Is It Too Late in Lakerdom?

Now for our annual post-All-Star what-was-that-all-about? column.

First, on behalf of the merchants of Beverly Hills, now re-stocking their bling-bling, furs, leathers and designer wares, thanks for coming.

NBA stars, families, entourages and fans staggered down Rodeo Drive with so many shopping bags, they looked like walking Christmas trees. Unless you knew Wolfgang Puck, you had as much chance of getting into Spago as anyone who wasn’t in show business had of getting into Staples Center for the game.

A dizzying array of stars turned out, including, in alphabetical order: Ali, Laila; Campbell, Naomi; Cube, Ice; Diaz, Cameron; DiCaprio, Leonardo; Duff, Hilary; Entertainer, Cedric the; Kutcher, Ashton; Latifah, Queen; Nicholson, Jack; Pesci, Joe; Phil, Dr.; Reiner, Rob; Romeo, Lil’ and Washington, Denzel.

The game got a 5.1 cable rating, down 20% from last season, but that was Michael Jordan’s double-overtime farewell. This was still better than the NFL’s Pro Bowl, which did a 4.0 on cable (against the Grammy Awards) and the NHL All-Star game’s 1.8 over the air (dangerously close to what you’d get for a test pattern).

I’ve always thought All-Star weekend actually told you something about the league. And here it is:

The Lakers are the NBA.

It’s not the Indiana Pacers, Detroit Pistons, New Jersey Nets, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs or Minnesota Timberwolves. It’s just the Lakers, their little, once-again-on-the-eve-of-destruction selves.

For three days, everyone got to be Laker reporters. This was a lark for visitors who have never seen anything like this, with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal constantly feuding with each other and/or Coach Phil Jackson.

The “celebration of the NBA that is the All-Star game” was a bug on the Lakers’ windshield. Several national guys even stayed over for Monday’s practice to see what Jackson thought of Bryant’s disdain for him, personally, and the team’s disinterest in his services, professionally.

Phil, being Phil, said this was actually good news, but everyone got quotes, which confirmed that these were real issues, not the usual unsupported speculation, and went away happy.

Trust me, the charm fades after a few weeks, to say nothing of eight seasons of O’Neal and Bryant. The Laker reporter’s answer to the Chinese saying, “May you live in interesting times,” is, “Do they have to be this interesting all the time?”

The Lakers are the craziest team ever, more nuts even than such legends as the 1970s Oakland A’s, the 1980s “Bronx Zoo” New York Yankees or the 1990s Chicago Bulls.

Of course, there’s a question of how much longer the circus will run with Bryant’s opting out, Jackson’s contract running out and O’Neal’s extension talks stalled, too, with his opt-out coming in the summer of 2005.

Despite all the positioning of All-Star weekend, the debate in the Laker organization is not whether Bryant is leaning toward leaving, but whether he might change his mind.

Optimists, like Jackson, believe there’s a good chance. Pessimists believe it’s slim.

However, Bryant wants a choice July 1, which means he can’t leave a smoking hole behind him where the franchise used to be. Last week, he began playing not only brilliantly but unselfishly, continually looking to pass to O’Neal, if he had to bounce it off three guys in traffic.

This was the Bryant of April 2001, who feuded with O’Neal and Jackson, coming back to them after months of speculation that he wanted out (he did) and would be traded (including the scenarios advanced by Jackson’s confidante, Charlie Rosen, who was back at it last week, calling Bryant a “numskull.”)

The Lakers didn’t consider trading Bryant last week, at least on the only level that counted, owner Jerry Buss’, so all the scenarios meant nothing.

The talk-show favorites were the usual pie-in-sky non-starters. Steve Francis has base-year restrictions, making him hard to trade if the Houston Rockets wanted to, which they didn’t. The Philadelphia 76ers might have given up Allen Iverson if Bryant would have committed to staying, but Kobe would not have.

