Memo to GMs: Don’t Ask

Mitch Kupchak, Laker general manager, has been pretty clear that any trade package short of a 22-year-old Wilt Chamberlain, a national forest, large portions of Manhattan Island and draft picks wouldn’t get Shaquille O’Neal.

O’Neal is not available and neither is Kobe Bryant, according to Kupchak, who sighs when he says it, as though he is reminding his son to keep his feet off the back of the car seat.

But, in the days leading to the Feb. 22 trading deadline, it doesn’t mean the telephone calls don’t come.

Lured in part by O’Neal’s alleged statements that he would be happy to finish his career somewhere other than Los Angeles, NBA general managers are shoving lists of players together and slipping them under Kupchak’s door.

“I have gotten several absurd proposals,” Kupchak said.

It is part of the job, of course. Any general manager worth his fax machine would have to make a run at O’Neal, on the off chance Kupchak felt like being run out of town.

“It is funny,” Kupchak said. “But people are just doing their jobs.”

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Philadelphia center Matt Geiger was suspended without pay for two games Wednesday for violating the terms of the league’s steroid policy.

Geiger sat out Wednesday night’s game against the Lakers and will not play Friday against the Clippers. In a statement released by the club, Geiger claimed he tested positive for an over-the-counter supplement allowed by the league until last summer and that he ceased using it immediately.

“I expect that when this case is arbitrated under the NBA rules, my personal reputation will be restored,” the statement read.

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For the bus ride south from East Rutherford, N.J., and for all of the bus trips and airplane flights to come on this six-city tour, Phil Jackson distributed books to the players. Mark Madsen got “Riders of the Purple Sage.” Tyronn Lue received “Tuff.” Bryant had “Corelli’s Madolin.”

O’Neal, who last season received something by Nietzsche, started Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha” on Tuesday night, somewhere between exits 9 and 8 on the New Jersey Turnpike.

“Phil’s always giving me those Harvard books,” O’Neal said, smiling. “Why can’t he give me something simple?”

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Bryant spent part of Wednesday with his maternal grandmother, which explained the First Communion look when he arrived in the locker room. He wore a light gray suit with a light pink shirt and a pink print tie.

“Grandma loves me in a suit, man,” he said. “You go home, you almost have to throw on a suit.”

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Derek Fisher is expected to begin regular practice in about two weeks and could be playing in three weeks, according to club officials.

Fisher, who had another good CT scan on his right foot Tuesday and was cleared to run, will join the team in Charlotte tonight.