LOOKING FORWARD

Chris Webber is back in town, which means Chris Webber is back in focus. He usually isn’t the tallest player on the court. He has no MVP trophies or championship rings.

Yet we’re drawn to him, the same way those cameras are always drawn toward celebrities sitting in courtside seats.

Webber remains one of the most compelling figures in sports, in victory and defeat. Probably even more so in defeat.

His basketball career reads at times like a superhero comic book, at other times like Greek tragedy.

He is capable of making crowds in enemy territory ooh and aah, the way they did at Staples Center on Sunday when he swooped in for a tip dunk and rammed the ball through the hoop, then landed and did a back-somersault.

And he can drive the fans into a frenzy, the way he did with his comments after he fouled out of Game 1 that Laker forward Robert Horry was acting and trying to gain sympathy by flopping around the court.

Then Webber wonders, what’s with all the fuss?

“Any comments that were made were made after the game after being upset, being in foul trouble,” Webber said in a telephone interview from Sacramento. “I don’t think I have to apologize.”

Webber might not be in an apologetic mood, but he offered plenty of olive branches. He served up unsolicited praise for the Lakers (going so far as to call Kobe Bryant the best shooting guard in the league) and he even sounded as if he wanted a little sympathy from Laker fans.

“I think people have to understand,” Webber said. “We know the Lakers are a great-coached team. They have good players. They don’t need to cheat.

“It’s the level of frustration. We’ve worked hard and it all comes down to this week. We want to get to the second round.

“Ask the fans, what if they were playing the Lakers? Would they feel the way that I’m feeling, what I’m saying?”

If they want to make Webber the bad guy, he can deal with it. You get cast in the same role enough times and it doesn’t even require acting to play the part.

He was the guy who called time out in the NCAA championship game when his Michigan team didn’t have one, the spoiled rookie who feuded with Coach Don Nelson with Golden State, the centerpiece of a chronically underachieving team in Washington, where he ran into some off-the-court troubles as well.

But he keeps getting through the troubled times, and often emerges looking the better for it.

He gained much respect for the way he faced reporters and handled himself in the wake of the timeout.

The Warriors chose Nelson over Webber, and haven’t been to the playoffs since. (For that matter, neither has Nelson, who quit at Golden State, was fired 59 games into his tenure with the New York Knicks and has spent a three-year stint in Dallas that can best be described as “curious”).

The Wizards traded him to Sacramento, and he has made two playoff appearances with the most exciting team in the land while Washington is in a hole so deep it will be difficult even for Michael Jordan to jump out of it.

Last season Webber averaged 20 points and a career-high 13 rebounds, which led the league. He finally won a playoff game, as the upstart Kings pushed the Utah Jazz to five games in the first round.

He could have deluded himself into thinking he’d arrived, but he went back and developed his game even more.

“I was putting the hustle in,” Webber said. “But I wasn’t comfortable with my shot. My free throws were the lowest I shot [45%].”

His poor free-throw shooting meant the Kings had to go to Vlade Divac in crunch time, and the other teams knew it.

This season Webber improved his free-throw shooting to 75%, which helped him average a career-best 24.5 points. And now he’s a threat at all points of the game.

About the only strategy discussed during the Lakers’ media availability Wednesday--when the ratio of questions about yoga to questions about basketball was 3-1--was how to stop Webber.

Bryant said you have to make him shoot jump shots.

Phil Jackson said you have to all but forget the idea.

“We’re hoping we can absorb a 25-point game or 30-point game from Chris Webber and still survive,” Jackson said.

Webber is hoping his team can find a way to overcome the Lakers.

“I just think Shaq . . . Shaq’s so dominating,” Webber said. “I think Kobe, if he can be such a thing, he’s an underrated superstar. He gets a lot of publicity, but he gets it more for his glitz than what he really does. His work on the defensive end makes him by far the best two-guard in the game.

“I don’t know any small guy that plays defense as hard as he does, come back and plays the small guards and still has the energy offensively.”

“The great thing about Kobe, Shaq and Glen Rice, they have guys to lean on. You’ve got guys like that. It’s real easy to feed off them. Hopefully I’ve got guys who are ready for me to lean on.”

He could have been Shaq’s teammate, you know. After all, Orlando drafted Webber with the No. 1 overall pick in 1993, when O’Neal still played for the Magic. But Orlando sent Webber to Golden State in the trade for Penny Hardaway.

Webber thought he was going to be Shaq’s power forward again two years ago when he was traded to the Kings and there was rampant speculation he would then be dealt to the Lakers. He pictured himself getting rebound after rebound, letting O’Neal handle business on offense.

“I thought I was going to be there,” Webber said. “I really did. That’s really when I thought about all the ways I just wanted to be there for the Big Fella.

“I try not to think about it because it can’t do anything but make me depressed.”

Besides, it’s too hard to imagine on a team that has become so reliant on O’Neal. Chris Webber in the background? It could never happen.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com