Odom & Old Guys Do It for Clippers

If Glen Rice heard boos in his return to Staples Center Wednesday night, what kind of reception awaits him the first time he comes back here to play the Lakers?

That day won’t come until April 1, and maybe by then the fans will be over their animosity toward Rice. After all, he was a part of the group that’s responsible for the new championship banner hanging on the west side of Staples.

There were no warm feelings Wednesday night when the Clippers hosted the New York Knicks. It’s not as if Rice ever did anything bad to the Clippers. At least, nothing worse than the rest of the league does on a regular basis.

“I never did anything to the fans here, period,” Rice said. “They can’t fault me for the Lakers not offering me a contract. They should be booing [Jerry] Buss, not me.”

The fans booed Rice when he checked into the game with 1:47 left in the first quarter. They booed whenever he touched the ball.

“I was surprised,” Rice said. “But whatever they feel like they’ve gotta do to make them feel comfortable.

“If they want to boo me, let ‘em boo me. The ones that are booing me, they don’t even know why they’re booing me.”

There were cheers when he scored, but those were clearly from the Knick fans who made up a good portion of the 12,516 in attendance.

The folks in L.A. are supposed to be materialistic, but apparently words mean more than diamonds when it comes to Rice. He and his wife made it clear they weren’t happy with his role on the Lakers during the NBA finals and that’s become the lasting memory of his year-and-a-half in a Laker uniform.

Rice was in New York when the Lakers received their glittery championship rings, and he caught only a few glimpses of the ceremony on TV.

His own ring came in a box, sent in care of his new employers, the Knicks, to Madison Square Garden.

“About a week later,” Rice said. “But I got it. That’s all that matters.”

If only the ring was all that mattered the entire time. If it wasn’t about money, and hierarchy within the offense, and playing time--if it was just about the ring--Rice might still be a Laker.

But all of those other things came into play, sometimes at very inappropriate moments, and that’s why the Lakers couldn’t wait to get rid of Rice at the end of the season and he was content to leave for a reserve role on a franchise that won’t win rings any time in the near future.

Happy now?

Well, the Lakers like the additions of Horace Grant and Greg Foster, whom they received from Seattle in the four-team trade that sent Rice to the Knicks and ended the Patrick Ewing era in New York. But the Lakers have struggled to find another scoring option after Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. Rice filled that role adequately, if unhappily, last season by averaging 16 points a game.

And Rice, bolstered by his four-year, $36-million contract, claims happiness even though he is the odd man out in the Knicks’ swingman glut that includes Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston.

“I feel very comfortable,” Rice said. “I realize that we’ve got a great group of guys and the sky’s the limit for this team.”

Well, sure, anything’s possible in the weak Eastern Conference. But it’s also possible that Rice won’t play in June again for the rest of his career.

At the victory parade in June, Rice said he hoped to return to the Lakers. But really his fate was decided the previous summer, when he wanted a $14-million-a-year extension and the Lakers simply picked up the option year on his contract--at about half the price.

“I really wanted to be back,” Rice said. “In the back of my mind, I knew relationships weren’t as smooth as I would have liked it to be. In some cases you’ve got to move on.

“I won’t forget the things that have happened here, especially the good things.”

Not all went well. He struggled to fit in in the triangle offense, Coach Phil Jackson made it clear he wasn’t happy with Rice’s defense, and Rice spent some key stretches on the bench during the playoffs.

Rice’s agent, David Falk, later claimed that the Lakers did “a textbook job in how not to maintain the star value of a player” during a post-trade rant about the franchise.

But Rice didn’t bolster his reputation as a sharpshooter by hitting a career-low 37% of his three-point shots.

Rice has made only four of his first 14 three-point attempts this season, but he looks better when he drives to the hoop than he did last year and the Knicks say they are happy with his defense and rebounding (3.4 per game).

And, so far, Rice hasn’t complained to the ever-ready New York press corps about his role as the sixth man.

“It’s not easy,” Rice acknowledged before he struggled to a four-for-10 shooting night. “I think the frame of mind has to be different. I’m so used to getting in there, starting right away. I have to be warmed up, stretched out. On occasions it’s really tough, because I’m not as young as I used to be, so it takes me a couple of heat packs to get loose.”

The Lakers have offered to make a formal ring presentation before the April game, but he says that won’t be necessary.

“I had my ceremony [at the parade] once we won a championship,” Rice said. “Now I have my ring. I think that pretty much does it about the Lakers.”

Apparently not. The words linger, long after the final shot drops through the net and even after the confetti falls to the floor.

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