A Tin Man Where Kings’ Heart Should Be

Chris Webber is the smiling slugger who hits 40 home runs a year, three of which anyone remembers.

Chris Webber is the congenial quarterback who throws for 35 touchdowns a season, two after Thanksgiving, none in the final two minutes.

Chris Webber is ominous and odd enough to be classified as science fiction, a double feature.

At 7 p.m., he’s cute, magical E.T.

At 10 p.m., he’s Hollow Man.

Webber was supposed to be the middle of the Sacramento King attack in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals against the Lakers.

Luckily for the Lakers, he decided to tailgate instead.

While his teammates were getting battered in the middle, Webber hung out in the parking lot.

While he recorded 28 points and 14 rebounds, those numbers draped the box score like ugly wallpaper.

Strip them off the Lakers’ 106-99 victory and discover an entirely different story.

Of Webber’s 14 baskets, six were launched from 18 feet or more.

That’s twice as many long shots as were taken by a bomber named Kobe Bryant.

During Webber’s 25 attempts, not once were the Lakers charged with a foul.

That’s because he didn’t leave his Hibachi long enough to come inside and cause one.

Didn’t work two years ago. Didn’t work last year. Won’t work now.

“We’d just as soon see him out there,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said.

The Lakers are happy to see him, period.

As the center of a team’s playoff attack, Webber is 6 feet 10 worth of Double Stuff.

He is being paid more than $120 million to be the Kings’ heart, yet he plays more like their elbow.

For the Lakers to lose this championship, someone must be strong enough and crazy enough to pry it from their fingers.

There is only one person on the Kings who can do that.

One game down, three years gone, and Chris Webber can’t touch them.

“Please don’t come to me with all that jump shot-inside shot stuff,” Webber said Sunday afternoon, shaking his head. “I’m just doing what the team wants me to do.”

The topic bothers this genial sort. For the first and only time during the interview, he looks away from the questioner.

He has heard about this his entire career, nine years spent with mostly losers.

He has heard how he can’t smother the life from an opponent like Bryant or Shaquille O’Neal or Tim Duncan.

He has heard how signing him to save your franchise is like hiring a display window mannequin to run your store. He looks good, he brings in the customers, but where is he when it’s time to total the books?

The criticism was softer when he played for teams such as Golden State and Washington, teams that didn’t have a chance anyway.

But now that he has made it to the conference finals for the first time in his career, the questions have become a dull roar.

Upon which you can now heap this:

The Kings went 15-5 at the start of this season while Webber was sidelined with injuries, then won their most important playoff game in Dallas with Webber on the bench with fouls.

Never one to stare anybody down, he looks away.

“It’s frustrating, yeah, but I have to ignore it,” he said. “Hopefully, if I can win a championship, it will all be like the hazing of a rookie. We win, and it will all be over with.”

And if they don’t win it all? Some are saying that as long as the Kings are building around Webber, they will never win it all.

“Then I guess, year after year, it’s gonna be the same,” he said.

So why doesn’t he stuff everyone’s mouth with a little muscle?

“This is a team, a system,” he said. “I’m part of that system, and I can’t go against it.”

He said if he goes inside, the King running attack stalls.

“I’ve posted up before, and I’ve been criticized for making us stand still,” he said.

He said if he doesn’t control the ball on the perimeter, he’s not doing his job.

“I’m our playmaker, that is my role,” he said. “There’s been a lot of criticism, but I know the truth.”

The truth Saturday was that, while Webber and Vlade Divac each was saddled with five fouls, O’Neal had only two.

The truth was Webber’s absence inside gave O’Neal and Robert Horry and Samaki Walker great freedom to roam the court, so much that Walker grabbed five rebounds in only 10 minutes while Horry had eight points in the deciding first quarter.

The truth is that Webber, who has never been as tough as his Fab Five, baggy-shorts image, may simply be too nice for the nasty work presently required of him.

And you know what they say, especially when talking about a Laker team that has won seven consecutive playoff series without requiring the maximum number of games.

Nice guys are finished fast.

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