New Series Has Him Dreaming of Jeanie

The ring, of course, is what Karl, Gary and Jeanie are all after, and while I’m sure the old guys will put on a good show most nights, what I’m really looking forward to is this NBC drama series in the works based “loosely” on the life of Phil’s gal pal.

Will he or won’t he give her the rose?

The series, which is being developed by NBC, Jeanie Buss and a few others we don’t care about, is going to show the behind-the-scenes workings of a professional basketball team -- which already makes it mandatory viewing for the Clipper front office.

The Hollywood Reporter said the show will have a “West Wing” feel to it, I presume because Phil Jackson likes to come across presidential when he speaks.

If I’m John Black, the Laker press guy, I’m worried, because “West Wing” has Allison Janney playing the role of press secretary C.J. Cregg, and given her wonderful success in drawing an audience, I would think NBC would also want to go with someone with initials for a first name who might be linked to Salma Hayek in the gossip magazines and therefore draw more attention to the show.

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AUDREY WELLS, whose film credits include “The Truth About Cats & Dogs,” which makes her perfect to tell the truth about Jeanie & Phil, is going to write and direct Jeanie’s project. Wells is directing “Under the Tuscan Sun,” which features Diane Lane -- and I can visualize Lane in the role of Jeanie, the Playboy pinup, who also held up two basketballs in just the right place for a Sports Illustrated photo shoot. If you close your eyes, you might be able to visualize the same thing.

I’m a little more concerned about who will play the part of the aging coach, knowing there won’t be much appeal for some actors -- just sitting around looking calm and doing nothing on every show other than rubbing their soul patch on occasion. Obviously we’re not talking Richard Gere or George Clooney here, but it has to be somebody who might appeal to Lane and not come off as her grandfather.

The exciting stuff, of course, will be the look behind the scenes and Jeanie’s impact on Jannero Pargo and Samaki Walker. I don’t imagine we’ll see cameras inside Kobe’s house, but a peek inside the locker room to see whether Karl, Gary, Shaq and Kobe are still on speaking terms halfway through the season would be nice.

It’ll be something special to see the triangle at work in an episode; you know, Phil, Jeanie and Tex Winter sitting around the dinner table talking Xs and O’s, and then maybe Shaq busting in and demanding to get the ball more. Very dramatic unless Shaq insists on playing himself, because holy Kazaam, there goes that show.

I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about the show in the weeks to come, although I wouldn’t be surprised now if you hear about it before I do.

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KARL MALONE & Gary Payton are scheduled to meet with the media today, and the Staples Center gift shop is ready to sell $20 T-shirts with the two guys pictured together but separated by a palm tree and the clever inscription: “Welcome to L.A.”

I don’t imagine the Dodgers will be doing the same thing with Rickey Henderson and Jeromy Burnitz. They might have to give those T-shirts away.

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TEX SCHRAMM, born in San Gabriel before becoming general manager of the Los Angeles Rams and hiring Pete Rozelle as the team’s publicist, will be best remembered for making the Cowboys America’s Team. But Schramm, a pure joy to spend time with, was one of football’s all-time innovators, and as responsible for the league’s popularity almost as much as Rozelle.

The day Rozelle died, I talked to Schramm, who had visited his friend a day earlier, and he said of Rozelle: “Pete had the vision. He was a man of the times. It was a time for young thinking, the explosion of TV, and he was very aware of the public’s role in making the league successful. Professional sports had never seen anyone like him.” The same can be said about Tex.

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STAPLES CENTER, trying to muster support for the women’s tennis tournament no one attended last year, provided free lunch, T-shirts, raffle tickets and the chance to hear Pam Shriver give a speech Wednesday to invited guests. You can imagine what they could have charged just to listen to Shriver prattle on and on. More than 400 people came for the free lunch, and if someone had thought about giving free lunches to anyone buying a ticket for last year’s tournament, maybe Staples wouldn’t have appeared so deserted. To Staples’ credit, and I never thought I’d write that line, it has lowered ticket prices for and eliminated weekday matches in the Nov. 5-10 event, while cutting the invite list from 16 to the top eight women. It’s going to be tougher this year to come up with an excuse not to go.

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HERE’S THE problem you have when it comes to figuring out whether the Clippers are going to match offers to their star players. The buck stops with Donald Sterling, and no one has quite taken that statement to heart since President Harry Truman.

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AFTER THE “I’m so special” comments Barry Bonds made about Babe Ruth and the suggestion no one should “talk about [Ruth] no more” if Bonds breaks Ruth’s career record for home runs, I was going to write that Ruth is probably spinning in his grave. Then I realized Ruth never heard of Bonds.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Mark Larson:

“I’m putting together a horse costume for the Auburn game. I’m going to be the horse’s head. You’d be perfect for the other half.”

You’re right, I wouldn’t want to be seen going to that game either.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com