There’s Plenty of Blame to Go Around for Lakers

Tonight, since the Lakers won’t be receiving championship rings before their first game, it might be time to pass out the baby pacifiers.

The Lakers already sent the kids to the locker room Monday with orders not to talk with the media, so we can only imagine the kicking and screaming that went on behind closed doors.

Gary Payton, Karl Malone and Phil Jackson spoke in place of the babies. They each pretty much said the same thing: Everything is fine, and the team just needs to do a better job of covering things up when players don’t get along. Imagine that, Jackson, the last of the flower children, making like Richard Nixon.

“The organization is going to tighten up control of what guys say in the paper,” Jackson said, and as you know, the Lakers already have an enemies list -- keeping certain reporters away from the team for asking the wrong questions.

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THIS JUST in: Kobe vented to ESPN after practice -- defying direct orders not to talk -- and says he won’t be playing basketball tonight for the Lakers, which is news to the Lakers. Sure, everything is just fine.

A few hours earlier Malone was waxing poetic about the display of teamwork on the court and the laughs shared by Kobe and Shaq during practice. I guess we know who will play the part of Ron Ziegler in this Nixon saga.

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I BLAME Shaq. He tells Kobe he has to be a team player and in the same sentence announces, “it’s my team.” That’s talking out of both sides of your big mouth. “Be a team player and then talk to me,” Shaq says, and although everyone likes Shaq and jokes around with him, that doesn’t make him a team player -- especially when he acts like he owns the team, which has to be news to Jerry Buss.

Shaq tells Kobe he needs to get in shape, and in the meantime should pass him the ball. A year ago Shaq let his team down by waiting to have surgery on his toe and never really getting himself in shape to make a championship run. Don’t recall Kobe giving him a hard time for that.

Knowing how important it is to Shaq that everyone think this is his team, I’m convinced that Shaq, as immature as he can be, took satisfaction in the fact that Kobe lost his shiny armor this summer. He made a point of listing his teammates and twice left out Kobe’s name. And people think I’m good at delivering cheap shots.

When he announces, “As we start this new season, [stuff’s] got to be done right. If you don’t like it, then you can opt out next year,” he’s telling Kobe if you don’t do things the way I want them done, then you can leave.

Makes you wonder who has a bigger problem being the team player, Kobe or the guy hellbent on making everyone know it’s “my team.”

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I BLAME Kobe. He acts like he has everything in control, and as we know now, he has nothing under control. His decision-making, at best, is suspect. He goes to Colorado for knee surgery and tells no one in the Laker organization, and since that ill-fated trip, the decisions haven’t gotten much better.

And now we know the two very best basketball players in the game might also be two of the game’s most immature competitors. It’s like two kids arguing who got the bigger piece of cake.

Kobe tells the media he’ll probably become a free agent at the end of the season, a turnoff for any Laker fan, and at a time when he really shouldn’t be turning anyone off. Who is advising this guy?

He talks to reporter Jim Gray hours after a team spokesman said that Jackson and General Manager Mitch Kupchak have told him to clam up, and then says if he leaves the Lakers, it will be because he can’t coexist with Shaq. What does he want to do -- play with Michael Olowokandi?

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I BLAME Jackson. He doesn’t get along with Shaq. Shaq says he’s mad at Jackson and Jackson never asks why. He doesn’t get along with Kobe. He’s known for years that Kobe and Shaq don’t get along, and his way of handling all this is to say nothing and burn some incense.

He said Monday he believed this team can win, and if things don’t go well, “we’ll have to make changes in the whole organization,” saying later that doesn’t mean trading Kobe, but making changes in the starting lineup.

Well, I can’t picture him benching Shaq or Kobe, but maybe that’s the answer. Starting Shaq with his team, and then bringing Kobe off the bench with his team.

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I BLAME sports fans. When they announce Shaq’s arrival on the court tonight, everyone will cheer and without qualification. When Kobe gets around to playing, the same thing will happen. Criticize Jackson, and die-hard Laker fans will point to all his success with the inference he can do no wrong.

With Shaq, Kobe, Malone and Payton running up and down the court it certainly should be another championship in the making. “All four of my superstars,” Jackson said Monday, and then he caught himself laughing ... yes, around here everyone wants to stake an ownership claim to this team, which is odd considering its prospects for self-destruction.

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THE FOLKS at Staples Center announced they are going to erect a Magic Johnson statue. I can just hear Shaq now: “That’s my building.”

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Jill Cooper:

“Every day you whine about people getting their press credentials revoked. (Lakers’ PR director John Black) has always been so nice to you, and I never understood it. Now he’s just doing his job and you make a little dig every column. Give the guy a break -- he has to deal with jerks like you 24/7.”

Who knew that John and I had something in common?

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