Lakers Will Try to Stay on Top of Their Game

What begins Tuesday for the Lakers is perhaps nine months of basketball, much of it spent determining where the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the Western Conference finals will be played--Staples Center or Portland’s Rose Garden.

It is not a wholly inglorious journey, this grind of sweat and tension and expectation.

They will play as defending NBA champions, led by the game’s most ferocious player--Shaquille O’Neal--and its most electric--Kobe Bryant. They will play under new front-office leadership; Jerry West left Mitch Kupchak with a reasonably sound product and the key to the petty cash drawer, along with instructions to repeat for the first time since 1987 and 1988.

“I think more than anything else it’s a challenge for our players,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “The challenge is, ‘OK, we learned the system last year, we learned how to play together last year, now we have to learn to repeat, to meet the challenge that comes at us--night in and night out, each contest. It’s real hard to repeat. It’s going to extract the most out of them. I think that’s a challenge for me, obviously, because the strategy changes. We have the chemistry. We know the motion. We know the kind of energy it takes for it.”

The Lakers open training camp Tuesday, even if it seems downtown still smells like smoldering squad car. They’ll never get it out of the drapes.

Here are the questions that need to be answered:

1. DID THE TRIANGLE NEED A NEW, IMPROVED HYPOTENUSE?

Horace Grant teethed on Tex Winter’s triple-post offense. Greg Foster rubbed it on his gums for a brief period in 1994. Isaiah Rider hasn’t yet had his first lesson.

To O’Neal and Bryant, to Ron Harper and Robert Horry, to Rick Fox and, probably, Brian Shaw, the Lakers added more power, more charisma, and more talent.

“With Horace and Greg, we go from being one of the smaller teams to one of the bigger teams in the West,” Kupchak said. “That’s a good thing, because the teams in the West have improved.

“[Grant] does not have to score. He’s at the stage of his career where the things he does on a team like this will be most appreciated. He’s not trying to establish himself as a player. He’s won, and he’s won with our coach and our coach’s offense.”

That was good enough for the Lakers, who appeared on the verge of getting nothing in return for forward Glen Rice. Grant, even at 35, was all they could have hoped for.

“Shaq is going to be Shaq,” Grant said. “He just needed a power forward to get his back.

“I can’t speak for other teams, but when I was on teams like Chicago and Orlando and Seattle, we wanted to attack [the Lakers’] power forward position.”

2. CAN RIDER WALK THE SACRED PATH OF THE WARRIOR?

The model locker room is in the Bronx. The Yankees take the hard cases--David Wells, Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, et al--and make them believe in the group, in the winning, in the destination.

Girded by Jackson and O’Neal and Harper--some of the steadiest influences in the game--and their habit for winning, the Lakers are Rider’s best chance yet. If he fails in Los Angeles, and the signs will come quickly, then the terrifically talented Rider could wash out of the NBA before his 30th birthday.

Jackson learned to live with Dennis Rodman. The next project happened to arrive in the form of a big, strong guard, which Jackson loves.

“I met an intelligent young man who is trying to change a pattern of behavior around that has gotten him into a corner,” Jackson said. “It’s put him as kind of a bad dog out here in the NBA. He wants to change that around because he believes in himself and he believes in his ability. I like the fact that he’s trying to reclaim something. I think it’s the perfect opportunity for him. He made the sacrifice to come and play with us, monetarily most of all. That shows me something, that he was real positive about it and he made a commitment to me that he was going to be as good a player and as good a person as he could possibly be.”

3. WILL SHAQ’S CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS ULTIMATELY KEEP HIM IN BLING-BLING AND PATROL CAR MONEY?

There is the four-year, $117-million extension that befits a finals and league MVP, which both the Lakers and agent Leonard Armato assume is coming, probably by the end of October.

Bogged down in the summer months by West’s retirement and their frantic attempts to trade away Rice, the Lakers are reasonably confident that, now opened, negotiations will proceed without acrimony or distraction.

There is the broader question, however, the one that agent David Falk contemptuously put to the Lakers last month, and that speaks to the very future of the franchise. That is, has the coming luxury tax turned owner Jerry Buss into a tightwad?

A sated Shaq goes part of the way to revealing a future of championship contention.

4. WHAT IS THE PORTLAND STRATEGY, OTHER THAN TO BRING AN UMBRELLA?

In three months, the Lakers went from NBA champions to giving up their lunch money to the Trail Blazers every morning.

How did Portland get to be bully?

It replaced Brian Grant and Jermaine O’Neal with Shawn Kemp and Dale Davis, and so will send waves of bulk and fouls at Shaq, beginning Halloween night, when the Lakers open the season at the Rose Garden.

That’s what Grant and Foster are for.

“I’ll never say we don’t have enough as long as we have Kobe and Shaquille,” Kupchak said. “Portland is big and deep. I think we can compete with them. On a depth chart they may have a player or two more than us, and with more experience. But, you can only play five guys. You have to have a rotation that goes eight or nine deep. They’re going to have to figure out a way to keep guys happy on that team, and that normally happens when you win. So, they’re going to win a bunch of games. At the end of the day, when we play them, it’s going to be a battle.”

5. WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THE NEW PERSONNEL?

Foster is a more credible backup at center than John Salley or Travis Knight, which will trim some regular-season minutes from O’Neal’s legs.

Robert Horry won’t have to guard so many overfed power forwards, which might allow him to score more.

Harper’s minutes will be scaled back in what surely is his final season.

And Bryant can do what he wants.

“It’s going to take a couple of days on the court to figure it out, to see who makes the adjustments,” Jackson said. “We haven’t had Brian [Shaw] in yet. We’ve got J.R. Rider sitting out there, a guard that doesn’t know a thing about our offense. We’ve got to make up the space for Glen [Rice]. Somebody’s got to shore up that position. So, we’ve got some questions to answer.”

The Lakers would love a small guard to take the injured Derek Fisher’s place and will also have their eye on the Joe Smith case.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LAKERS EXHIBITION SCHEDULE

10/11 vs. Charlotte

at New Orleans

10/12 vs. Washington

at Memphis

10/17 vs. Phoenix

at Anaheim

10/22 vs. Golden State

at San Diego

10/23 vs. Sacramento

at Las Vegas

TEAM ROSTER

Kobe Bryant

Guard/Forward, 6-7, 215

Emanual Davis

Guard, 6-5, 195

Derek Fisher

Guard, 6-1, 200

Greg Foster

Center, 6-11, 250

Rick Fox

Forward, 6-7, 240

Devean George

Forward, 6-8, 220

Horace Grant

Forward, 6-10, 245

Ron Harper

Guard, 6-6, 215

Cory Hightower

Guard, 6-8, 200

Robert Horry

Forward, 6-10, 235

Nate Johnson

Forward, 6-6, 215

Tyronn Lue

Guard, 6-0, 175

Mark Madsen

Forward, 6-9, 240

Stanislav Medvedenko

Forward, 6-10, 250

Shaquille O’Neal

Center 7-1, 330

Andy Panko

Forward, 6-9, 215

Isaiah Rider

Guard, 6-5, 215