Nobody’s Waving a White Flag Yet

In the hours after the Lakers received commitments from Karl Malone and Gary Payton, the rest of the NBA stood somewhere between skepticism and outright surrender, a large enough gap to drive a dynasty through.

“I wouldn’t go to either extreme,” Houston Rocket Coach Jeff Van Gundy said Friday afternoon. “They’ve got great players coming in who’ve been unselfish their whole lives. And they’ve got a great coach.”

Come Wednesday, assuming no one has a change of heart, the Lakers will add Malone and Payton to a starting lineup already thick with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, to a franchise that went from three NBA titles to the brink of a fourth to a fast rebuild mode.

Laker officials believe the signings will carry them through the Western Conference again and, of course, it has been pretty easy after that for years. Asked what impact the free agents would have on the Lakers, on the conference, and on the game in general, Mark Cuban, the typically effusive owner of the Dallas Mavericks, e-mailed a clipped reply.

“It’s going to be fun to find out,” he typed, and left it at that.

New to the Western Conference and in Long Beach for the L.A. Summer Pro League, Van Gundy admitted his interest in the Lakers would be different from that of, say, Cuban’s Mavericks.

“We’re in a totally different spot,” he said. “If you’re Sacramento or San Antonio or Dallas, maybe you look at it differently.”

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Jerry West is still out there, putting a franchise together, pulling for his friend in Los Angeles, not at all uncomfortable with the apparent conflict.

West said Friday he was thrilled for his former assistant, Mitch Kupchak, who appears to have had a dynamic summer.

“I’m so happy for Mitch,” West said. “It’s a difficult job because of the massive expectations. They got two really good players, and they don’t have to win games for them. All they have to do is the things they normally do.... The thing they had to answer was if they could defend the [conference’s power forwards]. When they got Malone, it was fantastic.

“They can lose, but they’ll be the odds-on favorite. ... I wouldn’t want to be against them.”

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Bill Sharman drove through Los Angeles this week and heard complaints on his radio about the Lakers’ four probable future Hall of Famers and how their games might never mesh. He couldn’t help but chuckle.

More than 40 years ago, Sharman won a handful of NBA titles with the Boston Celtics. Six of Sharman’s teammates went to the Hall, as did Sharman and his coach, Red Auerbach.

“I think it’s fantastic,” said Sharman, a special consultant and former coach of the Lakers. “It makes us proud that these players have even considered taking a cut to play for our franchise.”