It Wasn’t the First, or the Last, Goodbye

The Lakers have taken over what Tony Soprano might call the waste management business.

When they’re finished with teams it’s not just the season that ends. Mini-eras come to a close, organizational philosophies are rethought. The latest team to be “taken care of” was the Sacramento Kings. The Lakers swept the Kings out of the second round with a 119-113 victory in Game 4 at Arco Arena Sunday. From here on out you can refer to King forward Chris Webber as “free agent Chris Webber,” and shortly thereafter as “former King Chris Webber.”

“It was fun battling with this team, and now that C-Webb isn’t going to be here anymore they’re going back to expansionism,” Shaquille O’Neal said. “I don’t think he’ll be here. He’s gone.”

Without the man who led this season’s team in scoring, rebounds and blocked shots, the Kings’ days of contending with the Lakers for the Pacific Division title are over. Done-dada.

Don’t have to look too far for the suspects: O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.

The first-round victim Portland Trail Blazers spent lavishly to load their roster with stars, but each of their playoff meetings with the Lakers in the past two seasons brought nothing more than deep soul-searching and then a pink slip for Coach Mike Dunleavy.

“We say that jokingly, myself and Kobe always say that we’ve gotten five coaches fired,” O’Neal said.

Of course, you might argue that list includes the Lakers’ own Del Harris and Kurt Rambis after some disappointing playoff exits. Those days are receding in fans’ memories. Now it’s the rest of the Western Conference that might start worrying about job security, especially because O’Neal and Kobe Bryant are both under 30.

“As long as we keep playing together and stick together, teams aren’t going to be able to get over [the Lakers],” O’Neal said. “No matter how much money they spend or how many guys they’ve got, it’s all about us.”

Michael Jordan personally kept the Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks squads ring-less in the 1990s. No one talks about the great George Gervin-led San Antonio teams or the run-and-gun Denver Nuggets of the 1980s because the Lakers kept sending them home.

And one day you’ll look back and say, “Hey, whatever happened to . . . ?”

May 13, 2001 could go down as the day The Greatest Show on Court started to take down the tents. As entertaining as they are to watch, the Kings missed dearly in this series a steady presence to get them an inside shot when the pace slowed--as it inevitably does in the playoffs.

Webber was the closest thing they had to a low-post option, but he continually settled for outside jumpers, shot below 40% in the first round against Phoenix and was eight for 25 Sunday against the Lakers. Still, he was enough of a threat to get the ball on most possessions, and he’s a great enough passer to pick up eight assists in Game 4.

No Webber means a more difficult time for emerging players such as Peja Stojakovic and Hedo Turkoglu to find their own open shots.

You also have to wonder how much Jason Williams, whose flashy but erratic play helps define this team’s personality, fits into the team’s plans after he spent the final 17 1/2 minutes of Game 4 on the bench.

It was interesting that the only individual Sacramento Coach Rick Adelman chose to name when asked to assess the team’s potential personnel changes this summer was Turkoglu. It helps that Turkoglu, who scored 22 points Sunday, is a rookie who’s locked into a contract for the next three years.

“This group is a solid group, and if we can keep ‘em together we’re just going to get better.”

That was a big “if” looming in the middle of that sentence. If Webber’s going to play for a franchise that can’t get past the Lakers, he might as well do so in a city where he can get a good meal after the game.

Webber remained noncommittal after the game. But as he left the court he took a quick look around Arco Arena, then slapped hands with the fans hanging over the tunnel as he made his way to the locker room. The last time I saw him look this nostalgic was his sophomore year at Michigan, shortly before he left early for the NBA draft.

“It’s going to be a process,” he said of his free-agent decision. “It can’t be emotional. I really don’t know. I’m looking forward to taking a lot of time for thinking.

“I’m not being emotional. I’m not doing what people want me to do; I’m not doing what people thought I would do.”

If Webber leaves, the freewheeling, high-scoring, and, yes, goofy (in a lovable way) Kings will never be the same.

When a reporter began a question by stating the Kings have faced the Lakers in the playoffs two years in a row, Adelman added “Unfortunately.”

It sounded like the start of an epitaph we might begin to see around the league. As in “Unfortunately, they had to play the Lakers.”

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