Lakers Need to Win the Bore War

Courtside, the season drones on.

Honey, order me the duck l’orange. OK, Mike, I’ll tell Steven, breakfast at John O’Groats. He’s right down the row. ... Sorry, I’m at the Laker game, reception’s terrible in here. ... Denver. ... Well, we had the tickets, they’re $1,250 per, we thought we may as well use ‘em. ... No, I think they’re losing, actually.

It’s peaceful in the Big Office Supply Store, which may or may not be the world’s greatest arena but is surely the world’s quietest, except, of course, when the Clippers are at home.

I’m not going to do a lot of stereotypes about cell phones, designer water, etc., even if a Laker crowd’s aggregate income is bigger than the gross domestic product of a small country, because this isn’t an L.A. thing, simply an L.A. variant.

Boredom is a problem for dynasts, real and presumed. Even in Chicago, where the attitude seemed to be, “What else do we have to live for?” Bull fans came to sit serenely for months, awaiting the real deal.

Of course, it’s not good if the team nods off too, as the Lakers did after starting 16-1.

“We were accused of being boring the first 20 games,” Rick Fox said last week, laughing. “We’ve created some interest here, due to our lack of play.”

Try 13-10 since, with losses to all four last-place teams and one to the lowly Denver Nuggets, allowing 106 points per no-show. The Laker defensive average is 92.6.

Forget such voodoo terms as “execution” and “rhythm.” How about “can’t always be bothered to defend”?

Not that this should be a surprise. Last season’s Lakers did what no team is supposed to be able to, they threw a switch on April 1 and became invincible.

Now they’re much better, Kobe Bryant is part of the team and, to all appearances, finally cool with Shaquille O’Neal.

“Before they stood off and the cat hissed at the dog from 50 yards away and the dog kind of messed around with the cat a little to make him hiss,” Coach Phil Jackson recently told the Chicago Tribune’s Sam Smith. “Now the cat is playing with the dog. ...

“It’s delightful to see. It’s almost to a point now where they like one another too much and they want to play with one another ... and it almost takes the rest of the team out of the game.”

Detroit personnel director John Hammond called the Lakers “almost invincible,” something you don’t hear very often.

What could go wrong now?

1. The Lakers think they can throw their switch again.

They deny it, but it’s human nature. So much for fear, which is a potent driving force for the other teams.

“The challenge was to get off to a good start,” Fox said. “Then after we get off to the good start, it’s like, OK, where’s the challenge?”

Staying awake?

2. Chemistry.

The Nos. 3-12 guys all play, vie for and, apparently, talk about their minutes and shots, which is what you get with depth, recently so negligible.

Lindsey Hunter was an emergency replacement for Derek Fisher, who’s now well, leaving mirror-image guards, lefty and righty, to split minutes. Mitch Richmond was going to be the sixth man, but before he grasped the triangle, Devean George grasped his minutes, dropping Mitch to the 10th man.

“It’s very set in the sense that we know we win with Kobe and Shaq, but where does everybody else fall in?” Fox says.

“We had better chemistry as a basketball team on the floor than we do now. We have less problems off the floor than we did last year.”

3. Shaq’s head, big toe, trials and growing disdain for the long grind.

He has been vowing privately not to take any more abuse, when he has no choice but to take it, learn to play on the perimeter or retire.

“It can’t be fun for him,” Jackson says. “I mean, what fun is there when three guys are jumping on your back when you catch the ball in the lane to start taking a shot? Where’s the basketball play? What is that all about?”

Then there’s O’Neal’s toe, although by Friday he was using a larger shoe and romping among the San Antonio Spurs like a lion among antelope. His reps, Perry Rogers and Mike Parris, said they had a “team in place” to treat the Big Piggie.

Starting the weekend, the standings had the Lakers in a tie for No.3 in the Western Conference, but that’s probably only a misunderstanding.

Go back to your lives. We’ll call you if they need you.

*

Faces and Figures

It’s hard to have career averages of 19 points and 10 rebounds for three seasons without getting an All-Star sniff, but that’s what Elton Brand is looking at, unless West coaches pick a squad with one center and six forwards, rather than the usual two and five. They could easily go with one center, because forwards Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett and sure-to-be-named Chris Webber can play there. Adding a reserve center means leaving three forwards off the deserving list of Brand, Webber, Karl Malone, Dirk Nowitzki, Peja Stojakovic and Rasheed Wallace. The West’s second-best center, Vlade Divac, is deserving, just not as much as they are.... Washington Wizard Coach Doug Collins is reaching out to rookie Kwame Brown, saying he stressed out the 19-year-old so badly, Brown broke out with acne. Said teammate Christian Laettner, who played with the young Garnett in Minnesota: “As good as Kevin was, he wasn’t ready until sometime in February. He got up to speed then. He started to pick up the subtleties of the game, things like spacing, reading defense, anticipating what would happen next. Kwame, he’s really far away.”

Panic hit New York officially after the Knicks lost at home to the Charlotte Hornets--by 43--while fans chanted “Re-fund!” The Knicks were so dispirited, Charlotte’s P.J. Brown asked someone on press row: “Are they trying to make some type of statement with this? Is there some kind of conspiracy going on over there?” ... New York Times columnist Ira Berkow to Coach Don Chaney, then 4-16, at the next day’s practice: “Are you surprised to be here today?” ... Assistant Coach Tim Thibodeau is supposed to be the (latest) heir apparent, but as Jeff Van Gundy’s protege, he’s triggering the old Van Gundy-Dave Checketts split, even though both are gone. The New York Times quoted a Knick source saying that Thibodeau would be too tough. The Daily News quoted a source who said, “I think the organization hates Van Gundy so much that they don’t want to hire his right-hand man. That’s why they keep bad-mouthing Thibodeau in the papers.” ... Highlights from Michael Jordan’s return to Chicago: The ovation from Bull fans that had tears in Mike’s eyes was cut short at two minutes when house lights were dimmed. Bull promotions director Steve Schanwald said NBC did it. Neither owner Jerry Reinsdorf nor GM Jerry Krause attended....Charles Oakley, after Bull teammate Ron Artest said the lights should have been dimmed sooner: “I could’ve waited a half-hour. That’s once in a lifetime. These guys have never done anything.” ... More chemical problems: Penny Hardaway says he defers to Stephon Marbury and Shawn Marion in the Phoenix Suns’ offense “so they can get their rhythm and to keep the fuss down.” ... Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury-News, on Shaq as a fighter: “He’s massively strong, he looks scary and he goes WWF on-court every few seasons to keep thugs off him. But he has never thrown a real punch in a game and I don’t know what that was he threw at Brad Miller, but it wasn’t a punch.”