Laker Defense Has Meltdown

It has been so long, Eddie Jones’ return generated little fanfare.

No big buildup or outpouring of sentiment for Jones’ first game against the Lakers in Los Angeles since he and Elden Campbell were traded to the Charlotte Hornets on March 10, 1999. Just a warm ovation in the pregame introductions and a few of Jones’ old No. 6 Laker jerseys scattered around Staples Center (plus a couple with his original No. 25, for the truly old school).

Perhaps it’s because Jones has moved on to another team, the Miami Heat. Perhaps it’s because so much has happened since then, including the arrival of Phil Jackson and the departure of Glen Rice.

While time has dulled the emotion from Jones’ departure, it can’t remove the lingering feeling that the Lakers never should have made the trade.

For almost everything that’s wrong with the Lakers, you can point to what they lost in that trade. That was particularly evident in Sunday’s 103-92 loss to the Heat.

Miami’s big men, Anthony Mason and Brian Grant, had a field day at the expense of the Lakers’ power(less) forwards. For all of the complaints about Campbell’s inconsistency and big contract, he’s an athletic 7-footer, and he’s making only $1.5 million more than Horace Grant this season.

Kobe Bryant said the Lakers are looking old and out of condition. Can’t say that about Jones, who still runs the court like a greyhound.

The Lakers have problems with perimeter defense. The Heat made 10 of 20 three-point shots Sunday and helped Tim Hardaway look like his old self, as he made five three-pointers and scored 22 points.

The Lakers are last in the NBA in forcing turnovers, and Jones happens to be eighth in the league in steals (2.03 a game).

Bryant has become the best guard in the game, but Sunday he had nothing for Jones. All he could do against him was shoot jump shots.

“He took me one time and it made me mad,” Jones said. “And I knew he was going to do that. I was a little upset so I was like, ‘Well, now he’s going to have to take contested jump shots.’ ”

Jones knows Kobe’s game inside and out. He has been playing against him since Jones was at Temple and Bryant’s sister Sharia would bring Kobe around campus while she was playing volleyball.

They also spent a little more than two seasons together as teammates, and he was one of the few Lakers who held regular conversations with Bryant.

“I think we had a great relationship, still do have a great relationship,” Jones said. “I don’t know if he misses me. Maybe. Maybe not.”

The Laker locker room used to be more contentious, with the Jones-Campbell-Nick Van Exel clique clashing against the Shaquille O’Neal clique. It’s less divided now, but there are those significant polar opposites: O’Neal and Bryant.

“They’ll settle their differences,” Jones said. “It’s up to them. I can’t be the mediator anymore.”

That mediator line raised a lot of eyebrows from reporters, so Jones backtracked.

“I won’t say I was the mediator,” Jones said. “I don’t think there was anything happening when I was there. Kobe was young. Shaq--everybody knew he was the man. But [Bryant’s] getting better.

“He became the player that I thought he would be and I told people about.

“The situation he’s going through now [the very public feud], all that stuff is going to help make him a better person and player.”

What will make the Lakers a better team?

It’s too bad they can’t turn the clock back to March 9, 1999, the day before Jerry West pulled the trigger on that trade.

The deal that sent Jones and Campbell to Charlotte, returned Rice, J.R. Reid and B.J. Armstrong. (Armstrong was waived immediately and Reid was gone after the season).

In 1999-2000, Rice had one of the worst shooting seasons of his career. In addition to the misses there was The Mrs.--Christina Fernandez Rice, whose complaints to the media about Jackson and the Lakers essentially stamped Rice’s ticket out of town.

Jones started for the Eastern Conference all-stars last season and posted career highs in all of the major categories. He is averaging 19 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists this season.

The Lakers moved Rice last summer as part of the largest trade in NBA history, receiving Horace Grant and Greg Foster as the primary pieces in exchange.

Grant hasn’t performed up to expectations, and just to make the legacy of the Jones trade look worse he stayed home Sunday with back spasms.

The one big wrench in the “what-if” scenario is the contract Jones wound up signing last summer: $86.2 million for seven years.

Could--or would--the Lakers have signed him to that amount knowing they also had to pay a $71-million extension for Bryant and wanted to extend O’Neal for another $88.4 million? Given Jerry Buss’s comments, particularly regarding the Portland Trail Blazers’ expenditures, it’s unlikely.

Ultimately, the Lakers comfort themselves with the reminder that they won the championship last season.

But there would have been a much stronger public sentiment to keep the team together if the team still had the popular Jones. Perhaps economics would have yielded to emotion. And emotion would have become secondary to this cold fact: The Lakers would have been younger, more athletic and better on defense.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: ja.adande@latimes.com