His Obligation Is Painfully Obvious

Shaquille O’Neal’s two-word response when the Times’ Tim Brown asked him if he would play against Houston tonight -- “Probably not” -- demands a one-word reply: unacceptable.

By waiting to have surgery on his toe, he put the Lakers into this unexpected predicament, scrambling just to get into the playoffs. He’s obligated to do whatever he can to get them out of it.

I didn’t hammer him for delaying his surgery because he had earned some time off after bringing three consecutive championships to the city. Three parades (and one replaced cop car) ought to buy you something, but now the credit’s used up. He has forfeited any more breaks.

He left his teammates hanging at the start of the season, exposed all of their weaknesses. Just when they’re regaining their form, showing that they contributed to those championships too, he appears ready to make them do it alone.

We’ve already seen they can’t do it this season, no matter how many points Kobe Bryant scores. When they lost to New York on Sunday, they dropped to 3-10 without O’Neal.

His teammates would be wise to cue up an old Stevie Wonder song and hit play: “When the winter came, you went further south/ Parting from love’s nest, leaving me in doubt/ Where are you when I need you, like right now?”

He has already resumed taking anti-inflammatory medicine to alleviate the pain in his sore left knee and surgically repaired right big toe, and that means more days of queasy intestines and possible long-term damage to his kidneys. If he’s willing to gulp those Indocin pills, then he might as well swallow some pride and step onto the court when he doesn’t have his full mobility.

Maybe he doesn’t want to look bad by having Yao Ming swat a few more of his shots. Perhaps he doesn’t want to hear any more boos like the ones he heard during the San Antonio game Friday night, when the too-short arms on the too-old body of Kevin Willis snatched rebounds away from him.

Tough. There’s no choice. Unless the Laker medical staff says there’s absolutely no way O’Neal can play, he needs to be out there. Even if he can’t do any better than the five rebounds he grabbed in 40 minutes Friday, or the nine-for-19 shooting, the Lakers need him on the court.

His presence alone will improve the quality of Bryant’s life. With O’Neal sitting out against the Knicks, Bryant had trouble getting easy shots in the lane. Knick center Kurt Thomas kept sneaking over to help in case Bryant got by his defender. You think Thomas would have abandoned O’Neal to help on Bryant?

O’Neal in the low post would also create more open shots for Derek Fisher, who is shooting 57% this month and is coming off a 21-point game Sunday.

Bryant has played in every game this season, despite his own assortment of knee problems. And he has done all the heavy lifting the last two weeks. Folks in the Laker camp believe that one of the reasons O’Neal hasn’t grumbled about Bryant’s recent free-shooting ways was that O’Neal appreciated the burden being lifted from his shoulders.

O’Neal never has played a full season and last played in as many as 79 games in 1999-2000. When O’Neal missed games in recent years the usual comment was, “If this were a playoff game, he would play.” Well, this is a playoff game. Right here. Not a statement game, but an absolute must-win.

The Rockets hold the Western Conference’s eighth and final playoff spot, with a one-game lead over the Lakers. If the Lakers win tonight, they’re all even with 30 games to play. A fresh start after their dismal first half of the season, with a chance to control their own fate by outplaying the Rockets down the stretch, is more good fortune than the Lakers have earned.

But if the Rockets win, not only do they drop the Lakers two games behind but they clinch the season series and the first tiebreaker with the Lakers.

Phil Jackson attempted to chide O’Neal by suggesting if Shaq sat out this game, it would be because he had “Ming-itis”.

If questioning his manhood doesn’t work, what about appealing to Shaq’s love of marketing? TNT has been hyping the Shaq-Yao rematch since All-Star weekend. Think of the disappointment for the TNT announcers who flew all the way out here just to get an extended look at Slava Medvedenko. (And can’t you just see the executives at Turner asking themselves, “We pulled another showing of ‘Krull’ for this?”)

O’Neal recently explained his surgery timetable this way: “Since I suffered the injury on company time, why shouldn’t I also be able to get surgery and do recovery on company time?”

That’s the same type of logic employed by Jeff Spicoli when he had a pizza delivered to his classroom in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”: “I’ve been thinking about this, Mr. Hand: If I’m here and you’re here, doesn’t that make it our time? Certainly there’s nothing wrong with a little pizza on our time.”

It didn’t work for Spicoli, who had to share his pizza with the whole class. And O’Neal’s argument can now be used against him.

He’s out of sick days. Time to get to work.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com.