick Fox said. “It’s a team running drill, instead of breaking it up with the guards, forwards . . .

“It’s camaraderie, it’s bringing guys together. Everyone’s under the same format, following somebody for a period of time, until he blows the whistle, and it changes and it shifts.”

Said Kobe Bryant, “It was funny seeing the big guys trying to catch up to the little guys. Us little guys kind of took it upon ourselves to mess with them a little bit.

“And then, when the big guys finally caught up, like John Salley, he just said, ‘Aw, I’m going to just start walking.’ He just slowed things up, stopped, and we all had to follow. It was kind of fun.”

The running theme of the first few hours under Jackson--including Monday night’s team dinner and a Tuesday morning meeting--was that the Lakers, regardless of what happened in the past, now must think of themselves as a single unit.

“Every drill we do, we have a partner, and everything relies on you working cohesively with the other guy,” Bryant said. “The drill won’t work if you don’t do it, you know what I mean?

“It felt good. A couple times we bumped. I ran into my guy. A couple times Shaq ran into his guy. We were running all over the place. Then after a while, things started clicking . . . [and] it started to become smoother.”

The first few two-a-day practices, Jackson said, are mainly to show his new players the outline of the triangle offense, how to set it up, and how to get into the proper frame of mind to play for him.

“You have to be open to everything,” Fox said. “I think that’s one thing that Phil wants us to be is open-minded.”

He and his staff won’t start getting into the more intricate parts of the triangle until Thursday or Friday, Jackson said.

“The most important thing is that you’re under control and you’re not allowing your offensive abilities to try and beat everybody,” Jackson said. “You can’t beat everybody, so you’ve got to be under control.

“So we teach simple things, like stopping with the basketball under control. Passing with the basketball under control. Handling the ball with control. And basic footwork that accelerates the coordination of a team.

“So it’s just really very, very basic things. But the emphasis is simply that we want players to be under control, on the floor, using their talents, but still in a position where they can control the ball and themselves.”