There Was a Mastermind Behind Blockbuster Deal

They don’t make off-seasons the way they used to, either.

If the Lakers didn’t already know that, they found out, watching with mounting concern as super-agent David Falk roamed the country, trying to find a buyer for his client, Glen Rice, marked down from $14 million in a 50%-off sale.

Of course, Falk also had to try to rescue valiant, fast-approaching-the-end Patrick Ewing from his town without pity, New York, among his other embattled clients, so this wound up taking two months and involving four teams, 12 players and four draft choices.

That’s how it goes in these days of super-agents, blockbuster trades and double deals, with more and more players agreeing to terms so the agent can then shop the deal.

These were perilous times for the Lakers, who had only the one semi-tradeable piece in Rice--all that remained of the ill-fated deal that sent Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell away in 1999--and few bidders.

Only the Knicks and Heat were interested and both were tens of millions of dollars over the cap. The only way was this grandiose mosaic Falk was working to bail out his clients and, of course, keep alive the notion/fiction that he is still the Great Oz, mover of mountains and shaker of franchises, as he was when Michael Jordan was around.

It wasn’t easy, but in the end Falk came through for Falk, Ewing, Rice, the Lakers, SuperSonics, Suns and Knicks, in roughly that order.

You’ve got to hand it to him. He takes a client reviled in one part of the country to another part of the country where he’s greeted like a conquering hero and gets a four-year contract, even in New York.

Is this a great league or what?

In the NBA, the only thing that counts is, did the insanity work for you and yours?

For the Lakers, the answer is yes.

The SuperSonics got Ewing, who is a better center than Horace Grant, a power forward who was made to play there last season, so that’s OK.

The Suns saved some money, getting Chris Dudley, who has two less years on his contract than Luc Longley, with the Knicks paying half of Dudley’s salary on top of it.

The Knicks?

Well, maybe Falk can do something for them down the road.

HORACE: WHERE YOU BEEN SO LONG?

Not that the Lakers have been on this hunt for a while, but it goes back to 1996. . . .

They were a 53-win team when Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant arrived, which is the only reason Shaq came in the first place.

Of course, when he arrived, he must have wondered what he’d gotten himself into. In Orlando, the Magic had spent years building a team around him, getting Grant to help up front, Penny Hardaway to take over when Shaq couldn’t and a bunch of shooters who would open up when defenses ganged up on their Diesel.

The Lakers, meanwhile, were a wacky assortment of characters, representing Jerry West’s monumental rebuilding project--and his need to take any talented player he could get, no matter how woolly he looked.

It took two seasons to weed out ticking Nick Van Exel and Commodore Cedric Ceballos. Then in a costly digression in 1999, the front office went on its own hayride to hell, with Jerry Buss sponsoring the Great Dennis Rodman Misadventure and West trading Jones and Elden Campbell for Rice.

Suddenly, the Lakers were no longer the youngest, biggest and most talented team anywhere. Now they had three great stars and nine soldiers.

Then you began to notice one of their great stars wasn’t so great any more.

Rice was used to being the first option (star), not the third (helper) and needed screens to get shots, unlike the imposing O’Neal, who got the ball on almost every play, and the impetuous Bryant, who could create a shot any time he felt like it, which was often. When Rice’s shots declined, in true NBA-scorer fashion, so did his confidence.

Oh, and so did his market value.

Since no one with cap room figured to use it for a 33-year-old player coming off a two-year slump, the Lakers were sure Rice, who would otherwise have done them no favors, would hold still for a sign-and-trade.

For their sake, he had better because they certainly had enough holes. Baseball teams platoon, but in basketball a champion is expected to have five good starters and a nice reserve or two. The 2000 NBA champion Lakers platooned at two positions.

The real problem was power forward, but that was nothing new, dating to Shaq’s arrival.

They started with Campbell, but he nodded off when the ball started going into Shaq on every play. Then they tried to bulk up Robert Horry, who put on 20 pounds but remained a miscast small forward.

By the 1998-1999 season, Shaq’s third in L.A., the Lakers knew they had to go outside. That was the lockout year, when they pursued Chris Webber, Tom Gugliotta, Charles Oakley and Lorenzen Wright, all in vain.

