Their Silly Feud Beneath These Two

Not that he has had much to say recently but it’s safe to infer that Shaquille O’Neal is a little upset with:

* Kobe Bryant.

* Referees.

* The media and fans or whoever it is that heaps so many expectations on him.

* Reporters for not following his plea to “Write what you see,” and put Bryant in his place.

* Reporters for writing what they see whenever Shaq misses free throws or asks to be traded.

OK, let’s try it this way: Who is there Shaq isn’t mad at?

Not that this hasn’t been one of his better moments but in the last two weeks, he has gone from The Big Aristotle to The Big Problem Around Here.

He’s back to work with a vengeance but still smoldering. His teammates now look like the kids in a troubled household, tiptoeing around while checking out how their parents feel about each other today.

Kobe passes to Shaq more. Shaq slaps his hand. Then they beat the Vancouver Grizzlies by a point in overtime on a controversial call or Shaq gets 41 over a front line of Sneezy, Bashful and Doc.

Shaq glares after Kobe in the dressing room. He notes how long the reporters talk to Kobe. If one spends too much time with Bryant, O’Neal puts him down as a Kobe man and treats him accordingly.

Until now, when Shaq signaled he was upset, he was basically speaking for his teammates, who had their own problems with Bryant’s distance and impetuosity.

Now teammates are moving to a middle position--exasperated by both sides, angered by the prospect of seeing their season trashed out of pique.

O’Neal didn’t have to go public but he did. What are you going to do? He and Bryant are human, that stuff happens.

After that, however, Shaq owed it to his teammates to speak up when Phil Jackson called a meeting to clear the air. If O’Neal was upset, he had to say so, or that’s the theory, anyway.

You remember Jackson?

He’s the coach. People say he should take charge but don’t kid yourself, this isn’t that easy. This isn’t the Army and they aren’t grunts.

Kobe’s Kobe. When Jackson tells him something, Kobe often argues. Then he goes home, mulls it over for a while and, usually, comes back and does it better.

Shaq is Shaq. If he hasn’t actually run the show, he has always had a lot to say about how it got run.

It’s not like delusions of grandeur. Those aren’t delusions. A lot of things that happened here--the departures of Nick Van Exel, Del Harris and Kurt Rambis, the arrivals of Jackson and Dennis Rodman--had O’Neal’s blessings and often, overt sponsorship.

Shaq is actually a down-to-earth guy, given the power he enjoys and the scrutiny he doesn’t. Charles Barkley once said Shaq and Patrick Ewing were the two nicest guys in the league. O’Neal is really a big teddy bear and isn’t comfortable playing the Hard Guy, as he did last week.

Nevertheless, this isn’t his first go-round with a teammate.

Coming into the league in 1992, with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird leaving and sneaker companies wild to sign up the next generation, O’Neal got the biggest commercial hype any rookie ever had, even Michael Jordan.

In the minds of Shaq and the people around him, he was supposed to dominate off the court and on. This would be years away, at best, since he and his Orlando Magic teammates were young and the Chicago Bulls were still around.

And Shaq had a marketing problem. Audiences sympathized more with smaller players such as the 6-foot-6 Jordan . . . or the 6-7 Bryant . . . or the 6-7 Penny Hardaway.

Giants, as O’Neal later acknowledged, don’t elicit the same warmth, even fun-loving ones with nice smiles such as Shaq’s.

Wilt Chamberlain, whose life he often looks to for clues, used to identify with Goliath. Considered blustery and ominous, Chamberlain was actually outgoing and a joy to know--if certainly full of himself--but who knew?

In Orlando, strains emerged between O’Neal and Hardaway--and especially their entourages--after Hardaway started getting a huge push from Nike, which invented a fast-talking “L’il Penny” puppet/alter ego to make up for the fact Big Penny wasn’t too colorful.

It even leaked into one of Shaq’s Reebok commercials, in which he knocked a jabbering puppet off a couch.

Compared to the bulletproof Kobe, of course, the deferential Penny was easy.

O’Neal and Bryant got here in 1996 but it took Bryant three seasons to get good enough to begin irritating Shaq and two more to make it a full-fledged rivalry, which it is now.

“I’m sure they’re going to work it out because they really are two good people,” says Sacramento King personnel director Jerry Reynolds, even if he’s not rooting that way.

“But you know, you have a problem when Isaiah Rider is the voice of reason.”

Actually, that’s what Rider says too.

Opposing players, who dream of having the Lakers’ problems, are aghast. Vancouver’s Shareef Abdur-Rahim recently told friends, if either of them wanted out, he’d sure switch with them.

If only the Lakers could run field trips . . .

Shaq and Kobe would each go to Vancouver for a season. Then they would return and fall in each others’ arms.

In real life, they’ll have to get their experience the old-fashioned way. They may well have to throw a season away and harvest the scorn, the new poster children for childishness.

Then each can finally decide if he really wants to be here.

In the meantime, let us know when (if) you work it out, will you guys? This is beneath us and it should be beneath you.

FACES AND FIGURES

Nate McMillan for coach of the year: Someone in Seattle finally stood up to out-of-control Gary Payton when the new SuperSonic coach suspended him after Payton almost rumbled with teammate Ruben Patterson in a game. Payton has sat out two games in his career. This ended a 356-game streak--since his last suspension.

Meanwhile, McMillan recently told Patrick Ewing he’s going to play even less, and doesn’t appear to favor re-signing him.

“That’s a touchy topic,” said McMillan. “You tend to think of the Patrick of old but I think he’s given us what you’d expect. He’s 38. He’s played all those years, endured all those injuries.”

In the next game, Ewing played 13 minutes, missed all six of his shots and didn’t score.

Hakeem Olajuwon, feeling left out on a Houston Rocket team that no longer plays off him, “suggested” a trade. The Rockets say they can’t picture him finishing his career elsewhere--which means they prefer keeping him the rest of the season and taking his $16.5 million off their cap, rather than trading him for $16.5 million worth of players with longer-term contracts. But don’t be surprised if some center-starved franchise such as the Phoenix Suns signs the 38-year-old Olajuwon next season.

In three seasons, the Charlotte Hornets are 35-8 without Derrick Coleman and 63-67 with him. “People try to point at the two different records but I’m damned if I do, I’m damned if I don’t,” he says. “It’s kind of a what have you done for me lately.” . . . This may not be Coleman’s best defense, since he hasn’t done much for anyone lately. After averaging 20 points his first five seasons, he hasn’t hit 20 in the last five, while sitting out 141 games--almost two seasons’ worth.

Clipper Coach Alvin Gentry, on the Milwaukee Bucks: “They’re playing as well as any team in the NBA. Not just the East. Any team in the NBA. They’ve got guys who put the ball in the basket. That’s really the bottom line. You can talk about defense and how the Ravens are the best in the NFL but in the NBA, you’ve got to put the ball in the basket and they have some of the best guys who can do that.”

Mike Dunleavy, comparing the Portland Trail Blazer victory here on Christmas to last February’s Laker victory at Portland that turned the West race around: “Our records were tied [45-11] last year and we lost to them and we went the other way. This year, maybe they went the other way.”

Long-suffering Bull Coach Tim Floyd, on speculation he’ll take the job at Indiana University: “I quite frankly am pulling really hard for Coach [Mike] Davis because he has walked into a very difficult situation. And I know about difficult situations.”