OUT AT HOME

There’s no place like home, where the heart is, they always remember your name and all that other heartwarming stuff.

Well, maybe next trip.

Or in the next life.

This is no longer home for Shaquille O’Neal, Army brat turned local high school phenom turned NBA monster. Then, if that wasn’t bad enough for his old neighbors, he went and turned Laker on them and a great Arghhhh! arose, as if from every throat in south Texas.

He was already down to Santa Anna levels in local popularity . . . and then he called the Spurs “a WNBA team” and taunted David Robinson, who, around here, is indistinguishable from Mother Teresa.

In his book “Shaq Talks Back,” O’Neal refers to him as “Punk-Ass David Robinson” and complains about his “Goody Two Shoes image,” among other grievances going back 13 years when David scribbled an autograph for him while failing to exude any of the famous officer and gentleman charm.

“You ever think about offering him another autograph?” a newsman asked Robinson Thursday.

“He hasn’t asked for one,” said Robinson, laughing.

It’s not so funny to the townspeople, who may not show up with pitchforks and torches but who are expected to bring a lot of Cindy Crawford posters.

The local Express-News called O’Neal a “bully” in a headline, with columnist Ken Rodriguez comparing him to Robinson in “a collision between good and evil.” You’ll never guess who gets to play Dr. Evil down here.

“Shaq talks trash,” wrote Rodriguez, “Robinson quotes Scripture. . . .

“Shaq brags about having sex with celebrities. Robinson orders a sex magazine thrown off the team bus.

“Shaq graduates from LSU 11 years after he is enrolled. Robinson graduates from the U.S. Naval Academy in four.

“Shaq buys 22 Rolex watches for the Lakers. Robinson gives $5 million to build a school on San Antonio’s East Side.

“Edge to Shaq in gold jewelry. Edge to Robinson in following the Golden Rule.”

Sounds like a pretty one-sided decision for David, at least here . . . where they’ll play Games 1 and 2 and, if necessary, 5 and 7 of the Western Conference finals.

This may be only basketball, but when Shaq takes the court Saturday, he’ll have to wade through the enmity of 34,000 of his former fellow citizens, booing him as if he really were this comic-strip character he casts himself as. He may be Superman at Staples Center but in the Alamodome, he’s a 7-foot Darth Vader.

It’s a lesson in the hysteria that attends fame and the yahoo inclinations of the media, here and everywhere, but it’s a problem for the Lakers, who need big numbers from O’Neal . . . which he has frequently failed to deliver here, after wading through that night’s enmity.

Two seasons ago, in Game 1 of the series the Spurs would sweep, he made six of 19 shots, scored 21 points, ran after referee Steve Javie leaving the floor and demolished a TV and a VCR in the dressing room.

This season, he scored a total of 35 points in two games here. So it’s not all in good fun to the Lakers or O’Neal. It’s more like another homecoming, another ordeal.

Mr. Nice Guy: The Dark Side

TV guy, at Thursday’s practice: “What is there about Shaq that intimidates you most?”

Robinson: “His writing.”

Not that they were ever going to build a statue of O’Neal here, even if he had behaved correctly in every way. He was here briefly, arriving as a high school sophomore with his family when their father, Sgt. Phillip Harrison, was transferred from West Germany to Ft. Sam Houston.

O’Neal was 6 feet 8 and undeveloped when he arrived, 6-11 and 260 pounds when he graduated, having led Cole High to the Texas 3A title.

Then he was gone to LSU and ultimately Orlando and the Lakers.

Possession of the neighborhood was never in question. Robinson had arrived shortly before O’Neal and would stay long after he left, turning the Spurs into contenders and the city into a hotbed.

“San Antonio is so pro-Spurs,” says Herb More, the coach at Cole and an assistant in Shaq’s time. “Anybody who plays against them is going to get booed. It doesn’t matter if they went to school here.”

These days, O’Neal gives as good as he gets, but in his early NBA days he was as polite as polite could be, totally respectful of the older players.

Nevertheless, by his second All-Star game at Minneapolis in 1994, he was already becoming a controversial figure among his elders, much as the young Michael Jordan had, and for the same reason.

O’Neal was already a big item commercially. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird had retired, Jordan was booked up and advertisers were desperate to identify the Next Big Thing.

It had taken Jordan 10 years to garner $10 million off the floor. O’Neal reached $15 million as a rookie.

