Buss Speaks Out on Shaq’s Status and Luxury Tax

Laker owner Jerry Buss, seated in front of his six NBA championship trophies, said Thursday afternoon that a contract extension for center Shaquille O’Neal was near, perhaps in the next week.

At or near the maximum four years and $117 million, the contract would take the NBA most valuable player into the 2006-07 season, at which point O’Neal would be 35 years old.

O’Neal’s agent, Leonard Armato, had only hours before countered a Laker offer. Either proposal would make O’Neal the sport’s highest-paid player.

“The Lakers have definitely turned their energy toward a renewal of things with Shaq,” Armato said.

Both parties agreed the deal should be in place well before the regular season begins Oct. 31.

“We certainly have that as our goal,” Armato said.

If negotiations run as expected, the Lakers and Buss will have taken a step toward quelling suspicions the organization would be unwilling to spend enough to reach into a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax the NBA will institute next season.

Buss sat at a large wooden desk with Chinese images carved into it. He sipped red fruit juice from a plastic cup. Just back from two months in Italy, Buss appeared healthy and happy, perhaps still buoyed by the latest Larry O’Brien trophy at the back of his office in El Segundo.

Beyond them, two sets of blinds were raised, revealing a window and an expansive view of a large gym. The Lakers had concluded their scrimmage hours before, leaving a few coaches and team personnel, along with Buss in his second-floor office.

His son, Jim, the assistant general manager, waved goodbye as reporters arrived for Buss’ annual discussion about the state of the Lakers.

Asked about the contract extension for O’Neal, who is beginning the fifth season of a seven-year, $120-million contract signed in 1996, Buss said they were close.

“I’m very confident we’ll reach an agreement with Shaquille,” he said.

Buss added that the only reason it was not done sooner was his vacation. He left for Hawaii a day after the Lakers beat Indiana in Game 6. After three weeks there, he returned to Los Angeles briefly before heading to Europe.

“See, it’s not really the contract that’s the issue,” Buss said. “There are a couple little things. They just wanted my input and I wanted to stay on vacation. Now I’m back. We’re focused 100% and I’m extremely confident that we will sign him shortly.”

He arrived to find the Lakers with a new power forward, Horace Grant; a new backup center, Greg Foster; and without Glen Rice, whose game faded terribly in his final season with the Lakers. Buss had been so concerned that the season might open without those vital changes that he ran up $6,500 in telephone bills, most of the calls to General Manager Mitch Kupchak.

What has not gone away is the looming luxury tax against NBA payrolls above about $55 million, and the persistent rumors that Buss would obey it strictly, even as ownership in Portland, Dallas and New York, for example, ignored it. Buss said Thursday that he agreed with the concept of the tax, that he believed it leveled the economic playing field for the entire sport, but that he would not allow it to diminish his organization.

“The luxury tax to me is a philosophical concept,” Buss said. “What they’re trying to do is say, ‘Let’s all have the same number of chips and see who can play the game the best.’ To me, that’s very intelligent, because when major-league sports get down to the point where somebody can buy the championship, then what happens to all the rest of the teams? I like the concept of having the same number of weapons and see who can manage it the best. That’s competition. So the luxury tax is designed to do that. I will subscribe to that philosophy as much as I possibly can, but not to the extent of not being competitive.”

In essence, he said, he will advance beyond the luxury tax threshold if he must.

“I want to be sure that people understand that I respect what I think is a very sound philosophy that ultimately will save professional sports and competition,” he said. “But, if it turns out that other people are gaining too much of an advantage by ignoring this philosophy that they fought for, then I’m going to have to fight.”

The battle began a year early. Portland bought up power forwards Shawn Kemp and Dale Davis, adding them to Rasheed Wallace, hoping to exploit the Laker weakness at power forward and to gang up on O’Neal. As many wondered if Trail Blazer owner Paul Allen would simply outspend the Lakers into dethronement, Buss hurried into the O’Neal negotiations, sending a strong message to future free agents and other available players.

“The Lakers have always been, probably, top five in salaries throughout the years,” he said. “I imagine we’ll be there still. Whether you want to get into some sort of bidding contest, to see who can get the best 12 players instead of the best team, I don’t think I’ll participate in that.”

He admitted there are times he considers his ownership mortality, wonders how much longer he can stay with Microsoft and Cablevision and the seemingly endless Internet money. Still, the Lakers continue to turn a solid profit for their owners. When Buss was asked if it helped to have a group of co-owners who defray the running cost, he smiled and said, “It would if we were losing money every year. But, right now I send them a check. The Lakers have always turned a profit.”

Over 30 minutes, Buss confronted many of the club’s issues, some of them large, some decidedly peripheral. Among them:

* Jerry West’s departure.

“I have a lot of confidence in Mitch. Mitch was here for 14 years and did a lot of the work. So, I’ve got total confidence in Mitch. Jerry will be missed. Any time a legend steps away from the position it’s hard to fill the gap. But, if anybody can keep the boat sailing in the right direction it would be Mitch Kupchak.

“I think everybody should give Mitch Kupchak a chance to see what happens. I think he’s done an absolutely incredible job. I think in a week or 10 days that all will agree that every single thing that should have happened happened. I’m very proud of Mitch.”

* Phil Jackson’s relationship with Buss’ daughter, Jeanie, the club’s executive vice president of business operations.

“Well, it’s hard to read about your children, if anybody says anything negative about them. There were some that were negative. And so that hurt. In terms of Phil, Jeanie’s old enough to choose anyone she wants to date. I thought it was kind of foolish to be criticized for something like that.”

* Jackson’s ability to win a championship so quickly.

“I think everybody’s surprised, including me. He just seems to be what we need. I’m convinced we had a very good coach before him in Del Harris. But, I think it’s obvious he wasn’t what we needed. Sometimes you just need a certain kind of coach for a certain kind of team.”

* On his own mood, entering his 22nd season as owner.

“It’s really, really enjoyable to win a championship. But, I really enjoyed the years we didn’t win a championship [spent] trying to win a championship. I mean it’s really fun to be the owner of a basketball team, sitting around with all the guys saying, ‘OK, if we do this and we do this, we should have done that.’ You’re talking about two levels of enjoyment, one where you win and another where you’re just happy to be the owner. It’s a fantasy world.”

Buss conceded that the game had changed. It is different than the one he bought into more than two decades ago. He’s into t’ai chi, he said. Keeps him limber. He knows he’ll need it.

“It’s a different kind of fun,” he said. “I don’t play pool with Magic anymore. It’s become bigger business. More formal. But, I’m still having fun with it.”