Not that there weren’t real scenarios. Had they looked, the Lakers might have found John Paxson of Chicago willing to give them Tyson Chandler. But they would have also had to take $10 million worth of unwanted Bulls (say Jamal Crawford and Marcus Fizer) and even if they left in the summer, the Laker payroll would still be $56 million, far over the cap.

Chandler is promising but will never score clutch points as Bryant does. Nor could many players who ever lived.

The Lakers’ problem is ... they’re the Lakers. Even with Jerry West, they weren’t that decisive. They’ve been so successful for so long, they can’t imagine bad things, like a superstar leaving, happening to them.

But this one might. They may not even be able to do a sign-and-trade. They won’t want to deal with the teams at the top of Bryant’s list -- Clippers, Spurs, Phoenix Suns -- and, if he takes a cut to $10 million, as he has signaled he would, he can go where he wants without their cooperation.

Now, is it merely late, or too late?

Several Lakers, including O’Neal, have said privately they’ve had it with Bryant. On the other hand, all those passes into the post could have a warming influence on O’Neal’s heart if there’s a title at the end of the road.

Everything depends on whether they can make enough good things happen fast enough.

Of course, if anything else bad happens, forget the number. This team could barely stand prosperity.

If they blow up, the league could still bring them back at next year’s All-Star game. How about O’Neal and Bryant coming down from the ceiling on a silver globe, like Beyonce?

No way can you let an act like this go.

Faces and Figures

Will the Pistons rule the East with Rasheed Wallace? The answer to this, and most basketball questions is, we’ll have to wait and see. In a game in which chemistry counts (see: Lakers) it’s not what it looks like on paper or what players say, but how players feel and perform.... Nevertheless, it was a bargain for Joe Dumars, who gave up two reserve guards and two non-premium No. 1 picks, and got Chucky Atkins’ $4.5-million salary off his cap. It was also great for Larry Brown, a win-now veterans’ coach as opposed to a nurturer of young players (see Darko Milicic)....Meanwhile, the East balance of power hangs in the balance. Wallace told teams he would go to the New York Knicks in the off-season, even if he had to take a cut from $17 million to the $5 million veterans’ exception. “Now was that posturing or will he really do it?” Portland General Manager John Nash asked. “We’ll see.” ...

Oops: When the Suns unloaded Stephon Marbury, I wrote they were in the hunt for Bryant, but I assumed they could unload Joe Johnson’s $2.4-million salary. Johnson has since happened in a big way, so their last hope is to get expansion Charlotte to take Jahidi White’s $5.4-million deal, even if they have to send along a No. 1 pick.... I miss John Stockton: When Gonzaga retired his number last week, he only let the school announce it two days ahead of time, because he didn’t want all the fuss.

May not be perfect for Gotham: New Knick Tim Thomas, labeled a disappointment for years, called former Milwaukee Buck coach George Karl and Ray Allen “cowards,” promised to “choke” Allen the next time he saw him and said Sam Cassell was jealous of his contract. “The years when we first got in the playoffs against Indiana, those guys were lost -- Sam and Glenn [Robinson] too,” Thomas told the Newark Star-Ledger. “Those guys were nowhere to be found. And that’s why I got paid that contract -- bottom line. They were supposed to be the Big Three, but they didn’t exactly turn into the Big Three when the big-time action came around.” ...

Faux pas: Canadian Nelly Furtado, singing “O Canada” before the All-Star game, did a part in French and botched the words.... Overrated lives of the rich and famous (cont.): The NBA limo driver who picked up Sacramento center Brad Miller at LAX couldn’t find Century City. Miller finally called King publicist Darrin May and handed the phone to the driver so May could give him directions. Then Miller sprained his foot in the game. “He came here to have fun,” teammate Peja Stojakovic said. “Going home limping is not a good thing.” ... King Coach Rick Adelman, on facing Kevin Garnett short-handed: “He’s hard to defend strong-handed.”