Now, Olympic Rings Look Good to Lakers

If USA Basketball is looking to remake itself after its collapse at the World Championship last month--and why wouldn’t it?--the Lakers have a solution: More Lakers.

Shaquille O’Neal and Phil Jackson said Tuesday they would be inclined to participate in the 2004 Olympics, a sentiment voiced the day before by Kobe Bryant, and so the Athens Games could have a distinct Laker color.

O’Neal, who has won Olympic and World Championship gold medals but in recent years has had no interest in international competition, said he watched in disbelief as a team of NBA players finished sixth in Indianapolis.

Like Bryant, O’Neal was moved to consider playing in the Olympics. Unlike Bryant, O’Neal said he would play only if Jackson were the coach.

“Is that right?” Jackson said through a painfully swollen right jaw, the result of an emergency tooth extraction on Monday. “That puts me in a ticklish spot, [doesn’t] it?”

He added then that he would not rule out coaching the next Olympic team, were he asked.

“The NBA has put in coaches in the past, guys that have had track records in this league that have had success,” he said. “A lot of it has to do with the players and their willingness to come and play together.”

It is assumed that Jackson, who has won nine NBA titles and is tied with Red Auerbach as the most decorated coach ever, would command unusual respect from an Olympic team of millionaire superstars, particularly if O’Neal and Bryant set a reverential tone.

“I don’t know if it’s that so much as, you know, the amount of time they get to play together, the dedication that the group’s going to show to play together,” Jackson said. “The success of any team is that they really wanted to play together, and well.”

Much of the blame for the failure at the World Championship from the NBA rank and file has fallen on George Karl, the coach of the Milwaukee Bucks who coached the U.S. to the sixth-place finish.

Indeed, O’Neal had said Monday that he would not play for Karl, but that if Jackson chose--and was chosen--to lead the U.S. Olympians, then he would play in Greece, out of duty to Jackson and country.

“With Phil, I’d do it,” O’Neal said after Tuesday’s practice in El Segundo, where he watched drills and shot a few flat-footed jumpers and free throws. “If Phil would do it, so would I.

“If [President] Bush goes to Greece, then Colin Powell has to go to Greece.”

Of course, it might not be as simple as showing up in some Athens gym, cranking up the national anthem and restoring the reputation of American basketball. The dreadful showing in Indianapolis means the U.S. team will be required to play through a qualifying tournament next summer, though Jackson, O’Neal and Bryant wouldn’t necessarily have to participate.

Jackson has two years remaining on his Laker contract. He has said he would coach longer if it would serve to keep O’Neal in the game, but Jackson might also choose to coach the two NBA seasons, then end his career--at nearly 60--with a victory lap through an overmatched international field and a return to the wilds of Montana a hero.

O’Neal, fresh from toe surgery and optimistic that his true game is waiting at the end of recovery in three to six weeks, seems to like the idea of saving the game.

“George [Karl] kind of messed up our streak there,” he said.

The Senior National Team Committee, headed by NBA executive Stu Jackson, chooses the players and coaching staff. No decision will be made before the end of this year.

Craig Miller, assistant executive director of media and public relations for USA Basketball, said the committee’s choice to coach the team in qualifying play is usually the Olympic coach too. The exception was the qualifying tournament for the 2000 Sydney Games, after Rudy Tomjanovich became ill and Larry Brown replaced him on short notice. Tomjanovich returned to coach the Olympic team to gold at Sydney.

Miller said the nine NBA players who participated in the 1999 qualifying tournament were promised Olympic spots, but there’s no provision for that to be repeated.

“Shaq has been involved in the past, and there have been discussions with Kobe, but for various reasons and personal commitments, it never worked out,” Miller said. “I’m sure opportunities will be there down the road. Obviously, we’d love to have Shaq involved.”

Although the three greatest Lakers have now discussed an Olympic notion still two years away, the focus Tuesday, as 17 Lakers worked out and O’Neal watched, was in getting O’Neal to the regular season.

O’Neal said he was good enough, right now, without having run a step since surgery, “to put up 24 [points] and 10 [rebounds].” He laughed, of course. But meant it, of course.

“Things are going to work out perfectly,” he said.

The Lakers are only too willing to believe it, though no one has bothered to guess at O’Neal’s return date.

“We’re just going to wait for him to get back,” Jackson said. “We think he’ll be back in good speed. He feels quite comfortable with where he’s at. We’re optimistic about it.”

Samaki Walker, sound again after finishing last season with a sore elbow and knee, as the opening-night center, Jackson said, “is a good assumption.”

“He looks very comfortable with everything we’re doing,” Jackson said. “Last year, Samaki ended the year with two injuries that really derailed him the last 15 games. We both agreed at the end of the season it wasn’t the kind of upbeat championship run he’d like to have, looking back at it. But, all in all, we were very pleased with the performance he gave us.”

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The Lakers will honor Chick Hearn with a black strip on the left shoulders of their uniforms. The legendary broadcaster died Aug. 5 after a fall.... Assistant coach Tex Winter, 80, remains a regular at the team’s practice facility, and it appears he’ll continue to teach his triangle offense and advise Jackson for at least another season, his 56th consecutive as a coach.

Brian Shaw, at 36 beginning his 13th NBA season, lost 16 pounds over the summer. Jackson suggested Tuesday that Shaw would battle rookie Kareem Rush for playing time early in the season.... Bryant’s shoe watch: He wore purple Nikes on Tuesday. The count after two days: Converse 1, Nike 1.

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Times staff writer Helene Elliott contributed to this report.