Richmond Makes Early Impression

In one meaningless, ragged exhibition game ridiculously far from the regular season, Mitch Richmond was everything Isaiah Rider could not be.

He was assertive. He found comfortable places in the triangle. He looked as though he wanted to be there, beside Kobe Bryant, in what Bryant calls “the golden armor,” the Laker uniform.

While all else was too loose against the Golden State Warriors even for an early-October game, Richmond looked as if he got it, as if the transition from Washington to Los Angeles was nothing more complicated than an airplane flight.

“We saw some glimpses of what he’s able to do,” Bryant said after the first of two practices Monday. “As he learns the offense more and more, he’ll be more productive. He knows how to play the game. It’s pretty much the same old Mitch Richmond.”

Richmond hasn’t had a major knee injury, but he turned 36 in June, has played more than 900 regular-season games since 1988, and only two weeks ago experienced enough swelling in his left knee to require a diagnostic MRI exam. Therefore, Richmond said, knee maintenance would be critical in his first season as a bench player, much as it was for Ron Harper in two Laker seasons.

On Sunday night, he wrapped his legs in heat packs, and might occasionally ride a stationary bike when out of the game.

“I knew for a fact that as long as he was healthy, he was going to do wonders for us,” Derek Fisher said. “It was almost unfair for our basketball team, good as it is, to be able to pick up a player like him. We already had so many weapons.”

Richmond has warmed to Tex Winter’s offense reasonably quickly--”I have DirecTV,” he said--and is pleased with his opportunity.

“I’m still slow on some things, but it’s great to get some live action,” he said.

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Some of the Lakers are calling Bryant’s bodyguards “The K Team.”

Bryant has hired four large, serious-looking men, a dramatic turnabout, considering he has been largely without an entourage since arriving in the NBA.

He said there have been no specific threats against him but he simply wants to be cognizant of the world condition. Bryant felt them particularly necessary when he had to fly commercially to and from Philadelphia last week.

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The Lakers play the Warriors again tonight, then fly to Los Angeles on Wednesday morning.