Fear and Loathing of Los Angeles

The ground is trembling under the NBA and when it stops, the league may be looking at a colossus mightier than any it has ever seen. And it might not be in San Antonio.

Gary Payton, the finest defensive point guard of his time and a career 18-point-a-game scorer, said Tuesday that he will sign with the Lakers. Karl Malone, arguably the greatest power forward of all time, is deciding whether to make it an even four superstars in the Laker lineup -- with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, who were previously known as the greatest two-man tandem ever.

This isn’t a done deal -- ask Laker General Manager Mitch Kupchak, who may not sleep before July 16, when players can execute the verbal commitments they make now. But after Mailman stunned the skeptical Lakers in a meeting last week by saying he’d take half a $4.6-million exception, or maybe even the $1.5-million veterans’ minimum, it looks promising.

Elsewhere, of course, it’s the end of the world as they know it.

“The thing is, if Karl stays here, the ball will still go through him,” Jazz broadcaster Hot Rod Hundley said from Salt Lake City, still hoping against hope.

“He’ll still be No. 1. If he goes to L.A. or San Antonio, he will not be No. 1. If he goes to L.A., he’ll be the third [option] and if they get Payton, he may be fourth. He needs to average about 12 points a game over the next two seasons to break the scoring record. But if he wants a ring, he goes to the Lakers. That’s why he’d be leaving. Money can’t be a factor, but he’s got all the money he needs.

“The Lakers are probably more hated here than any other team. That’s a place people would expect Karl to go, but they wouldn’t like it.”

From the moment Malone and the Lakers started talking, busting them up became a priority throughout the NBA.

The Spurs, who have $14 million of salary cap space with David Robinson leaving, had spent the season privately debating whom to go after -- Kidd, Jermaine O’Neal and Michael Olowokandi were the prime candidates at one time or another -- but didn’t spend much time on Malone.

However, with valentines coming out of the Malone-Laker meeting last week, the Spurs got interested in a hurry.

Coach Gregg Popovich, who runs their basketball operation, called Malone personally and offered all the money he would have left -- about $4 million a year, assuming he signed Kidd -- which might be more than twice what Malone would get from the Lakers.

Then the Sacramento Kings, after what may have been a dour Fourth of July of their own, jumped in this week at the 11th hour, trying to head off Malone with a sign-and-trade deal that would give him a huge contract and send the Jazz some players.

There’s also an unidentified East team that is said to be still in the game. This may be the Boston Celtics, whose general manager, Danny Ainge, flew to Salt Lake City to make a personal pitch on the first day, or the Miami Heat, whose coach, Pat Riley, has $9 million to $11 million and wants someone who can get his team back into contention immediately.

Malone is expected to make up his mind as soon as today, and then let the rest of the league have nightmares the rest of the summer.

There have been some star-spangled lineups in this league, but few that would compare to Shaq, Kobe, Mailman and Payton. “A line of Shaq, Kobe, Gary Payton and Karl Malone looks good in any lineup,” said Dennis Johnson, the interim coach of the Clippers. “That Gary’s doing this means that Karl’s coming too. Now they have to make that work.

“Gary and Karl have to learn the triangle [offense]. And Karl has always been the lead player. It’s interesting already that he’ll play for much less money. That is already a sign of willingness and acceptance.

“If they do that, they will be really dangerous.”

Good enough, certainly, to unseat the Spurs next season. “On paper, yeah,” Johnson said before cautioning, “but San Antonio is still in the position to sign the players they want.”

Laker assistant Tex Winter, the grandfather of the triangle, said, “Payton is a great basketball player and one of the all-time great defensive players. To add a player of his status can only help a great deal, if in fact it’s true.”

He’d be the best Laker point guard since Magic Johnson, except that ...

“We don’t play a point guard,” Winter said. “We play a two-guard front so he’ll be one of the two guards. Whether he’d be the lead guard, as we call it, or the second guard, it doesn’t make much of a difference to us.”

The old standard for collective fame, not to mention pratfalls, was set by the 1968-69 Lakers, with Wilt Chamberlain coming from Philadelphia to join Elgin Baylor and Jerry West in a trade that was supposed to settle the championship right then and there.

Instead, after easily winning the West, they lost the NBA Finals to the Celtics in a memorable Game 7 in the Forum, where owner Jack Kent Cooke had penned up balloons for the postgame celebration, setting up his paper-mache colossus for one last extra bit of humiliation.

Five Celtics from their 1957-69 glory run -- Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, Sam Jones, John Havlicek -- made the NBA’s Top 50 players, but none of those players, with the exception of Russell, was considered a franchise player.

The Showtime Lakers of the 1980s placed Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and James Worthy in the Top 50. However, Kareem was on the downside of his career when Johnson got there and Worthy didn’t arrive for another three years after that.

The 1996-98 Bulls had Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, two future Hall of Famers, plus rebounding and defensive firepower in Dennis Rodman, who was more famous for his off-court escapades and barely took part in the offense. What they lacked in firepower, they made up in efficiency, setting a record with 72 victories in ‘96, then coming back when Coach Phil Jackson tried to ease them through the following season and winning 69.

Of course, the Celtics, the Showtime Lakers and the Bulls of the ‘90s accomplished great things. The Lakers’ projected four-megastar lineup doesn’t even exist on paper yet.

But it could soon.