Bigger Isn’t Necessarily Better, but It’s Not Too Bad

Well, it wasn’t like any season we’d seen around here lately, or ever.

Even the Showtime teams of the ‘80s never saw anything like the celebration that greeted the 2000 Lakers’ triumph, which shows, first and foremost, how much things have changed in the 12 years between titles.

If anything, Showtime had more charisma. Those were the Lakers of Magic Johnson, Pat Riley, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Byron Scott, Michael Cooper--even a reserve could be a star on that team-- playing dazzling fastbreak ball before celebrity-spangled crowds, engaging in a decade-long rivalry with Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics, winning five titles and making the finals three other times in nine seasons.

This team just won its first title in a subdued, post-Jordan-transition NBA season. But the popular hunger for victory in what used to be our blase L.A., and the eruption when it happened, dwarfed anything in Showtime.

People wonder why so many of these celebrations go wrong. My own suspicion is, it has to do with how huge and transcendent championship runs have become.

Everything is so much bigger, including the coverage. In 1991, the last time the Lakers were in the finals, The Times sent four writers to Chicago for the start of the series. We had eight in Indianapolis.

Beyond the traditional sports page conventions that bob to the surface, as if to legitimize the blowoff, the arguable notions that championships heal community problems and provide a significant boost to the economy, there’s a general feeling this is just too good a party to miss.

Standards and ethics are relaxed. Journalism blurs with cheerleading. During the parade, one TV guy announced he has been a Laker fan all his life. TV Guide was on the stands with cover shots of several Lakers--among them outward-bound Glen Rice--and the headline, “Dynasty Two.”

Is it so surprising that at the height of such across-the-board exhilaration, a ragged edge of a party-mad society confuses mayhem with joy?

The championship experience is now seen as ultimately defining. Players as great as Karl Malone, who has scored more than 30,000 points while holding up his little one-horse franchise, and Charles Barkley, America’s Guest and Clown Prince, are still asked if their careers were really complete.

Yeah, despite the money and adulation, who could possibly have a life without an eight-ounce ring to brag about?

Of course, the margin between “winner” and “loser” is often precarious and rarely more so than for these Lakers.

During the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the Western Conference finals, a bunch of us sat in the press box, trying to reassess their season on the fly, in the light of the latest development, a 15-point Portland lead.

Improbably, the Lakers rallied to win. Had they fallen, instead, it would have been a big story for us and a huge disappointment for many of you. It would have put a noticeable dent in their season, but I wouldn’t have felt it had invalidated it.

The Lakers no longer had a rolling player mutiny and after the circus of the previous season, were now back in responsible hands.

I wouldn’t have thought Shaquille O’Neal was still a loser. I never thought he was a loser, simply a massive, talented guy who had a hang-up or two and hadn’t won.

I wouldn’t have thought Kobe Bryant was a misfit. There were problems with his being so young--it wouldn’t have been what I’d have wanted for my son, a childhood being a terrible thing to surrender--but it was obvious that he not only belonged but was bound for something special.

I wouldn’t have thought it nullified what Phil Jackson had done. There were still personnel problems to resolve, but there was no missing what he’d done for O’Neal, Bryant and the tenor of the entire operation.

Now, instead, it’s a bright, brave new Laker world, and it doesn’t look as if it’s going to be anything like the old one, either.

No one around here was surprised to learn Jerry West, the Laker legend/architect, had finished another season, even a championship season, emotionally wrung out, was telling friends he was retiring and hinting about it to the press.

Everyone here shrugged it off, because it’s a local rite of spring, but the New York Times bit with a story suggesting West “may quit.”

West’s friends say they expect him to hang in there. The question becomes, for how long?

Compared to what’s coming, this season was a lark. The expectations--internal and external, with Shaq blithely aiming for “two, three, four, five”--didn’t go away, they multiplied.

Everything will be bigger and more histrionic--including national coverage of West’s annual funk--and if they do win another title . . . well, check Chicago in the ‘90s. It not only can happen here, it has already started.

Jackson will have more say in personnel, because it’s his system they’re running and his preferences they have to accommodate. Jackson likes players he coached in Chicago, so keep a light on for Bison Dele, Steve Kerr, et al.

More constraints and press coverage aren’t likely to improve West’s love-hate orientation toward his job. It’s a problem he’ll surmount or it will finally chase him out of here, just when his ship came in.

“This is the fruit of his labors,” a friend of West says. “I’d just like to see him sit back and enjoy it.”

Everyone else around here is having no trouble enjoying it. It’s a new decade, but so far, it’s all Lakers.

