Do or Dynasty for Lakers? Not Yet

They’re dancin’ on Rodeo ... down in Disneyland ... up in Culver City ...

That was quick. I went East for a week and, apparently, missed the entire NBA season, which technically may be going on but already has been decided, in Lakerdom, at least, where the local favorite has been installed as not only champion but budding dynast.

As one who has thrown “dynasty” around as much as any living sportswriter, I understand how imprecise a word it is. So after the Lakers stepped on what used to be the Portland Trail Blazers last week, Shaquille O’Neal was asked if they were trying to build one and replied, reasonably, “What’s a dynasty?”

Apparently, it’s now two titles plus a win in the next season opener.

Of course, that would mean the distinction has been watered down from the days when the Boston Celtics won 11 titles in 13 seasons, covering the NBA career of Bill Russell, from age 22 to 35.

John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty won 10 titles in 12 years, in a single-elimination tournament, with the entire roster turning over every four years.

The ‘90s Chicago Bulls won six in eight seasons, missing only when Michael Jordan left and the year after, when he returned a month before the playoffs.

These Lakers have won ... two. That’s nice but has been done five other times since 1987, by the Lakers, Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets and the Bulls twice. As far as building a dynasty goes, these Lakers have only poured the concrete for the foundation.

A title this season would put them up there with the ‘91-93 and ‘96-98 Bulls as the only NBA teams to win three in a row since 1966.

Four in a row, now we’re talking, but we’re also getting way ahead of ourselves.

There are a lot of good reasons why the Lakers will have problems this season ... even if I can’t think of a single one at the moment.

O’Neal and Kobe Bryant look as if they could be over the hump, personally and professionally.

The San Antonio Spurs look ordinary, the Trail Blazers like children and it’s hard to tell the Eastern Division from the NBA’s new developmental league.

The problem is, it’s early.

Things change. The way they look today is not the way they’ll look next month. Six months is a lifetime, during which attention spans dwindle, ankles turn, feelings are hurt and egos go bump in the night.

Coaches focus on the next thing, even if it’s a home game against Memphis, knowing they have little enough control of the immediate future.

Worrying about the whole enchilada would make them even loonier tunes.

Also, history suggests pointedly that the more you win, the harder it gets.

The ’93 Bulls had a hard season, with players bickering, Jordan gambling stories surfacing, and finally, Mike retiring after they’d won.

The ’98 Bulls had a miserable season, with Scottie Pippen holding off surgery, sitting until January, calling owner Jerry Reinsdorf a “liar,” and the Dennis Rodman experience too.

It’s not impossible that the Lakers will be the exception, that they’re so dominating, they’ll just keep rolling.

Jordan, himself, asked recently who he thought might challenge them, answered, “I couldn’t tell you.”

It’s not impossible. It’s just not the way to bet.

Be It Ever So Insignificant, I Love the Regular Season

From the perspective of a powerhouse such as the Lakers, the season is, indeed, a formality they can roll through (as in 1999-2000), or punt (2000-01), before taking care of business.

The season’s real purpose is: 1) to draw a gate big enough to pay the players; 2) provide contests for TV, which pays the rest of the freight; 3) promote the playoffs, and 4) weed out the worst 13 teams.

I love it anyway. Not because the basketball is better than the playoffs (it isn’t), or I’m so glad to see it (the most common phrase you hear when camps open is, “Where did the summer go?”)

I love it because the moment the ball goes up opening night, the nonsense ends.

Until then, 25 teams are playoff hopefuls, 12 are title contenders, every rookie is a prospect and several are The Next Coming of Michael. This season, this even includes Jordan, himself, although he’s hoping to be The Last Coming of Michael.

Then play starts, and reality sets in. The season isn’t a week old yet and already we know:

* Jordan’s return won’t be the story that makes America feel good again.

It isn’t even a big story in the NBA anymore, just a sidebar, although one with a high curiosity factor. The ballyhooed Wizard-Knick opener was squashed in the ratings by the World Series. Even if it hadn’t been such a dud, if Jordan had scored 31 and then gotten 19 two nights later, instead of the other way around, it wouldn’t have changed much. Sidebars are sidebars, no matter how they’re hyped.

* The new rules don’t work.

I hated the old rules and welcomed these changes. But if the object was to increase scoring (It was, no matter how much David Stern talks about “better flow”), they’ll have to go back to the drawing board again.

The eight-second count to bring the ball up is meaningless. No one is pressing because coaches know NBA guards can beat anything.

(Now, six seconds might really be interesting. Why not experiment with that in your little developmental league?)

That three-second count in the lane is just another way to stop the game for (yawn) a free throw. It’s the last gimmick left. Get rid of it.

Only a few teams (Minnesota, for one) are playing zone, showing how swift coaches are. If they haven’t seen someone else do it, many are afraid to try it. The Trail Blazers didn’t even bracket O’Neal, which is a litmus test. You just might want to rethink letting the game’s most devastating force catch the ball where he wants to.

* The high school kids who turned pro shouldn’t have.

Not that a lot, or most of them, won’t be fine in time. But that time isn’t now and, as they’re discovering, a childhood is a terrible thing to forsake.

As Tyson Chandler, newly emerged from Compton Dominguez High, said recently, “It’s not the glamorous life it seems.”

That was before he’d played six minutes in the Bulls’ opener, scored one point and wouldn’t talk to media afterward.

Shake it off, kid, it’s one of 82. You’ve got practice today and another game tomorrow and then a five-day trip and then ...

Faces and Figures

Happy story: Jason Kidd led the New Jersey Nets to a 2-0 start, rallying them from 17 points behind in the opener against Indiana. “What Jason Kidd brings is a sharing in the togetherness,” said the Pacers’ Jalen Rose. “People talk about a guy who loves to pass first and is unselfish but really the guy’s passing first because he can’t score. But Jason Kidd can score. He’s a willing passer, a great point guard.”

Well, it’s a happy story in Jersey, anyway: The Phoenix Suns, who traded Kidd for Stephon Marbury, opened with a home loss to the Denver Nuggets, enlivened by video clips of the Diamondbacks’ World Series game against the Yankees, so that fans in America West Arena were cheering as the Suns were losing. “I think it’s a joke,” Coach Scott Skiles said.

Will Vince Carter drift off without loose-cannon Charles Oakley around to browbeat him? Oakley was the lone Toronto Raptor who made it plain he didn’t appreciate Carter’s going to North Carolina for a graduation ceremony the day of playoff Game 7 in Philadelphia. Now Oakley is in Chicago--browbeating his new front office. “You have to look at management and see if they did the right thing by breaking up a franchise team that was winning championships,” he said. “If it was a money deal, sometimes you pay in life. They had a dynasty and they could have had it two more years, but they chose to rebuild.”

Coach Don Nelson, after rodeo horses were corralled outside the Dallas Mavericks’ offices in their new American Airlines arena: “Could have been worse. Could have been the circus.”