LIGHTENING UP

He keeps one desk lamp on, but nothing else lights Jerry West’s office, overlooking the Laker practice court and four decades of franchise history.

Yards away, the second floor of the new Laker headquarters is filled with brightness and sound--phones ring, interns zip from room to room and Phil Jackson’s voice rumbles from down the hall.

But this office is illuminated by one lightbulb and the undiminished, burning energy of Jerry West, the Lakers’ executive vice president, heart and churning soul.

It is enough.

“I never turn on the lights,” West said with deadpan delivery last week. “I like to keep it dark; it’s like a cage.”

But even West’s dry humor cannot mask the satisfaction he has gained from watching the Lakers roll to the best record in the league this season; though he leans back from the light, his eyes are bright and his smile unconcealed.

Approaching the Lakers’ first-round opener against the Sacramento Kings on Sunday, the chaos of the 1999 season is long gone. Jackson’s hand has tamed the demons. Dennis Rodman is only a strange memory. Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant are sharing credit, the basketball and warm high-fives.

Though they were looking touch-and-go for a while, the Lakers are confident and back together again, maybe for the first time since the late 1980s.

“For me, it has really been pleasing because we haven’t had the turmoil of the last two or three years,” West said. “That is no fun.

“I don’t like reading my name in the newspaper. I didn’t like participating in things that I find unpleasant with regards to players and coaches, and players and players. . . . I don’t like that.

“I think the personalities we have in the locker room have greatly changed. They understand that you need to feel good about each other in the locker room. . . . It’s been about 99 to 1 in the positive. Just pretty much basketball.”

These days, West doesn’t ruminate about walking away from the Lakers, at least, not as often as he has in the past.

Instead of a coaching change or big trade or another player tantrum--all of which wearied and worried him for most of 1998 and ‘99--he can grit his teeth through a playoff run and let the postseason fates dictate the rest.

“Jerry put this team together,” General Manager Mitch Kupchak said. “And to be where we are at this point in the season, there has to be an enormous amount of pride that he feels.

“We’ve been pretty close for a bunch of years. When he’s not happy, it bothers him, yeah. I think anybody who’s very close to him knows it. . . .

“But I think he’s in a better place right now. We’ve got some stability and we’ve had some success on the court and we’ve had fewer off-the-court distractions than we’ve had in the past, by far. As basketball people involved in talent evaluation, those are the things that drive you nuts.”

Said Bryant: “I think it’s not as nerve-racking for him. He feels more comfortable. He knows Phil and the coaching staff have been through a lot and can handle things. So, I don’t see him biting his nails as much.”

‘A Lot of Lessons Learned’

West logically and a little ruefully concedes that much of the chaos of the last two seasons, and especially the trip to Planet Rodman last season, was a shock treatment to prod things back onto the correct course.

Without knowing how bad it could get, the Lakers, maybe, wouldn’t have been forced into the discipline of this season--and into paying the kind of money it took to land Jackson.

It was time to either get it straight or start all over again.

“Everyone needs to know there are certain things you should never do,” West said. “Just because you pay someone a lot of money doesn’t mean he’s going to be a good basketball player.

“And we did some things last year that were uncharacteristic of our team . . . of the group of people that work together. I think there were a lot of lessons learned, a lot of lessons learned.

“I think in the off-season, when the players read things written in the newspapers, and there’s turmoil, it makes them much tougher, makes them much more resilient, and if they happen to be one of the persons that’s being mentioned a lot and their names are in the paper for the wrong reasons, it can be tough to read.

“I do think you go back and look in the mirror, you reexamine yourself, ‘What can I do to not only be a better player, but a better teammate?’

“Because it hasn’t been about talent around here the last two or three years. It hasn’t been about that.

“We’re not as talented as we were, but we have a better team.”

The most dangerous issue, though, wasn’t Rodman, who was released after 23 bizarre games; it was the strain developing between O’Neal and Bryant--two young superstars with independent ideas about which way the team should go.

Did West, a mentor to both players, ever worry that, despite their vast talents, the mix of O’Neal and Bryant might not work?

“Yes--it’d be a lie if I told you I didn’t say, ‘It may not work,’ ” West said.

“To watch him, I’m talking about Kobe, in his real high points, and you watch the low points, I would probably have been much more critical of him than anyone, much more critical.

“Yet if you’re around him enough, this is an infectious kid--he wants to be the best.

“But I think that he was going too fast to try to be the best. I think Phil, by being on top of him and not letting things slide, has made a significant difference in the way he’s played.

“For our other coaches here [Del Harris and Kurt Rambis], it wasn’t fair to them. Because he was so young. And the fans wanted to see him play. And he plays the game with a lot of flair.

“And if you play the game with a lot flair at this level, you will soon learn that there’s only so much mustard you can put on a hot dog.”

