A Four-Gone Conclusion? Laker Title Drive Sputters

What’s wrong with the Lakers?

The team that won the last three National Basketball Assn. championships, that averaged 60 wins in the 82-game regular season over the last three years, is 13-19. Those standings in the Sports section may appear to be upside down, but that’s only wishful thinking for Laker fans. The Lakers, so often in first place in the Pacific Division that the standings could have been chiseled in stone, are now buried near the bottom.

Last weekend’s two-game winning streak has the Lakers talking optimistically again. Which shows you just how far they have fallen.

The victories were over the Denver Nuggets and the Toronto Raptors, two of the worst teams in the league. In the old days, such as last season, the Lakers wouldn’t have considered wins over the Nuggets and Raptors worth mentioning.

Nor would two consecutive wins have been considered any kind of “streak.”

The Lakers lost nine of their first 12 games, but a slow start was expected while their dominating center, 7-foot-1, 335-pound-plus Shaquille O’Neal, recovered from off-season toe surgery.

Since O’Neal’s return, the team has gone 10-10. And suddenly, instead of talk about a fourth consecutive championship, there is worry that the Lakers might not even make the playoffs. Where there was respect, even fear, from top opponents, there is now a certain smug confidence.

So it doesn’t take a basketball genius to figure out something is wrong here. Fans who don’t know a pick and roll from rock ‘n’ roll could tell you that, which is why the hometown heroes have occasionally been booed even in their very own crib, Staples Center.

There are almost as many theories about the problem as there are defeats. The Lakers are losing because:

* O’Neal is not fully recovered from the surgery.

* O’Neal is not yet in playing shape.

* The other players haven’t adjusted to O’Neal’s return.

* The team is not playing defense with its customary ferocity.

* The physical and emotional strain of three championship runs has taken its toll.

* The other players resent O’Neal’s remark that they are not carrying their share of the load, or resent O’Neal’s taking most of the summer to decide on the surgery, finally undergoing the operation only three weeks before the start of training camp.

* Coach Phil Jackson did not do enough to compensate for O’Neal’s absence.

* Kobe Bryant did not do enough -- or tried to do too much -- on the court to compensate for O’Neal’s absence.

* Other teams are simply better.

While nobody has a solution, everybody has an opinion.

“I think it’s just a natural thing because they have not been playing together, due to Shaq coming back so late,” said John Wooden, who coached UCLA to a record 10 NCAA men’s basketball championships. “They didn’t have cohesion because their main cog was out. The other players were the nuts that hold the wheel together. But that’s no good if they lose their wheel.”

Danny Ainge, a former NBA player and coach turned broadcaster, sees a different O’Neal out there now.

“He’s not as dominant,” Ainge said. “He’s still great, still the top center in the league, but he’s not as intimidating as he has been in the past. He’s not taking it to the basket like he was, not getting his hands on as many offensive rebounds. Athletically, he has lost a little bit. I don’t know whether that is because of conditioning or because of the toe. It’s probably a little bit of both.”

Bill Walton knows perhaps better than anyone what O’Neal is going through. Walton was a dominating center, both at UCLA and with the Portland Trail Blazers, before foot injuries forced him off the court and into the broadcast booth.

“What Shaquille is going through,” Walton said, “is an adjustment to his mortality, an adjustment to his limitations, an adjustment to narrower panoramas.”

O’Neal’s problems have required his teammates to change how they play defense.

“I don’t think they’re as good on defense,” said Pete Newell, a Hall of Fame former coach. “I don’t think they’re as aggressive, and Shaq is a big part of that. When he’s [at full strength], there’s a confidence that if a guy gets by you they still have to get by Shaq.

“Shaq affects shots to be taken by the other team or not taken at all because of him.”

On offense, Newell said, O’Neal has been a victim of the Lakers’ poor outside shooting. “You’ve got to prove you can hit the outside shot,” Newell said. “If not, that’s an extra man the defense can put on Shaq.”

But the problems go beyond offense and defense, Wooden said.

“There seems to be a little bit of squabbling,” said the former UCLA coach. “Some of the players were disappointed that Shaquille did not have the surgery right away. There was a feeling that he waited because he doesn’t like the preseason anyway. I don’t know if that’s true, but if the other players think that, it could affect the team.”

O’Neal certainly didn’t help the situation when, after a 106-102 loss to the Golden State Warriors on Dec. 10, he told reporters as he headed to the team bus in Oakland, “Talk to the [guys] that ain’t doing nothing. Don’t talk to me.”

Such open disgust alarms Magic Johnson, now a minority owner of the team, who feels the key to the Showtime Lakers of his day -- the team of the ‘80s that won five NBA titles -- was unity.

“We were never the most talented team,” Johnson said. “We won because we were the best team. Guys respected each other and liked each other.

“Nothing like this ever happened. Now, everybody is pointing a finger. Now, it’s the other guys’ fault. It’s crazy to me. This is something we can’t have. We win together, we lose together.”

Walton agrees.

“When discussing their team’s problems,” he said, “it is best if they use the word we. Unfortunately, there is a tendency, when things go wrong, for people to be more individualistic. The same is true in basketball as in life. You need more commitment to the team instead of just looking out for your own self-interests. It’s not just talent that makes you win.”

Confidence is another key factor. “When you get off to a bad start, your confidence drops,” Newell said. “And the more you lose, the more the confidence of your opposition grows.”

Newell also said it’s important that Bryant operate within the Laker offense rather than take additional responsibility onto himself.

“I think Kobe is trying to do too much,” Newell said. “He wanted to be the guy who would get them out of their slump. It was well-meaning, but it doesn’t work if you don’t stay with the offense.”

Ainge doesn’t understand why fingers are being pointed at Bryant.

“I don’t know Kobe’s personality all that much,” Ainge said. “But I feel the guy loves to play, that he’s passionate about basketball, more so than anybody else on that team. I find it ironic that he’s picked on more than anybody else. Kobe is a great player. He’s trying to do what he thinks is right. Of course, whether Phil Jackson thinks it’s right is another matter.”

Although he has won a record-tying nine championships while coaching the Lakers and Chicago Bulls, Jackson has been criticized for not appearing to do enough on the sideline when his team is struggling on the court. Nonsense, says Walton.

“I think Phil Jackson is as great as any coach who ever coached any sport any time,” said Walton, who played for Wooden at UCLA. “Phil Jackson teaches life. He teaches big picture. Good coaching is not jumping up and down, drawing the TV cameras to yourself, getting ejected from games. It’s about not losing control, maintaining composure, developing people. Never mistake activity for achievement.”

Newell, for one, expects that the Lakers are just about over the hump, and says it’s no coincidence that the timing coincides with Shaq’s improved play.

“It’s now nearly the middle of the season and Shaq is just starting to get going,” Newell said. “He’s moving better. His stamina is better. His legs are starting to allow him that second jump at the basket when he needs it. It’s going to come together. I think it’s coming together now.”

Wooden, Walton, Ainge and Johnson also caution against giving up on the Lakers too soon. But, for the short term, their struggles have invigorated a league often beaten down in the past by the unrelenting Laker machine.

“It makes for good drama,” Ainge said. “It seems like this has given hope to everybody else.”

Except in this city where the general hope is that things return to normal, to the predictable days of domination, as soon as possible.

Back to the days when Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” drowned out “Beat L.A.”

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Times staff writer Diane Pucin contributed to this report.