O’Neal Wants to Put Any Fine Behind Him

Shaquille O’Neal grants the fine is coming. It’ll be $7,500 or so, he assumes, which he’ll pull out of the ashtray of one of his dozen or so cars and be done with it, the memory of his two-technical ejection Friday night in Seattle long gone.

He asks but one thing from the NBA, which fined him $5,000 two weeks ago for a fashion faux pas.

“Hopefully,” O’Neal said, “it’ll go to the police and firemen’s relief fund. It’d be much appreciated if David Stern would do that for me.”

He arrived to Staples Center after dark Saturday, wearing dark, red-rimmed sunglasses, not at all in the mood to rehash referee Bob Delaney’s trigger finger. The Lakers have gone on the offensive, contacting league disciplinarian Stu Jackson about Delaney’s calls--the two technical fouls on O’Neal at the end of the first quarter and a flagrant foul called on Kobe Bryant early in the fourth quarter.

General Manager Mitch Kupchak has some success in such matters. He had a technical foul assessed to Isaiah Rider overturned last season, but O’Neal said he wanted to move on.

“It didn’t matter,” he said, walking. “We won by 20. We’ve got a great team. I didn’t know how great we were until I sat there watching them [Friday] night.

“I ain’t got no comment on those people. I was very proud of my guys. I don’t get mad. I get even.”

Bryant called his alleged flagrant foul--an elbow jabbed in the direction of Desmond Mason--”pretty outlandish ... pretty out there.”

“I guess it’s all in how it looks,” he said. “An official, especially on the road, he doesn’t want the whole crowd coming down on him.”

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The Lakers will visit the White House on Jan. 7, an off day between games at Toronto and Detroit, to be honored for last season’s NBA title.

Due to scheduling difficulties, the team did not make the trip after its previous championship.

Bryant has never been. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said.

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From 14-1, the Lakers would need to win 59 of their final 67 games to break the Chicago Bulls’ regular-season record of 72-10.

While that might not seem so difficult in an NBA stricken--other than the Lakers, so far--by parity, the Lakers’ best 67-game, regular-season stretch last season was 45-22.

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The story of O’Neal’s dream to one day become a law enforcement officer resurfaced last week. Bryant and Phil Jackson played along with a television reporter’s probing questions about it, both finally admitting they’d run if O’Neal the Sheriff were after them.

Asked if he thought that were a good idea, O’Neal smiled and said, “Yeah, especially Phil.”

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Horace Grant declined a one-year offer from the Lakers and signed a two-year deal with a one-year option to live in his own home and play for the Orlando Magic.

“You can see how much they miss me,” Grant said. “With Shaq and Kobe, what else do you really need?”