The Glory Days Seem So Distant

If the Lakers are lucky, maybe they will be able to smell the champagne, mopped dry going on six months ago.

Shaquille O’Neal rubbed sticky spray from his eyes. Kobe Bryant, all boyish, smiled and laughed. Rick Fox carried a basketball -- the one he promised to get a year before -- and a Bahamian flag.

They’ll play again tonight at Continental Airlines Arena, for the first time since they clinched their three-peat in June, back when it looked like their time would never end.

They will look, if they care to, at teammates who were with them then. Champions then, not the anvils they seem to have become: Robert Horry, Derek Fisher, Devean George, Samaki Walker and Fox.

The Lakers awoke this morning with a record of 10-16, looking nothing like the burgeoning dynasty many predicted, looking unmotivated and unschooled, old in some places, tattered in others.

Whether they are unwilling or unable no longer matters. Almost a third of the season is gone, and O’Neal is so angry he won’t speak publicly. Bryant is playing a passive game out of his character, seemingly lacking something.

This, perhaps, is how a team disintegrates, its edges having grown stale or aged. In El Segundo, General Manager Mitch Kupchak searches for new talent, for a trade that might kill the complacency that came hard on the heels of the championships, shopping George and veterans Fisher and Horry and Fox, willing to listen on any player but the superstars.

In the Nets’ practice facility Wednesday afternoon, Brian Shaw said, “Nobody wants anybody in the organization to panic, but I’m sure it’s getting close to panic time. We don’t have anyone to blame but ourselves.”

Indeed, they’ve had seven weeks to give the slightest hint they would contend for another title, and all they’ve done is hang their shoulders, run to the trainers’ room and lose basketball games. O’Neal’s absence put strain all over the roster, and some in the organization believe that Horry’s play, in particular, has suffered. He’s not built for 35 minutes.

Now, Laker management has no choice but to consider alternatives, despite what many consider to be immovable personnel.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “It puts people in tenuous positions. [But] that’s basically what we’re about here, is production.”

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Byron Scott played in 183 playoff games, including 56 in one three-year stretch with the Lakers. The following season, in 1988-89, he had one of his most productive years.

Wednesday afternoon, he grinned at suggestions a cumulative effect of playoff games has grounded these Lakers.

“I never thought about that,” Scott said. “I don’t think Earvin [Johnson] ever thought about that. I don’t think we thought about that until our careers were over, then we started to think about that.

“You know what guys, you can put down 10 different things for why they’re not playing real well right now. Complacency. Overconfidence. Not in shape. You could write a list of things if you wanted to. I have no idea. I’m on the outside looking in.”

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Bryant had a sore throat and appeared sluggish Wednesday. He was expected to play tonight but canceled a scheduled appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman.” ... Net forward Richard Jefferson, on the Lakers: “There’s nothing dead about that dog at all. It might be wounded, but it’s not dead.”

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TONIGHT

at New Jersey, 4:30 PST

Channel 9, TNT

Site -- Continental Airlines Arena.

Radio -- KLAC (570), KWKW (1330)

Records -- Lakers 10-16, Nets 16-9.

Record vs. Nets (2001-02) -- 1-1.

Update -- The Lakers swept the Nets in the 2002 NBA Finals, confirming the assumed gap in talent and playoff mettle. In 22 regular-season games against the Nets, O’Neal has averaged 27.9 points and 13.1 rebounds. Jason Kidd, in 25 games against the Lakers, averaged 12.9 points, 9.3 assists and 6.2 rebounds, but has lost 19 of the games.