Reebook did commercials showing the greatest centers of NBA lore welcoming Shaq into their midst. He had a CD out. He was on movie posters for “Blue Chips.”

So it wasn’t deemed a total coincidence when the West players jumped him in the All-Star game, swarming him every time he got the ball as he missed his first 10 shots.

Said Robinson afterward: “If you’re asking me, do guys get a little more intense, I mean, of course!

“He comes out and he says what he’s going to do. More power to you. Play well. But you gotta know, nobody’s going to make it easy for you.”

After that, it became a continuing story. One day, on an NBA conference call, Robinson snapped.

“It blows my mind, I get so many Shaq questions,” he said. “About his feelings, that he’s upset about calls, that he doesn’t like this or that.

“Who is Shaq? Why should I lose sleep that he’s upset? It’s funny to me everyone plays to him so much. He’s a good player, no question. He’s athletic, 300 pounds, a phenomenon. He gets credit for how good he is, but it blows my mind how people are concerned how he feels neglected.”

O’Neal, who first tried to pretend no one had ganged up on him, that it was a media invention, was now vowing to hunt down the All-Star conspirators “one by one.”

He didn’t get Robinson for a while, though. In their next meeting--at the Alamodome--David scored 36, Shaq scored 32, the Spurs won and San Antonio’s Willie Anderson jumped in O’Neal’s face to rub it in, saying later he had taunted him with “Who played like the MVP today, you or David?”

So there may have been more than an autograph on O’Neal’s mind last summer, coming off his first title and deciding to drop what he calls his “politically correct” persona long enough to get a few things off his chest.

Of course, what goes around comes around, starting again this weekend.

You Can Go Home Again

“The great advantage of a hotel is that it’s a great refuge from home life.” George Bernard Shaw

So now this thing has a life of its own.

It’s like a giant wasp nest and whenever O’Neal is headed back this way, someone takes a broomstick and wakes up all the wasps.

“I was just talking to my assistant coach,” says Herb More, “and he said he’ll be telling someone, ‘Herb is close to Shaq.’ And they’ll say, ‘How does he put up with this and that?’

“Just because a guy says something bad in the papers doesn’t mean he’s not your friend. It bothers me a little they’re taking the wrong idea of him. Shaq’s a great person when you get around him one-on-one. . . .

“Shaq did make the comment to me about what’s going on in San Antonio. He said, ‘They boo me worse than any place in the league--and I went to school there!’ ”

The community is ready to rumble. Shaq asked More to lease a luxury car for him for this trip, since rental agencies don’t keep Shaq-sized craft on hand.

More says the first dealer he asked turned him down flat.

“They said, ‘We furnish cars for the Spurs and that would be a slap in their face,’ ” More said.

“I said, ‘He’d be paying for this.’ ”

Maybe the dealer thought that without his own car, O’Neal might have to hoof it to the Alamodome, which would be a problem since the humid season has begun.

However, the Lakers charter buses so they’re OK, on that score, at least.

Not surprisingly, people who know O’Neal, old friends and neighbors, most reporters, even Spurs’ players, don’t have a problem with him.

Of course, Coach Gregg Popovich has warned his players not to say a bad word about the Lakers for the duration, so the story has changed a bit.

When O’Neal’s book came out, a reporter walked up to Robinson with it, to ask him about all the insults in it.

“What is it?” asked David, “a picture book?”

Now, Robinson says he understands, it’s part of rivalries. He recalls his stint with O’Neal as teammates on the 1996 Olympic team in Atlanta, where he says they got along fine.

They even talked about the original autograph incident, which Robinson says he doesn’t remember.

After that, David thought they might be cool, although that isn’t exactly how it turned out.

“I’ve got to give him credit, he did give me an autograph for my kids a couple years ago at the All-Star game,” Robinson says. “My boys went up and asked him.

“Actually, he gave them his jersey, so I guess he’s not totally holding it against me.”

They may even wind up becoming friends one day, although the next couple of weeks are probably out of the question.

Lakers vs. San Antonio

Best-of-seven series

Game 1--Saturday

at San Antonio,

3:30 p.m., Channel 4

*

INSIDE

Milwaukee 104,

Charlotte 97

Sam Cassell scores 33 points at Charlotte, N.C., as the Bucks force a Game 7. D12