No Deals? No Problem, Says Jackson

If the Lakers are to become a more athletic team, and a better defensive team, it’s going to have to happen in the summer.

Coach Phil Jackson, who has a championship to consider in the spring, said Friday he was not disappointed the trading deadline passed without an aggressive move from the Lakers.

“I’m not,” he said. “There was a time when I thought chemistry was going a little south on this ballclub. There was some controversy. [We] didn’t seem to have the ability to rise to the occasion of meeting the opposition’s level of intensity in some games. I thought we weren’t playing as hard as we could at times. I thought maybe [a trade] might be good for that. But that’s bypassed us. Before the All-Star game, we showed that guys want to play together and will.”

Now they have to.

“We’ve got a lot of experts upstairs,” Shaquille O’Neal said. “If they didn’t think we needed to make a move, I guess we didn’t need to make a move. I think no team wants to make us better without us giving up one of our Porsches.”

General Manager Mitch Kupchak will have several salary-cap exceptions at his disposal in the off-season, when he’ll try to rework parts of the club around O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.

“The big thing is, how is Horace [Grant] going to play the second part of the season?” Jackson said. “[Ron] Harper, is he going to be available? Is it a long-term injury? Is [Derek] Fisher going to be back with this ballclub in the next month? All those things are questions that really pertain to having the best personnel. The real answer is Shaq playing at the level he plays at and Kobe playing under control and making good decisions. The rest of it is just playing together as a team.”

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Chick Hearn called his 3,273rd consecutive game Friday night, two days after missing the second half of his 3,272nd because of laryngitis.

Rationing as much of his vocal cords as he could, Hearn spoke softly before the game. Asked if he were back to normal, he said, “No. I will be, though.”

Hearn received treatment Thursday and Friday and intends to have more today and Sunday, to prepare himself for Sunday’s radio broadcast against Orlando.

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Harper, who has a sore left knee, fought to stay off the injured list. Now that he’s on it, though, he might not come off for a while.

While Harper was taking treatment Friday night, trainer Gary Vitti rolled a wheelchair in front of Harper’s locker. When Harper returned, he laughed.

“Aw, that’s cute,” Harper said. “That’s real cute. Grandma would love that.”

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DeLeon Richards Sheffield--Mrs. Gary Sheffield--sang the national anthem before Friday’s game. Anthem-singing before Laker games is an unpaid position.