Lakers Have a Big Shortage of Wise Men

Countdown to Christmas, or it’s not just you and Jack Nicholson who miss the Lakers.

They’re still busting up that old gang of yours. In Lakerdom, a day someone doesn’t leave, ostensibly at the direction of Kobe Bryant, is like a day without sun.

There sure are a lot of former Lakers these days. Karl Malone’s departure is particularly bad news for them, because, unlike Phil Jackson and Shaquille O’Neal, he wasn’t locked in a power struggle with Bryant last season.

On the contrary, they were once close and Malone’s return would have meant more to Bryant than the team. Bryant would have had someone to talk to. Malone, who has great credibility, would have naturally come to Kobe’s defense, as no one else can or has.

Even if Malone had other offers and hadn’t committed himself, all indications were he intended to return. He had promised his wife, Kay, he wouldn’t move the family. His agent, Dwight Manley, was seen having dinner with Mitch Kupchak at Staples Center before last week’s game against Golden State. Manley and Malone weren’t talking to any of the other teams.

Nor was it merely a slip of Bryant’s tongue and overreaction by Malone.

True, Bryant didn’t say anything insulting in his radio interview with Mychal Thompson. Kobe’s real revelation was that the Lakers were “giving me 110%.”

More to the point, Manley acknowledged that Malone and Bryant had a heated argument recently. Their public breach was a continuation of that.

Happily for the Lakers, with Jackson, O’Neal, Malone and Gary Payton gone, they’re out of disposable Hall of Famers, unless someone goes upstairs and runs off consultant Bill Sharman.

Unhappily, now they’re just like everyone else. They won’t have a bunch of superstars ripping each other and aren’t likely to win any titles soon.

Remember when Commissioner David Stern said his ideal Finals would be “the Lakers against the Lakers?” Those days are over, even if the league has arranged a rite of passage for Christmas, from the (exciting) way it was, to the (b-o-r-i-n-g) way it will be, when the new Lakers meet their old Diesel.

That roar you hear isn’t the surf, it’s the network execs hyperventilating. “Monday Night Football” is planning a halftime special to promote the Laker-Miami Heat game, which is -- surprise! -- also on ABC. ESPN, which is part of the corporate family, ran a four-part interview with Bryant, O’Neal, Jackson and Jerry Buss on Sunday, although it had to use old Kobe footage from media day on Oct. 3 and six-week-old footage from Jackson’s book tour.

ESPN is still on the case, pursuing a fresh four-part look at the Laker blowup, which would be handy, because even the Lakers aren’t sure what happened.

For those of us who lived the story every day, it was simple. Or, at least, it was simple after we wrote about it 20 times, with a new version each time.

It doesn’t make any sense to ask whether it was “business” or “personal,” as everyone does. It always starts out as business and ends up personal.

It wasn’t true that Kobe was trying to get rid of Shaq and Phil, but it was close to true.

He actually intended to be the one to go, focusing on the Clippers.

Buss decided he wanted the arch-competitive 26-year-old over the ever-larger 32-year-old and the coach hitting him up for a $12-million-a-year extension.

Incredibly, they almost made it back together. Against all odds, they reached the Finals. Bryant said privately he might not opt out. O’Neal told Rick Fox they had to keep this together since they’d never be on another team as good.

Then they were blown away by the Pistons and everyone went back to his separate corner.

Buss was heard grumbling about O’Neal’s play, a tipoff to what was coming because Shaq hadn’t played any worse than anyone else.

Business became personal. Buss had been leery of giving O’Neal a three-year extension, since Shaq wouldn’t come off his $30-million-a-year price. Buss had stopped at $22 million.

Now Laker officials remembered Shaq yelling “Pay me!” during that exhibition in Hawaii, with Buss sitting courtside. It didn’t seem so funny anymore.

Bryant called Mike Krzyzewski on the Lakers’ behalf, talked to the Clippers and invited the Knicks, Nuggets and Bulls to make presentations. Two weeks before deciding, Bryant told the Clipper delegation he was coming and there was no way he’d return to the Lakers.

The night before, Bryant gave Buss the last shot via telephone from Italy and turned around. It helped that the Lakers could offer $30 million more and Bryant got a late warning about the Clippers from his mentor of mentors, Jerry West.

Now that Laker fans have seen the new regime, they really miss the old one. So does the NBA, which has a bunch of teams that just play basketball.

Even some of the Lakers’ rivals miss them. San Antonio Coach Gregg Popovich says it’s like the breakup of the Soviet Union.

“All of a sudden nobody really knew how to act,” he said. “Everything was thrown into chaos, so to speak. The rest of us, the Dallases and Utahs and Minnesotas and San Antonios and Sacs all kind of looked at each other like, ‘Dang, it’s probably going to be one of us.’ ”

Baseball has had tremendous postseasons recently with a glamour team everyone loves to hate, the Yankees, going to the playoffs annually and, best of all, losing.

No one in the East could give the Lakers a series in the Finals, until the Pistons. Unfortunately for all concerned, the Lakers then imploded and were scattered to the winds.

Only 13 more days to Christmas and The Way We Were. After that, it could be a long winter.

Faces and Figures

See if this sounds familiar: Payton, who didn’t think he got to be Gary Payton with the Lakers, isn’t getting to be Gary Payton with the Celtics, either.

“I’m trying not to give Doc [Rivers, Celtic coach] any problems now or any headaches, but I’ve been patient and I think I might need to get more control of things on the court,” Payton said. “I think Doc is trying to make these kids grow up and right now it’s not working.”

Payton on Paul Pierce: “He needs to make some changes but it’s been like four years that he’s been taking those type of shots and stuff like that. Now he has to understand that that’s got to go. He’s getting a little deeper into his career -- he’s more than seven years deep -- and those shots are not going to make it for you. You can be the man here scoring 20 or 30 points, but you’re not going to win basketball games, you know what I’m saying?”

Oh, by the way, Payton says he’s going to be a short-timer there too.

“It probably is my only year here,” he said. “In my career now, I think I need to be on more of a veteran-type of team and get some more wins. But don’t take that to mean I don’t want to be here right now. I want to do everything I can here to help this team as long as I’m here.”

That looks like four months, one week and one day, until the end of the regular season.

The trade mart was shaken last week when Vince Carter strained his left Achilles’ tendon. Nevertheless, the Knicks will take him if Toronto takes Allan Houston, who is coming off knee surgery and has $57 million coming over three seasons.

Meanwhile, Net officials are so embarrassed by the team’s start, they’re hoping newly returned Jason Kidd will consent to staying.

“As far as I’m concerned, I want to keep him,” team President Rod Thorn said. “He’s a great player. You don’t find great players every day. If you have a great player who’s healthy, you don’t find those guys. So you don’t give them away because they’re hard to come by.”

Fat chance. With 13 of their next 18 games on the road, Kidd is expected to renew his demand for a trade to a West challenger any day now.

Take me with you, will you? Disgruntled Alonzo Mourning got a personal meeting with Thorn and new owner Bruce Ratner, and was further disgruntled to see it reported in the local papers. Said Mourning: “It’s kind of unfortunate that we can’t even walk into that office and have a meeting without somebody in that office leaking it out to you guys.”