Package Arrives Minus Some Parts

Not these pests again.

It’s how it is. There’s always someone who can’t deal with your success. So no matter how far past them you go, they still think they’re on your level. So you just have to show them, even if it means giving up your Christmas.

Of course, when you’re doing as well as the Kings, every day’s a holiday and you can give one up.

And when you’re doing as badly as the Lakers, you welcome the opportunity to show you’re as good as the big guys.

Yes, we’ve seen some changes in the Laker-King rivalry, or, according to this season’s standings, where the Lakers trail by 10 1/2 games, the King-Laker rivalry.

Forget the years of abject submission that culminated in the Kings’ heartbreaking loss in last spring’s Western Conference finals -- as they’re still trying to do. It’s another day.

“The approach I have taken was, that was last year,” says Coach Rick Adelman. “That’s one of the few things I agree with Shaq on, that was last year and it’s a new year.”

And so far, it doesn’t look like any we have seen, either.

Like, now, this is actually a rivalry. Once, it was only in the heads of the downtrodden Kings and their alternative-challenged fans, but last spring’s epic series got through to the Lakers.

Now it’s real. Or maybe it was a coincidence that Shaquille O’Neal called them “Queens” before the season, and Rick Fox tangled with Doug Christie in an exhibition game, then jumped him again on the way to the locker room.

Christie had admitted to lumping it on the shot he air-balled in last spring’s Game 7. Fox thought Christie was out to show he was over it in a manly way, persuading Fox he had to respond in like manner. Christie thought Fox was trying to intimidate him. Of such misunderstandings are rivalries made.

Not that the Kings were upset by the catcalling, but before the season, quiet man Mike Bibby predicted they’d win 70 games.

Someone must have told him that had only been done once in NBA history. In any case, Bibby broke a bone in his right foot, sat out the first seven weeks and now watches what he says.

“You know, I’m just trying to hype us up,” he said recently. “I mean, we don’t have to win 70 games to be successful. Just as long as we win 50-60 games, we’ll be all right.”

Like, three-time defending champions or not, the Lakers don’t own the Kings anymore.

Even as the Kings’ ambitions widened in recent years, they were never on the Lakers’ level, hoping only for one of those David-and-Goliath upsets.

Last season, however, the former bumpkins beat the city slickers for the division title. Then came their collector’s-item West finals, when the Lakers had to come from 24 points down in Game 4 and drop in a three-pointer at the buzzer to avoid going down, 3-1 ... and get 27 free throws in the fourth quarter of Game 6 to avoid elimination ... and win a tense Game 7 in overtime in Sacramento.

All of which the Lakers did, of course.

“Honestly, it was terrible,” says the Kings’ long-serving-and-suffering personnel director, Jerry Reynolds.

“I’m not over it yet. It’s one of those things where for two weeks, I just pouted like a child. And then, about the time I got over it, I realized how much money it had cost me.

“I just think it’s one of those things you never get over, ‘cause we felt like we should have won the series. No disrespect to them. I don’t want to get into all that because, I mean, they’re the Lakers, they’re a great team. They’ve proven that before. But we felt we were in a position to win and should have won and didn’t.”

When the Kings dried their eyes, they went back to work, adding overlooked free agent Keon Clark to what was already the NBA’s deepest roster.

So when injuries hit both teams, only one suffered dramatically. Without O’Neal, the Lakers started 3-9 and haven’t dug their way out of that hole yet. The Kings actually lost more games to injury. When O’Neal returned, even counting Fox’s six-game suspension, the Lakers’ top eight players had missed 22 games, whereas Sacramento’s top eight had missed 30.

Of course, people have long known that the Lakers’ greatness is built on two superstars and, for what it was worth, the Kings owned the edge in depth.

On the other hand, the Lakers were never stretched quite this thin before, nor have the Kings ever looked as deep.

Everyone Knows

the Trouble They Seen

Not that losing is ever fun for anyone involved on any level but there are bad losses, worse ones and unforgettable ones.

Of the Lakers’ nine titles in Los Angeles, six would follow their most ignominious moment, the ’84 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics, who had always owned them and made it 7-0 with that one, after the Lakers had led each of the first four games going into the last minute of play.

That was the series when Gerald Henderson intercepted James Worthy’s pass in the backcourt, when Magic Johnson dribbled out the 24-second clock with a game on the line, when Kevin McHale pulled Kurt Rambis down and turned the series into a gang fight, which the Lakers lost, wilting in a sweltering Game 7 in Boston Garden.

For the Kings, or at least for their fans, last spring was that bad ... or worse.

Los Angeles and Boston are both big cities with no particular resentments vis-a-vis each other, unless one of their teams is playing the other’s.

For Sacramento, however, Los Angeles is another world, which the Sacramento crowd may admire or even envy, but certainly dislikes.

Bigger cities mean big concentrations of media that never seem to tire of pumping themselves up, often at the expense of someplace smaller. If you want to know what people in Sacramento think when they hear “Los Angeles,” it’s like what Angelenos think when they hear “New York.”

Thus, Phil Jackson’s barbarian jibes resonated like a bass line in O’Neal’s Escalade SUV, even if Jackson was joking, sort of. In reply, King fans started the cowbell movement, ringing everything short of the Liberty Bell in Jackson’s ears, which was also a joke, an attempt to deafen him, or both.

