An Aloha With Questions

Going on two weeks of training camp, Phil Jackson still hasn’t seen Kobe Bryant practice. Nobody has seen Shaquille O’Neal practice, or Derek Fisher.

As the Lakers packed up to leave Hawaii-their charter flight was to leave for Los Angeles this morning-less than three weeks remained before opening night, Oct. 30 against the Portland Trail Blazers. And still, it seemed, there is so much to be decided, and more to be done.

O’Neal and Fisher, along with Mark Madsen, are scheduled to be examined Thursday, at which point the club should know more about O’Neal’s small left toe. Six weeks have passed since the surgery. There does not yet appear to be concern about O’Neal healing, but there could come a time when roster decisions would be made with O’Neal in mind.

“I’m assuming his therapy’s coming along positively,” assistant coach Jim Cleamons said. “The medical staff hasn’t expressed any concern to me. The assumption is everything’s progressing status quo.”

Jackson was in Los Angeles on Monday and will rejoin the team upon its first practice back, either Thursday or Friday.

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Because the coaching staff wanted to get longer looks at other guards-Joe Crispin and Isaac Fontaine among them-Brian Shaw did not dress for Tuesday night’s exhibition game against the Golden State Warriors.

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Laker scout Gene Tormohlen can’t help but keep an eye on the New York Yankees as baseball’s postseason begins.

Four decades ago, fresh out of the University of Tennessee, Tormohlen was signed by the Cleveland Pipers of the National Industrial Basketball League. He played one season in Cleveland before being traded to Kansas City of the American Basketball League, but he’ll never forget the owner of those Pipers. It was a young ship builder/former football coach named George Steinbrenner.

Tormohlen said he never saw Steinbrenner on the basketball court.

“Once you got off the floor, though,” he said, chuckling, “he was very hands on.”