The difference between last season and this, West said, is that Bryant and O’Neal have realized their futures are intertwined.

They will rise together, as they have to 67 victories this season. Or, as they did last season, they will stumble together.

“I think sometimes in a crisis is when people understand a little more than they do when it’s not a crisis,” West said.

“You can only sweep things under a rug for a while. And some of the things that are most evident, and particularly to a lot of people watching--if they read it in the newspaper many times, I think sooner or later, I think somebody has to look at themselves a little bit differently than they have in the past.

“It’s impossible, except in individual sports, to win by yourself. Impossible. The greatness of Shaquille O’Neal has powered us to where we are this year.

“But without Kobe’s contribution, maybe we’d be a team that would [have people thinking], ‘Well, can they do it in the playoffs when you’re really going to be tested?’

“And I think that Glen Rice has sacrificed a lot. At one time, he was the primary focus of an offense. I think he’s done a great job. A great job in understanding that for his team to be successful, he’s going to have to do so many other little things that are necessary for a team to win, yet he’s also going to have to score some points.”

‘It Wasn’t Our Time’

So what does West see when he peers out his office window, surveying the 1999-2000 Lakers at work?

Does he see vivid similarities between this team and the explosive days of “Showtime,” when Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar led the Lakers to five championships from 1980 to 1988?

“That team--they were beautiful to watch,” West said. “[But] that team was a lot more vocal. This team seems to be a lot more workmanlike, out there trying to get things done.

“That’s an area, in the long run, is what’s most important--a workmanlike manner. I watch our practices out here, and we have guys that are much more understanding of their roles, and the outcome of the games seem to mean the most.”

The additions of veterans Ron Harper, A.C. Green and Brian Shaw into the Laker rotation has steadied nerves and set the mood for the team, West said.

Nobody fights for the ball or for extra minutes. It’s understood, by mandate of Jackson and carried out by the veteran leaders, that O’Neal, Bryant and Rice will get their shots, and everybody else fills in the gaps from there.

“That tells me that the team has found out there’s other ways to win basketball games and be successful, without scoring,” West said. “We don’t have five guys shooting the ball.

“We have a guard, we have a forward and we have a center. I think we have the best player in the league on our team now. I think he’s clearly ‘the guy’ on this team.

“Kobe is second in line. And I think Glen is third in line. And everyone seems to have accepted that. That is the beauty of I think what Phil wants done.”

Though West lavishes great praise on Jackson and his staff, he is careful not to criticize Harris and Rambis, the two coaches he replaced in rapid order last year.

But the back-to-back playoff sweeps the past two seasons, plus the frustrations among the players after those sweeps, made the dismissals impossible to avoid, West said.

“It was not the best situation, it was absolutely not,” West said. “I thought Del Harris did an incredible job. And I thought Kurt did a hell of a job under unbelievably difficult circumstances. Both of them did.

“But I think the way we ended the playoffs left a lot to be desired, I don’t think there’s any question.

“It wasn’t because this team didn’t try hard. It wasn’t that. It was just. . . . It wasn’t our time to win.”

‘People Would Have to Be Pleased, Right?’

West did not want this story to focus on questions about his future, but it will end that way, mainly because there suddenly are so few.

During each of the previous two seasons, West told friends and associates that he was sick of the emotional toll of his job and said he would retire any day now.

These days, with the most successful and secure coach in the league, two of the best five or six players and an honest shot to win three or four championships, there is little talk that West is headed out the door.

“That’s a very good thing,” Kupchak said.

West, though, said he still ponders retirement.

“It crosses my mind all the time, absolutely,” West said. “When you compete against yourself, and that’s what we’re doing--we’re competing against our success in this town--winning games sometimes is not enough.

“I mean, I still get letters sometimes that are pretty offensive.”

But can’t he just toss complaint letters out, laugh and remember that he’s Jerry West, and they’re not?

“I don’t really pay attention to it,” West said. “But certain times you would think that people would have to be pleased, right? They have to be pleased.

“To me, our most important thing, is our owner [Jerry Buss] happy? Is he happy? Fine. . . .

“I think he understands this has been a rather unique year for this point in time. He also understands we’re going to be judged by our accomplishments in the playoffs.”

It has been 12 years since the Lakers last won a title, someone mentions--imagine that.

“Feels a lot longer than that,” West said. “We have high expectations, but we still have a long way to go.”

NBA PLAYOFFS PULLOUT SECTION

THE X FACTOR

NBA playoff time is when Laker Coach Phil Jackson really shines, J.A. Adande writes.

KINGS OF CONFIDENCE

Sacramento isn’t fazed by fact it lost three of four to the Lakers during the regular season.

DIGGING IN

It has been a season of dealing with adversity for the defending champion San Antonio Spurs.

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