They’re All Grown Up, With Somewhere to Go

To understand where the Lakers are now, the day they begin their journey for what Kobe Bryant has begun to call the Triple Crown, it is important to know they believe they are changed.

They are changed in their roster and changed in their coaching staff, and they are changed in the rules by which the NBA asks them to abide, rules Shaquille O’Neal is fairly convinced were created to deaden his impact on the less gifted and hefted.

Most critically, though, they believe they are changed in their heads and their hearts, and in the places where they play their game and live their lives and hold to each other.

An NBA season is a lifetime, of course, and the Lakers lived their last one nearly to death. They played a little basketball between the glares and the eye rolls, between the on-court slights and off-floor sighs, and just when it appeared the whole enterprise would collapse beneath the weight of the egos, along came detente.

Jerry West cajoled. Bryant grew. O’Neal understood.

There was more.

Derek Fisher healed. Rick Fox defended. Robert Horry shot.

Phil Jackson provoked, soothed, held on.

At the end of ordinary came brilliance. The Lakers won 15 of 16 games in the postseason, shocked the industry not with their victories necessarily, but with their savagery, then aimed squirt guns at each other at a downtown parade. They were 16 games that probably changed the course of an organization.

“There’s a certain sense of confidence that is abiding,” Jackson said. “There’s a certain feeling that prevails, that come hell or high water we know how to rally our collective energies together to play, and to defend this championship. There’s a subtle thing, and it’s not overconfidence, I hope. It’s more an abiding reliance on each other and the team, that’s playing together and playing to the best of our abilities.”

Tonight, at the beginning of the next regular season, the Lakers are widely perceived as a team rolling into its dynastic prime rather than spending it on pettiness, a massive shift. They’ll get their rings, raise their banner and play the Portland Trail Blazers, last year’s preseason popular choice to overtake the Phil-Shaq-Kobe triangle.

The Lakers believed they had changed in the moments that it worked, in the systematic elimination of the best teams in the Western Conference, the cool victories in Philadelphia, and in a second NBA title that validated the first and dismissed everything in between.

Maybe they did change, and maybe the new, grown-up Lakers will make a third championship look easy.

“We are focused,” Bryant said. “We know what we have to do.”

Only three organizations have won as many as three consecutive NBA titles, the last being the Chicago Bulls, who did it twice in the last decade, both times with Jackson as their coach. The Boston Celtics won eight in a row to storm the 1960s, and the Minneapolis Lakers won three from 1952-54.

Pat Riley, the man who bought the term, failed to three-peat with the Lakers in 1989, his only chance, and it has taken the franchise 13 years to return to the verge of it again.

Jackson recalled his three-peat seasons as being more arduous. There were complications of spirit and health and concentration. Those Bulls averaged 81/2 more losses than in the previous regular seasons, but suffered little in the playoffs.

By the second three-peat, however, Michael Jordan was 35, had retired and unretired before, and was facing a second--and supposedly last--retirement. Bryant turned 23 in August.

O’Neal is wearing a “Kobe for MVP” button, and Bryant is carrying this very calm, very leader-like quality. O’Neal is pretty sure the new zone defenses will rob him of four or five points a game, and he is quite sure his late-summer toe surgery will complicate his conditioning, particularly early in the season, so the hand-off to Bryant--even as a rationalization--makes some sense.

Told the Lakers are such favorites that a failure to win again would be shocking, O’Neal said: “I would agree. But I’m not going to sit here right now and say we’re going to win the whole thing. I won’t put that much pressure on myself. I don’t like pressure.”

Given a short budget, General Manager Mitch Kupchak deftly traded for guard Lindsey Hunter in the hours after it was discovered Fisher had re-broken his right foot. He convinced free agents Mitch Richmond and Samaki Walker to forego larger salaries for the sake of championship equity. The early hand-wringing concerns the team’s lack of depth at power forward and center, and of a potential uneven start, because of O’Neal’s toe and the meshing of the new players with the triangle veterans.

By Dec. 19, seven weeks into the season, however, the Lakers will have played only seven road games. They also will have played only three sets of back-to-back games.

“I’ve got to coordinate the players that are new into what we were doing in a way that keeps them involved and still growing, so we don’t get so anxious about winning that you don’t get them involved,” Jackson said.

Hunter will start in place of Fisher, who is not expected to return until Thanksgiving at the earliest. Walker, apparently, starts at power forward in place of Horace Grant, who took a two-year deal in Orlando. Horry will get the critical minutes at power forward, while Walker gets the backup center minutes, though that all is subject to change, and likely will when Mark Madsen is able to play.

Mostly, though, it’s Shaq and Kobe again, and a postseason waiting at the end of 82 more games, and countless more moments that will tell if they have changed, and if they are better for their hard times.

“I’ve seen all kinds of situations on basketball clubs,” Jackson said. “Yes, there was still that confidence last year, that if we could possibly get together a good week or two, maybe we could fulfill this momentum.”

They have the better part of six months to find it again. If they’ve changed, it won’t take that long.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Roster

CENTER

No.: 34

Player: Shaquille O’Neal

Yr.: 10

Ht.: 7-1

Wt.: 335

Comment: Late-summer toe surgery and a few extra pounds don’t change the fact that no one can guard him.

*

FORWARDS

No.: 3

Player: Devean George

Yr.: 3

Ht.: 6-8

Wt.: 225

Comment: Which comes first, playing time or production?

*

No.: 5

Player: Robert Horry

Yr.: 10

Ht.: 6-10

Wt.: 238

Comment: They like him late, but might need him early.

*

No.: 6

Player: Jelani McCoy

Yr.: 4

Ht.: 6-10

Wt.: 245

Comment: Won’t see a lot of meaningful minutes at the start.

*

No.: 14

Player: Slava Medvedenko

Yr.: 2

Ht.: 6-10

Wt.: 255

Comment: Still growing at power forward and center, but needs time.

*

No.: 17

Player: Rick Fox

Yr.: 11

Ht.: 6-7

Wt.: 235

Comment: Seems intent on being an All-NBA defensive player.

*

No.: 35

Player: Mark Madsen

Yr.: 2

Ht.: 6-9

Wt.: 245

Comment: Jackson awaits his enthusiasm and bruising style

*

No.: 52

Player: Samaki Walker

Yr.: 6

Ht.: 6-9

Wt.: 255

Comment: As athletic as advertised

*

GUARDS

No.: 2

Player: Derek Fisher

Yr.: 6

Ht.: 6-1

Wt.: 205

Comment: Expected back from foot surgery around Thanksgiving.

*

No.: 8

Player: Kobe Bryant

Yr.: 6

Ht.: 6-7

Wt.: 215

Comment: Shaq’s choice for MVP.

*

No.: 10

Player: Lindsey Hunter

Yr.: 9

Ht.: 6-2

Wt.: 190

Comment: Good defensive player and three-point shooter.

*

No.: 11

Player: Joe Crispin

Yr.: 1

Ht.: 6-0

Wt.: 185

Comment: They like his attitude, and three-point shooting.

*

No.: 12

Player: Mike Penberthy

Yr.: 2

Ht.: 6-3

Wt.: 185

Comment: Tied for 26th in three-point percentage as a rookie.

*

No.: 20

Player: Brian Shaw

Yr.: 13

Ht.: 6-6

Wt.: 200

Comment: Bailed out the Lakers last season when injuries hit.

*

No.: 23

Player: Mitch Richmond

Yr.: 14

Ht.: 6-5

Wt.: 220

Comment: His game will allow Bryant minutes at small forward.