Panic Attaq

Now, you can worry.

Now, after staring for a month and a half into the blackness of what used to be a twinkling sky, you can wonder.

Will that championship constellation known as the 2000-2002 Lakers ever show up this season?

As something more than an occasional brilliant flash?

For longer than a few minutes?

As Laker fans drop their heads back into their hands today, their patience as short as Derek Fisher’s jump shot, their worries as thick as Shaquille O’Neal’s waist, the answer is becoming clear.

It is no.

Without a change in both roster and attitude, it appears these Lakers will not be good enough to win a fourth consecutive championship.

More than a quarter of the way into a season in which they have lost 14 of 23 games, the answer comes not from panic or pessimism, but from the Lakers themselves.

Listen to O’Neal.

Although he has criticized teammates in the past, his words have always been couched in trust and respect.

After Tuesday’s loss to Golden State, he ripped them behind their backs for the second time in 11 games since his return. This time, on the way to the bus. Ostertagging them with words that burned their cheeks.

“Talk to the [bleeps] that ain’t doing nothing,” he told reporters. “Don’t talk to me.”

While O’Neal needs to shut up now, his bosses also needed to hear him. He is begging for them to make a trade. He is begging for a shooter. He has never begged like this before.

Listen to Robert Horry.

He is the most easygoing player in the room, secure in his five championships, annually shrugs off projections of doom, once blamed the Lakers’ cold starts on the ice underneath the Staples Center floor.

Until after Wednesday’s workout, when he was asked about the theory that three long playoff runs -- nearly an extra full season -- have finally buckled the veteran Lakers’ knees.

“You know, I looked at that, and I thought, yeah, last year we were a step faster,” he said. “You wonder, is it catching up to us? You look at all the little injuries we’ve been having ... it’s just been weird.”

Now listen to Fisher.

He is the most verbally inspirational guy on the team, always plays hard, recovered from two foot surgeries without an excuse, never blinks.

On Wednesday, for a brief moment, the stare wavered.

“This is a tough thing we’re trying to do,” he acknowledged. “I don’t know if the gap between us and other teams has gotten smaller or what. But I tell you, it’s tough to slap guys in the face for four years in a row. It’s just tough.”

At this moment, the challenge is bigger than they are.

Friday here against New Orleans, the Lakers begin a stretch of seven games against teams that made the playoffs last season. Four of those games are on the road. The final is the Christmas showdown here against Sacramento.

Not until then, Phil Jackson insists, can a true evaluation be made.

“How many times do I have to tell you guys, it will be until the holidays that I know about this team,” he said Wednesday, shaking his head in frustration. “How many times do I have to tell you? I say it every week. The holidays.”

Replied one reporter: “But you never said which holiday.”

Chimed in another reporter: “We thought you meant Hanukkah.”

Turns out, he could have meant Halloween.

With O’Neal out of the lineup because of September toe surgery, with Kobe Bryant barking at the role players like O’Neal barks now, what was true on opening night is still true today.

Horry looks tired. Rick Fox looks distracted. Fisher looks slow.

Devean George and Samaki Walker look like wastes of money.

Newcomers Tracy Murray and Kareem Rush, well, we don’t know how they look, because they are playing only 16 minutes per night combined.

Even though everyone can still fit into that puzzle around O’Neal -- witness Friday’s astonishing comeback against Dallas -- they seem too weathered and distracted to do it consistently.

The Laker mystique still exists -- look at how mighty Dallas choked -- but it is slowly being chipped away by the likes of Cleveland, Miami and Golden State.

“We haven’t always been bad, but what Shaq said was true,” Horry said. “At times, everyone on this team has been bad. All of us.”

That includes O’Neal, who needs to pipe down before somebody realizes that he is ripping his teammates for a situation he caused.

Yes, this year’s problems started not on the bench, but in the middle, last summer, with the guy who is supposed to solve them.

This space will continue to defend O’Neal for delaying toe surgery until he was confident in his doctors and his decision. He was worried about his career. The wrong choice could have finished him.

Having brought this town three championships on a bad toe, he deserved the right to take his time and be certain about having it fixed.

But it is impossible to defend his decision not to remain in better shape during rehabilitation.

And the effect of an absent, then slow-starting O’Neal on his teammates cannot be underestimated.

“Having gone through surgery, I understand his concern,” said Fisher. “But hindsight being 20-20, sure, we wish he had the surgery earlier. If he wanted to miss training camp, fine, he could have worked that out with Phil and Mitch [Kupchak]. But it sure would have been nice if the surgery were done in the summer.”

Now that he’s back, to rip his teammates for lacking the rhythm that he creates is a bit incongruous. And, for the self-proclaimed team general, not too cool.

“He’s our leader, he can have his opinion,” said Fisher. “But he has to be careful not to pass the blame on other guys. When you struggle, that’s when you really need to stick together.”

Only one Laker needs to be yapping right now, and that is Kupchak, on the phone, to other general managers, trying to figure out a way to extricate his team from this mess.

It’s going to take another player, a shooter, fresh legs, new attitude.

Before each of the three championship years, the Lakers received off-season help from an outside source, whether it was Phil Jackson, Horace Grant or (at times) Samaki Walker.

This summer, the two main acquisitions -- Murray and Rush -- have been ignored by Jackson.

Giving the nine-time championship coach the benefit of his doubt, Kupchak needs to find somebody else, even though the odds are against it.

Kupchak has problems with budget. He has problems trading players who, because their individual games have long since disappeared into the Laker triangle, have little value elsewhere.

Nobody wants to help the Lakers. The Lakers seem unable to help anyone else. The situation seems impossible.

Which was when Jerry West was at his best.

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Out of Their Depth

Comparing the Lakers’ bench to their starters:

*--* FG% 3pt% PPG Starters 44.2 32.9 71.2 Bench 39.1 24.7 23.4

*--*