DRAFT PRIMER: CRASH COURSE

Another nice thing about the local team going deep into the playoffs: It cuts down on draft speculation and saves you reading so-and-so is wowing the scouts, then reading that the same guy’s stock is diving.

To cut to the chase: It’s a down year.

The top three are Cincinnati’s Kenyon Martin, Louisiana State’s Stromile Swift and Iowa State’s Marcus Fizer, although none would crash last spring’s best, Elton Brand, Steve Francis and Lamar Odom.

The high-bounding Martin will go No. 1 to New Jersey--unless the Nets trade the pick to panting Orlando, which has three picks--Nos. 5, 10 and 13--to offer.

Vancouver, No. 2, is sold on Swift, who’s sort of a lean version of Antonio McDyess, a fabulous athlete who has to learn how to play.

The Clippers, No. 3, like Fizer, a little tank with a lot of offense. Kind of like a short Maurice Taylor at the start of his contract instead of the end. How can they resist?

Chicago, picking fourth and seventh, might take high school phenom Darius Miles, whom Michael Jordan compared to Kevin Garnett, knowing it then can get a center--Texas’ 6-foot-11 Chris Mihm or 7-0 Minnesota dropout Joel Pryzbilla.

Miles is an exciting prospect with a big upside. The centers are tall, anyway.

Then there are the foreigners whose names you can start struggling with: a 7-1, 280-pound Georgian named Iakovos “Jake” Tsakilidis (Sock-a-LEDE-ease), who might go in the top 10; Olumide Oyedeji (Oh-yay-DAY-jay), a 6-10 Nigerian who might make the lottery, and projected first rounders, 7-0 Dalibor Bagaric (Ba-GAR-ich) of Croatia and 6-6 Marko Jaric (YAR-ich) of Yugoslavia.

As usual, the pros, who love big point guards, are thinking of bypassing the usual suspects--Mateen Cleaves, Erick Barkley--for a bigger dark horse, 6-3 Michigan freshman Jamal Crawford. There also are scouts who note Crawford is raw and really just a shooting guard who brings the ball up.

This being a huge free-agent summer, there could be a lot of trades in conjunction with the draft. So get ready, we’re going to have to pack three weeks of rumors in the next three days.

FACES AND FIGURES

Joe Dumars, the Pistons’ new head of basketball operations, keeps saying he has seen nothing to suggest Grant Hill won’t be back. OK, how’s this? Hill just paid visits to New York and Orlando, just to look around. Insiders say he’s being pulled in all directions. Dumars, his friend, is, of course, urging him to stay, at least another year. Hill’s wife, a Motown singer, reportedly wants to stay in Detroit. Hill’s parents, however, reportedly are in favor of his leaving. Whether Hill gets a vote is as yet unknown. . . . This just in: Tim Duncan will visit Orlando too.

Never mind (cont.): Remember when Miami Coach Pat Riley swore undying devotion to his players--(“The next time this team is stripped down and rebuilt, I won’t be coaching it.”)? Riley just thought better of it and reportedly has told Jamal Mashburn, Clarence Weatherspoon and even P.J. Brown they might be traded.

Coaching derby: New Jersey’s Rod Thorn, suggesting he still hasn’t gotten the hang of this GM thing, lost his old mentor, Lenny Wilkens, to Toronto, where Wilkens’ calm and ability to organize a team will be just what the Raptors need after Butch Carter’s raving. Unfortunately, by the time Wilkens starts to work, Tracy McGrady will be gone. Charles Oakley and Antonio Davis want out too.

Bird, now a 6% owner of the Pacers after receiving 2% for each season he coached, turned down a front-office position. Insiders say he wants to put together a group to buy the Celtics. Owner Paul Gaston steadfastly has insisted he won’t sell, but how will he feel in a year or two, when Rick Pitino probably will be gone and Celtic fans will be cursing his name and praying to posters of Larry Legend?

Incomparable Dallas owner Mark Cuban said he had a deal with Denver, sending the Nuggets little-used Sean Rooks, oft-injured Robert Pack and about-to-retire Hot Rod Williams for Chris Gatling and Popeye Jones. The next day, the Nuggets said there was no deal. By then, Cuban was talking about sending Pack, Williams and Shawn Bradley to Atlanta for Dikembe Mutombo. “I’ve been hitting Atlanta hard, trying to push them,” Cuban said. “They aren’t sure if they’re going to go young and for cap space, which would let them make the deal, or build around Mutombo.” . . . Tomorrow: Pack, Williams and Bradley for Shaq?