Remember Showtime? Well, It Could Be Back

All it took was two exhibition games to get a taste of everything this Laker season has in store. Two days delivered a concentrated dose of the flashes of greatness and the camera flashes, the signs of weakness, the wild rumors, the silly Shaq stuff, and the continuing saga of Kobe Bryant, as large in his absence as he was during his brief stay in Hawaii.

Bryant’s only basketball activity on Tuesday was shooting free throws. It was well before the sellout crowd of 10,300 was allowed in the building, and it was the only time Bryant would step on the floor. He spent the rest of the night working out in the weight room and watching the game on TV.

The Lakers still brought plenty of star power onto the court, and cameras fired away as O’Neal, Gary Payton and Karl Malone emerged from the tunnel for their exhibition game against the Golden State Warriors. It was the first sight of Payton and Malone in Laker warmups and uniforms. The anticipation has been building since the Lakers signed Payton and Malone in July, and the excitement has spread from the most far-flung fan to the top of the organization

“I’ve been going to practice just to watch it,” owner Jerry Buss said. “I very seldom go to practice, but this team is different. Everyone wants to know what it’s going to look like.”

Once the game started, the new-look Lakers actually resembled the Lakers of old, playing a style more reminiscent of the fastbreak Showtime era than the methodical, triangle-based teams of Coach Phil Jackson.

At times, this is going to be lots of fun. The Lakers looked to run on every opportunity and they posted 34 points in the first quarter.

They had a blast in the process, high-fiving on the court and laughing together on the bench during the 107-89 victory.

“We’re not going to base the season on one game in the preseason, but we’re hopeful that the camaraderie and joyability of playing together is going to spread among this team,” Jackson said. (And yes, this is the type of team that will require the invention of new words from time to time.)

But, as with everything else right now, Game 1 came with a caveat: how much better it would be with Bryant, their most athletic player, a high-flying dunker who would thrive in this transition game.

Bryant didn’t play Tuesday because he still isn’t in game shape after having off-season surgeries on his knee and shoulder. He wasn’t even in the state for Wednesday’s game, because he had flown to Colorado to be at Thursday’s preliminary hearing for his sexual assault case.

The public and media still haven’t seen Bryant play with the three other superstars. Jackson said he expected Bryant to participate in the team’s game against the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday but no one knows for sure how often Bryant will be able to play this season, and what his physical and mental states will be when he is available.

That shaky status led to a story in Tuesday’s Chicago Tribune, floating the idea that Michael Jordan could fill in for Bryant, which would be akin to Elvis Presley joining the Beatles in their heyday. Jackson gave the story all the gas it needed to fly through cyberspace and the sports-talk world by telling the paper the thought “has crossed my mind.”

Well, dating Halle Berry has crossed my mind, but that isn’t likely to happen either.

Besides, the Lakers won’t need any more help if O’Neal plays as well as he did Tuesday. He’s found a weight -- somewhere between 340 and 350 pounds -- that is enough to mollify Jackson, yet leave O’Neal thick enough to absorb the low-post poundings. He was blocking shots and then getting out on the fastbreak. He was exploding off the ground for rim-wrecking dunks. He had all of his spin moves working.

I haven’t seen a player this motivated since Charles Jefferson punished Lincoln’s football team for his wrecked car in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

Of course, this high-energy performance was the result of O’Neal’s feeling slighted that the Lakers have been noncommittal about extending his contract for another three years beyond the 2005-06 season. So, O’Neal turned a jump shot over Popeye Jones and a blocked Mike Dunleavy shot in an exhibition game into a statement of why he deserves another $100 million or so. He glared at Buss in his courtside seat, bellowed “Now you gonna pay me?!” to no one in particular.

“Show me the money!” he said as he walked down a hallway before Wednesday’s game.

Then tipoff came, he was outscored by Erick Dampier and O’Neal was nowhere to be found afterward.

The same Laker energy and execution were missing all night in a 99-83 loss. Even though they outscored the Warriors by three points with the three All-Stars on the court in the first quarter, the Lakers’ shooting and scoring were down. It was a reminder that the Lakers didn’t just get better this summer, they got older. That’s going to show when they play the second of back-to-back games. Jackson said that’s when the bench players have to provide a boost. The rookies and young guys spent a lot of the time on the floor Wednesday -- literally, slipping and falling all over the place -- and they were blown out.

So the Lakers learned a little bit, got some of the basics of the offense, dealt with the swarms of reporters.

The Honolulu setting belied the seriousness of their training camp task. Their hotel rooms looked out over Waikiki Beach and they shuttled back and forth to practice in buses marked “Polynesian Adventure Tours.”

“We got ourselves in a good mood,” Jackson said. “We’re ready to play basketball. That’s the best we can hope for right now. Conditioning, team unity, cohesiveness ... that’ll come later.”

“It’s only two games,” Payton said. “By the next three or four games, we’re going to be on the same page.”

This much we already know: Each chapter will be fascinating.

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