Lakers Are Developing a King-Sized Problem

Wake up, little Lakers, wake up.

Wake up, little Lakers, wake up.

You’ve all been fast asleep.

Wake up, little Lakers, and weep.

It’s Feb. 24, you’re two games out and Shaq’s got problems too...

With apologies to Phil and Don Everly

What we’ve got here is a dead duck walk.

They’re having a season, after all. The NBA schedules one each year, but as late as Dec. 5 when the Lakers were 16-1, it looked as if the league might have to call this one off for lack of opposition.

Fortunately for everyone except the Lakers, they nodded off and haven’t dominated anything since.

Then there’s the ever-popular hubris angle, in which Shaquille O’Neal learns he can’t float like the Hindenburg, miss camp and play himself into shape.

Now, he’s returning from his third stint on the sidelines (two trips to the injury list, one suspension), his arthritic piggy is still throbbing and Coach Phil Jackson is talking about resting him again at season’s end, hopefully after they overhaul Sacramento, which would spare the Lakers the indignity of starting any postseason showdown with a cowbell serenade in Arco Arena.

Catching the Kings will be no cinch in any case. Assuming Sacramento maintains its 60-victory pace, the Lakers must go 23-6 to catch the Kings.

Of course, Phil, being Phil, exuding guru-like serenity and Alfred E. Neuman-like confidence (what, them worry?), doesn’t assume that at all.

“I’m trying to think about it as how do we do it, getting him [O’Neal] ready for the matchup, head on head?” Jackson said last week before heading East.

“They [Kings] still haven’t proven themselves as a real quality road team yet. We know they’re really solid on their home court. They have a bandbox and they play in front of their fans very well. They just got over .500 as a road team in this last month and I think the jury’s still out on them. They play 41 games on the road and if they’re 20-21 or 21-20....

“We think they’re going to lose some more games at home. You don’t sustain that kind of record [27-2].... If they lose 20 games on the road and three or four at home, that’s 24 losses. I don’t know, can we play to that level?”

We’ll see. If the Kings go 58-24, the Lakers still must go 22-8, no mean feat, given O’Neal’s feet.

With Shaq at 100%, the Lakers are in a league of their own. The Kings are soft, the San Antonio Spurs don’t score enough, the Minnesota Timberwolves don’t weigh enough and the Dallas Mavericks, who are still children in a grown-ups’ conference, have a wag-the-dog problem, with their manic owner, Mad Mark Cuban, reconfiguring them every midseason.

However, with Shaq at 80% or 90%, the Lakers are in the same league as everyone else. In his last 13 games, they’re 7-6, with opponents averaging 98.2 points. That’s a tidy 6.6 more than they’ve given up in their other games.

In big games, O’Neal works on defense. When he’s hurting and/or bored, he lurks in the lane and lets opponents see what they can do with wide-open looks.

Of course, when he’s at 0%--out--everyone gets unmasked.

Without O’Neal, the Lakers were 7-6, looking less like defending champions than Orlando, with a great perimeter player and a small supporting cast.

Samaki Walker, trying to grow into a front-line power forward, is even less imposing as a center. Robert Horry, who’s actually playing again after a prolonged crisis of confidence or energy, is a converted small forward. Slava Medvedenko, 18 months removed from the Ukraine, is coming but not yet there.

Of course, Jackson has faced similar predicaments, having won three of his eight titles after overcoming an opponent’s home-court advantage.

Dynasts do that stuff, like the Boston Celtics, who prolonged their 11-year, nine-title run by winning a Game 7 in Philadelphia in the 1968 Eastern Conference finals and an even more famous Game 7 in the Forum in 1969.

These Lakers did it too, demolishing No. 1-seeded San Antonio last season, but that cuts two ways.

No matter what they say, having thrown a switch late in a lost season, the Lakers think they can do it again. In the meantime, they’re still playing to the level of their opposition and getting into fights on the bus.

Uh, fellows? Last season is way over.

Faces and Figures

You leave me b-r-e-a-t-h-l-e-s-s: Like the class cutup, squirming in his desk, Cuban has to be doing something: answering e-mails, instructing the league in his myriad fields of expertise or, worst of all (or best, depending on how you’re rooting), redoing his roster. He just struck again, unloading Juwan Howard for Nick Van Exel and Raef LaFrentz. Of course, the Mavericks already had an All-Star point guard, Steve Nash and Van Exel both need the ball in their hands, and one of them is known to get unhappy. Nick is putting on a happy face, but that won’t last beyond this season.... Too bad they couldn’t televise that heartwarming Nick-Del Harris reunion, when the little tempest embraced the Maverick assistant and former Laker coach he has been calling a “cancer” and blaming for all his problems since leaving L.A.... The Mavericks’ “prize,” the 6-11 LaFrentz, makes three-point baskets and blocks shots (No. 2 in the league), but he’s soft and only marginally productive at 15 points and 7.4 rebounds a game. He probably blocked so many shots because no one cared enough to watch out for him in the Nuggets’ layup-line defense.... In Cuban’s first season, he signed Dennis Rodman, derailing the team’s late-season run. His second season, Cuban got Howard, who had two more years--at $39.5 million--left, to be the No. 4 scorer they didn’t need. His third season, Cuban dumped Howard for LaFrentz, who isn’t that far ahead of Wang Zhi Zhi, but as a free agent in 2003, will soon demand--and get--a $70-million contract.... Despite the cheering by the Dallas media, this isn’t a coup made possible by Cuban’s disdain for the luxury tax. Since there’s a salary cap, every dollar he pays LaFrentz is one he can’t offer someone who could actually make them better. To move Van Exel, they’ll have to take someone else’s high-priced problem, like Boston’s Kenny Anderson or Minnesota’s Terrell Brandon.... Aside from that, I like the deal.

Plumbing the low life, or Nick as in up the creek: After saying he’d opt out of two years, and $26 million, on his contract, he recanted, sinking trades to the Celtics for Anderson and Timberwolves for Brandon. Then, assuming he was stranded in Denver, Van Exel announced he might need season-ending surgery to his left elbow, which came as a surprise to the Nuggets. Said General Manager Kiki Vandeweghe: “The only thing that was indicated to me from Nick and his agent was if he was traded, he would be playing.” ... Then, before the eleventh-hour Dallas deal, Van Exel’s agent, Tony Dutt, whom Nick had fired but then rehired to help him escape, said, “I personally feel like, that if it doesn’t happen now, it could happen in the summer.” ... I personally feel if the Nuggets hadn’t gotten rid of Nick in the summer, they would have put out a contract on him. The big question is: Now that he’s out of there, will he fire Dutt again? ... Sunrise, sunset, etc.: The good news for the Phoenix Suns is that owner Jerry Colangelo and his son, team president Bryan, run a first-class operation and have already rebuilt the franchise twice. The bad news is, they have to do it again. They offed Coach Scott Skiles, reportedly fearing he was on the outs with Shawn Marion, a 2003 free agent. Of course, Skiles had won 50 games in each of his two seasons before they traded Jason Kidd. They finished the week, trading top reserves Tony Delk and Rodney Rogers as they turned their sights to the future, but must unload over-priced artifacts Penny Hardaway and Tom Gugliotta.... Not that the new program is off to a slow start, but Stephon Marbury, their foundation, blew off interim Coach Frank Johnson’s first shoot-around, didn’t start that night, argued with Johnson and played 14 minutes.... Lifestyles of the rich and meshuga: Police in St. Petersburg, Fla., used tranquilizer darts to subdue a 2,000-pound pet buffalo named Big Daddy that got loose from the estate of recently retired Matt Geiger.... Boy, do I love this game.

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