The Lakers’ distaste for Sacramento was at least matched by the Kings’ distaste for playing here, whether at Staples Center or the Forum. They could have played outdoors at Venice Beach and it would have been the same.

Reynolds, who also took his lumps as general manager, coach and assistant, said he could feel the disdain from the moment they got off the bus, from the Lakers, their fans, the ushers and the concessionaires. Reynolds once said he hated the entire metropolitan area so much, he even disliked flying over it.

The Lakers were usually in the midst of one dynasty or another. The Kings were usually rebuilding, although for many years, nothing ever seemed to work, as when they hired former Celtic great Bill Russell, whose name was said to be “synonymous with winning,” as coach. He lasted 58 games, of which he lost 41.

The most memorable game was at the Forum, where Russell had played his last game, the Celtics’ Game 7 upset in the ’69 NBA Finals, when Jack Kent Cooke penned those balloons up in the ceiling. On this night as Kings’ coach, Russell let the Lakers score 23 consecutive points, refusing to call a timeout.

“We kept saying, ‘We need a timeout, we need a timeout,’ ” says Reynolds, who was one of Russell’s assistants. “Bill wouldn’t do it.... Then afterward, he said, ‘I felt if I had called a timeout, it would have helped the Lakers more than it would have us.’

“Of course, we were figuring, now, 23 straight, I don’t know what we were risking here.

“Willis [Reed, the other assistant] and I were kinda stunned. It’s not like we were gonna win the ballgame. I mean, they were a better team than us. I think Russ, probably like any of us trying to put a spin on it -- I mean, I think he just really got mad at the players and that was the end of it.”

Barbarians

at Staples Gates

For many years, it was almost that bad.

The Kings were better in the ‘90s, even making the playoffs twice, even if that didn’t seem to change their image, externally or within. Once, when they sought financial help, a well-intentioned Mitch Richmond told the city council, “If we lose the Kings, the city goes back to what it’s always been, a dead city.”

The ‘90s ended with a thud with the team diving, Richmond demanding a trade, and attendance, which had run at 100% of capacity since they’d moved into Arco Arena, falling 33% in a season, starting yet another rebuilding program ... which worked.

In 1999, General Manager Geoff Petrie signed Vlade Divac, traded Richmond for Chris Webber and drafted Jason Williams.

In 2000, Petrie signed Bobby Jackson and, with the 16th pick in a weak draft, selected Hedo Turkoglu.

In 2001, Petrie traded the thorny Williams for Bibby.

In 2002, when little help seemed available and other teams dumped players ahead of the luxury tax, Petrie was allowed to give Clark $4.5 million, running their payroll to $69.8 million -- $6.2 million higher than the Lakers’.

With Williams, Divac and Webber, all slick passers, they were a highlight reel. Last season, with Bibby breaking out, going from 14 points a game during the season to 20 in the playoffs, they had the cool-handed leader they needed to take the last step.

Instead, they tripped, or were tripped.

The Kings fought the Lakers on even terms in the West finals, dominating Games 2, 3 and 4. The Lakers stole Game 4 back, eked out wins in Games 6 and 7 and left laughing, while the Kings’ dreams turned to ashes, as usual.

Can you spell l-o-n-g o-f-f s-e-a-s-o-n?

Now, they meet again, but it’s a new season with new realities, like the rise of the Dallas Mavericks, and four months left before the playoffs for more surprises, of which the Lakers have already had enough.

“If there’s anything our team has learned through our start this year,” Adelman says, “it’s that every year is going to be different....

“I keep telling ‘em, ‘Forget about the Lakers.’ I mean, really. We’ll play ‘em four times. If we get that opportunity again in the playoffs, then it’s going to crank it up a whole lot. But until that happens, we’ve got to get ourselves in a position to be there.

“I’ve said all along, the Lakers, that’s the bar you measure all the teams by, at least before the season started and before Shaq’s injury. But there are the Dallases and the San Antonios and teams like that who are going to be there too. I didn’t want us to be all concerned with [the Lakers]....

“It’s one of those things that amazes me when I keep hearing people talk about us, [saying] we’re whining about that series.... I haven’t said anything about that series since the week after it was over, and I was pretty emotional then. But since then, I haven’t said anything. It’s just been stuff that’s kinda been rewritten, rewritten, rewritten.

“And, of course, people are going to ask them about it, ask us about it. But [the Lakers] are finding out, it’s a different season this year too. Until we get there, I think our guys are taking the approach, we want to be there again.”

So the Kings aren’t concerned. Of course, everyone else in Sacramento is extremely concerned.

Webber said people were making plans to gather around their TVs to watch this one as if it were the Super Bowl. And, as long as they’re together, they can celebrate that holiday.

Monday, the Sacramento Bee ran a picture of a fan named Barbara Rust, who was wearing a Santa cap and holding up a sign that said, “All We Want for Christmas is to Beat L.A.”

They’ve been disappointed before, actually about 100% of the time. It’s just that it may not be “before” anymore.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Getting Closer

*--* Sacramento has improved its regular-season record and gone further in the playoffs each of the last three Laker championship seasons: Lakers Season Sacramento 67-15 1999-00 44-38 56-26 2000-01 55-27 58-24 2001-02 61-21 Playoffs vs. Sacramento 2000 Round 1 Lakers, 3-2 2001 Round 2 Lakers, 4-0 2002 Round 3 Lakers, 4-3

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