This was a crushing disappointment. When Shaq heard the Gugliotta deal was dead, he threw a basketball at the ball rack at the team’s camp at UC Santa Barbara and scattered balls all over the court.

Then they signed Rodman. You may have heard, that didn’t work out so well.

When Coach Phil Jackson arrived last season, the Lakers had just brought back A.C. Green, who was small when he was young and was now 36. Typically, Green gave them what he had as a starter, then put that teddy bear on his head and watched Horry play the other 24 minutes.

In a conference loaded with giant, high-scoring power forwards (Tim Duncan, Karl Malone, Chris Webber, Rasheed Wallace, et al.), this was a bad place to be weak. Jackson kept waiting for it to show up, but it didn’t happen until the playoffs and when it did, it still didn’t kill them.

Not that they had any intention of trying it that way again, or bringing Rice back, title or no title, whether his wife ripped Jackson or not.

Now, title in hand, the Lakers started looking for a trade for Rice . . . and looking . . . and looking.

“All the other guys were signed,” says a Laker insider, “and then Glen was the last guy left and there weren’t a whole lot of options. There wasn’t a lot of interest except Miami and New York.”

Just to add spice to the project, West decided he really couldn’t stand it any more and left, thrusting General Manager Mitch Kupchak into the hot seat.

It wasn’t that Kupchak was too picky. In fact, his standards dropped fast. In the beginning, he wanted P.J. Brown. Then John Amaechi. By August, he was down to Christian Laettner, whom Jackson liked, even if he was slender and barely qualified as a power forward.

The man they finally got, Grant, is 35 and past his prime, but he’s playing alongside the monstrous Shaq, which makes it easier. Horace ran the triangle in Chicago, three titles worth, in his younger, wilder days, when Jackson imposed on his sweet nature and made him his whipping boy, sparing the sensitive Scottie Pippen and the one and only Jordan.

Grant once had back trouble (although Jackson wondered out loud if it was contract trouble), but sat out only 12 games the last three seasons. If he holds up, he’s the power forward O’Neal has longed for.

In the Western Conference, where everyone else was gearing up, it was just in the nick of time.

EWING: THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES, NOW GET LOST

Not that this deal wasn’t a coup for the desperate Knicks, but how would you like to be General Manager Scott Layden, standing in front of his anything-for-a-headline press corps and announcing:

“Hey, we just traded the greatest scorer and rebounder in our history for Glen Rice, Luc Longley and Travis Knight!”

Actually, that wasn’t how Layden put it, but any way you cut it, this deal stinks for the Knicks. They had jammed Latrell Sprewell into the starting lineup by playing him at small forward, but now Rice will go there so either Sprewell or Allan Houston has to play the point or sit.

The deal could only mean the Knicks have a promise from Falk to deliver Atlanta’s Dikembe Mutombo (Falk client, free agent next summer) either this season or next. Either that or they’ve gone nuts.

To be sure, the Knicks seem intent on keep Falk happy. They just gave Rice a four-year, $35-million deal, including $9 million up front as a signing bonus.

But this is New York, where they can spend years barbecuing Ewing as a lowlife who never won a title, and then barbecue the Knicks for trading him.

Ewing was, to be sure, shy and/or aloof and difficult with the media, but the problem seems to be the missing title. In New York, they still revere the Giants’ Lawrence Taylor, a crazed druggie, but one who played on two Super Bowl winners.

After years of gracelessly strafing Ewing, the papers went easier on Patrick this time. When they thought he was about to be traded in August, the New York Post ran a “GOOD RIDDANCE” headline.

This may have embarrassed even the Post. This time it settled for: “HE HAD TO GO” and “SEE EW LATER” and “BRITTLE EWING HAD ALIENATED MATES.”

Not that this meant a warm welcome for Rice.

Headlined the New York Daily News: THIS RICE NOT WORTH BEANS.

For better or worse, Rice was introduced at a news conference Thursday in Manhattan.

“It was definitely time for me to move on,” he said. “Now I’m looking forward to being in New York and I’m looking forward to winning the championship here.”

Good luck. You might want to skip the local papers for the next few days, or forever.