Feud Chain

Lives of the rich and famous ... they must be harder than they look.

Until now, the Laker season was like those jungle movies where one adventurer remarks on how quiet it is and his partner answers, “Yeah, too quiet.”

The Lakers actually made it through two weeks before dissension reared its overdue head.

Let’s see, last season Shaquille O’Neal was upset with Kobe Bryant. In previous ones, Shaq was upset with Nick Van Exel, Del Harris and Kurt Rambis. Now Shaq’s upset with Phil Jackson.

See if you can find the common theme.

Yes, O’Neal is usually upset that someone is letting him down or not according him the proper respect.

What’s really going on is that Shaq has scaled the mountaintop, only to learn the hard truth: Wherever you go, there you are.

In real life, he has five seasons left on his seven-year $152-million deal, the game’s richest.

He’s finally and unquestionably acknowledged as its dominating force. Foes fairly tremble before him, as they did last week when the Lakers were headed for Houston and the Rockets’ Kelvin Cato noted, “If he gets mad, we’re in a whole lot of trouble. We got to hope he comes in in a positive attitude and wants to play a regular nice, little game.”

Instead, Shaq showed up angry ... with Jackson, who fined him for missing practice, in a story the papers covered in a few paragraphs and tucked away on inside pages ... and scored 30 points, including seven of their 11 in overtime, as the Lakers made it 7-0.

What’s missing in this life?

O’Neal has a mansion off Mulholland Drive and a summer palace the size of Versailles in tony Isleworth, Fla.

He has a coach, Jackson, he personally selected. By his own testimony, O’Neal told Jerry West he wanted Phil when the Lakers were about to rehire Rambis and for two seasons happily accepted all jibes Jackson directed at him.

Shaq has a superstar sidekick, Bryant, who now accepts a supporting role.

Shaq has small children and plans to be married next summer.

Nevertheless, despite what you read in the sports pages about “maturity,” people have a lot of trouble being anything other than who they are.

O’Neal is the grown-up version of the child hulk people laughed at, who bullied them in retaliation, also by his own testimony, and was, himself, bullied into line by his stepfather, the Army lifer, Sgt. Phillip Harrison.

Now Shaq has both sides: the responsible adult Sarge insisted he become and, when the pressure’s off, the superhero-worshipping kid who sees himself as their colleague, with Superman logos emblazoned on his cars, homes and body.

He plays hard in games but cruises in practice and takes summers off. Regardless of what’s going on, the story, according to him, is whatever he says it is. He recently fired his agent, Leonard Armato, who made him tens of millions of dollars in endorsements. For years, Armato fretted about keeping O’Neal’s image friendly enough to sell; now Shaq says he’s going “corporate.”

People around O’Neal always wondered how long he’d play and it’s more relevant now. We’ve seen Shaq start seasons around 335 pounds, but he never looked this big, suggesting he’s 350 or even 375.

It’s not that he can’t play this way; he leads the NBA in scoring, he’s second in blocks and fourth in rebounds. Still, it’s not good for such a huge man to put so much extra stress on his joints.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens. If, upon reflection, he decides he’d like to continue doing this at his MVP level, he’ll slim down.

It also remains to be seen how long Jackson will opt to run a day-care center. He’s anything but a creature of Los Angeles, going home to Montana in summer. He had an agonizing season with Bryant that had him questioning his vocation.

Jackson also has ongoing problems with his back and hips. He has told friends he’d like to finish his five-year contract. However, he has been there and done that and by summer will have made at least $22 million here, including $4 million in bonuses for his two titles.

In other words, he could be gone as fast as you can say, “Who needs this?”

Jackson shrugged this one off as Shaq being Shaq. But he also gave O’Neal the last shot in regulation at Houston, when Bryant, a free-throw dead-eye who doesn’t play in the middle of the defense, would have been the conventional call.

Insiders thought that would end the latest joke, er, disruption, but Shaq came back the next night, noted he wasn’t impressed at anything Phil had to say and ran through his list of grievances (“I’m nobody’s whipping boy”) again.

Then the Lakers didn’t show up against the Phoenix Suns and were routed, looking like the distracted crew of Nov. 1, 2000-April 1, 2001.

Someday the Lakers may find some actual competition. Now, as usual, all they have to worry about is themselves, but they’re still a worthy opponent.

Faces and Figures

You want to see some actual problems? ... Wizard debacle (cont.): Michael Jordan never imagined they would be this bad, nor did Coach Doug Collins, who benched Richard Hamilton and Courtney Alexander, zinged rookie Kwame Brown (“I’ve rewarded him when he didn’t deserve it”), and buried reserves Tyronn Lue and Tyrone Nesby. “I can’t continue to put guys on the floor and have them collapse on us in the second quarter,” Collins said. ... Jordan now starts with rookie free agent Bobby Simmons, Chris Whitney, Christian Laettner and Jahidi White, who has bad hands, few skills and is probably just being showcased. ... Meanwhile, Jordan, whose career low is 46%, is shooting 41%. Opponents crowd him, knowing he’d rather shoot over them than drive. Wrote the Washington Post’s Michael Wilbon: “The ‘other’ Wizards are shooting a higher percentage than Jordan, but this isn’t what folks meant when they said Jordan would make his teammates better.”

Bull debacle (cont.): Charles Oakley zinged Coach Tim Floyd, who fined him $50,000, which didn’t quiet Oakley for a second. “Personally, what I said was mild compared to what I could have said,” Oakley noted. “Now they’re trying to make me out to be the bad guy. They were playing bad and losing before I got here and probably will still be doing so after I’m gone. This team is the way it is because of management decisions. If you are going to blame the players all the time, what about the coaches and [management]?” ... Oakley wants Floyd to play veterans, but the fans want him to play rookies Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler. “You never know when you’re going to go in and you don’t know what your role is,” said Chandler, complaining like a veteran, at least. Floyd says he could be happier too: “I’m not looking for support or hugs. The only difference between this and what has happened to me the last three years is that this was public. But every day has been hell. ... I knew this job wasn’t going to be easy. And it hasn’t been easy. But who else’s job in this country is easy? This is what I wanted to do. I wanted to coach at this level. I didn’t see them knocking my door down at Los Angeles or New York.” ... Not a good sign for Floyd: Teammates volunteered to help pay Oakley’s fine, but he turned them down

Trail Blazer debacle (cont.): Rookie Coach Mo Cheeks turned Damon Stoudamire loose, causing Stoudamire to rejoice: “I have a coach who understands my game and has my back.” Then, when the team started badly, Cheeks made Scottie Pippen the point guard. Stoudamire just went back on the injured list, presumably to heal his stabbed back. ... Heat debacle (cont.): Alonzo Mourning has a mystery virus, Brian Grant and Kendall Gill are out, the team played badly when it was at full strength. “Unless somebody has built something, they don’t have any clue what it takes to build,” embattled Coach Pat Riley says. “I built in New York and Los Angeles and I’m doing it here ... for the second time. When you’re trying to build something, you don’t give a damn what anybody thinks.” ... Good thing, because everybody thinks he’s losing it.