Take Two

Kobe Bryant was the first to say it, and he has said it in different ways the last few days, but the message has been the same.

“What doesn’t kill you is only going to make you stronger,” he said, maybe pleased that Shaquille O’Neal hadn’t gone quite that far yet.

“I think the first half of the season, with everything we’ve been through, we’re still right here. We didn’t go anywhere. So, I think, if anything it’s just going to increase our hope down the road.

“We’re still right there in the hunt. That’s the most important thing.”

Of course, just when they were going to put their heads down and play basketball again, O’Neal apparently couldn’t stand the serenity.

His strained right arch has improved enough to allow him to play about 25 minutes tonight against the New Jersey Nets at East Rutherford, N.J., assuming he awakens this morning without unusual pain. The final decision on his availability will be made around game time.

“Basketball is basketball,” O’Neal said Monday night after a practice in New York. “I’ll be OK. I’m ready to play. I’m ready to stop answering these stupid questions.”

He is probable against the Nets. His psyche, though, remains questionable. As the second half prepares to, uh, detonate, it is Shaq versus Kobe, with nothing more at stake than the condition of the most glamorous basketball team in the universe.

That’s all.

Just when everybody was saying the right things and running the offense the right way and playing some defense and gaining on the likes of the Portland Trail Blazers and Sacramento Kings, O’Neal allegedly told an Orlando newspaper that he wouldn’t mind coming back to that dried-up pond after all.

O’Neal said he didn’t say it, and in fact on Monday called it all “yellow journalism,” and Laker General Manager Mitch Kupchak said he would take him at his word.

So O’Neal might grump around for a few days, as if hurt by the very suggestion that he might move back to the Magic and on to the next young superstar he could learn to hate, that being Tracy McGrady.

“I don’t know what to make of that, because he denied it,” Kupchak said. “That’s good enough for me.

“His comment, that he’ll let bygones be bygones, I take for his word.”

What Kupchak can’t forget is a short conversation he had with O’Neal nine days ago, after the Lakers beat the Kings without O’Neal. O’Neal was inspired by his teammates.

“He said, ‘I’m going to be ready to go in the second half,’ ” Kupchak said. “I’d never seen him so bubbly, so full of energy.”

That’s where it stands. Put aside the this-has-to-be-the-last-straw theories. O’Neal isn’t going to the Orlando Magic for Grant Hill and a bunch of junk, or the Atlanta Hawks for Dikembe Mutombo and a bunch of junk. Bryant isn’t going to the Toronto Raptors for Vince Carter or to the Phoenix Suns for Jason Kidd.

Owner Jerry Buss didn’t return messages left with his people. There are no indications that he senses betrayal by the most recent uprising, still only four months since O’Neal received a contract extension worth almost $90 million.

Jerry West, the former general manager whose sit-down with O’Neal and Bryant last January thawed the Cold War, also did not return messages.

“The two players are going nowhere,” Kupchak said. “You know that.”

The Lakers arrived on East 61st Street just after dusk, into a seven-story health club. When they stepped off the bus, into their season’s second half, the temperature was about 20 degrees, perfect for a team that hasn’t yet warmed to the challenge of its title defense.

“I don’t know what that’s all about,” said Laker Coach Phil Jackson, who only read about O’Neal’s alleged illusions of flight. “That part of it is silly. It’s silly. There’s no place for Shaq to go in this game. There’s not enough room in anybody’s salary cap even to absorb him. So it has to be a joke. It had to be done under a jocular basis. I don’t put any emphasis on it.”

Kupchak can only hope the coming playoffs will still the anger.

“It’s easier for teams to see the end,” he said. “The goals you started out with are clear and accessible. Good teams, the issues they’re dealing with will fall by the wayside. The goal is right there.

“The urgency in getting it together really shines through. Teams and players and coaches respond to that, especially if they have a chance to win. So I would expect this team to react in that manner. Clearly, in the first half we had our ups and downs.”

But, Kupchak said, so have many of the other good teams, from the New York Knicks to the Philadelphia 76ers to the Trail Blazers.

“It’s almost a rite of passage in the NBA today that externally you have to deal with a lot of issues,” he said. “It’s the way it is.

“We feel this team can win a championship. We’ve dealt with some issues we hopefully won’t have to deal with in the next 35, 40 games.”

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* ANOTHER POND TENANT?

Anaheim is among several cities interested in luring the NBA’s Vancouver Grizzlies. D6

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Second Guessing

With the NBA season set to resume after Shaquille O’Neal sat out the six games before the break, here’s a look at the Lakers’ and Kobe Bryant’s performances in the first half with and without O’Neal

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Lakers With O’Neal Without O’Neal Record 26-13 5-3 Winning pct. .667 .625 Points for 101.8 91.0 Points against 98.8 88.8 Opp. 100-point games 20 0 Field goal pct. .476 .411 Opp. field goal pct. .444 .411 Free throw pct. .639 .815

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Kobe Bryant With O’Neal Without O’Neal Points per game 29.5 31.9 Pct. of team shots 28.1 29.5 Pct. of team points 29.0 35.0 Free throws att. 7.9 11.6 Field goal pct. .469 .426

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