Lakers Look for Fit to a ‘T’

Rudy Tomjanovich, who stands and yells and calls plays and is not in any way Phil Jackson, apparently has been chosen to coach the Lakers.

He was not the first. Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski was, and that was after Pat Riley agreed this probably was no longer the organization for him. Mitch Kupchak had poked his head into a familiar office -- Dean Smith’s, to find Roy Williams there -- and Williams said he too would remain in North Carolina.

So, the Lakers and Tomjanovich found each other again, more than two weeks after Tomjanovich first sat with Kupchak and owner Jerry Buss, and they went into Tuesday night discussing the finer details of the job and its compensation.

Barring a last-minute snag, Tomjanovich will have his appointment announced in the coming days, according to team and NBA sources.

“The sides are close to agreeing on a deal,” a team official said Tuesday night. The contract is expected to be worth about $30 million over five years, what Jackson was paid.

At a Tuesday afternoon news conference to introduce Sasha Vujacic, his first-round draft pick, Kupchak said he hoped to have his coach in place in “two or three days.”

“Now,” he added, “something always seems to come up. With Coach K, it was three days of basketball camps. So we’re hopeful there won’t be any more delays and that we’ll have a coach. But at this time we don’t.... We feel we have identified the guy we want to hire. However, every day we don’t have a coach, more and more names seem to come off the phone and to my desk. Some of the names are really kind of interesting and unique. But it’s kind of late in the process to open that up now.... We have probably talked to all the guys we feel are candidates.”

The charismatic Tomjanovich has only to dissuade Shaquille O’Neal from his trade demand and lure Kobe Bryant from free agency -- with about $130 million of Buss’ money -- to restore the Lakers.

If he is convincing enough, Tomjanovich could field much of the team that advanced to the NBA Finals last season. Karl Malone, at last check, was feeling optimistic enough about a return from knee surgery and his 41st birthday to consider another season, and Gary Payton has opted to play one more year for the Lakers.

If not, he’s in a rebuild, with a potential to lose O’Neal, Bryant, Malone, Derek Fisher, Horace Grant, Slava Medvedenko and others from the team that lost in five games to the Detroit Pistons.

As Bryant took NBA visitors near his Newport Beach home -- drive-through free agency -- the Lakers finally appeared to have replaced Jackson, with whom Bryant sometimes disagreed and often disliked.

Denver Nugget owner Stan Kroenke and General Manager Kiki Vandeweghe stopped by Monday, with representatives for the San Antonio Spurs and Clippers hoping for their apparently unscheduled turns. Kroenke has a home in Malibu.

A person close to Tomjanovich said Bryant and Tomjanovich had attempted to make contact with each other but did not know whether they had spoken.

Bryant helped with the recruiting of Krzyzewski, calling three days before Kupchak flew to North Carolina to extend an $8-million-a-year offer, because he had once considered playing for Krzyzewski out of high school. He does not seem to have the same attachment to Tomjanovich.

Kupchak, who attended North Carolina and narrowly missed being a teammate of Williams, said he called Williams about two weeks ago, that Williams took two days to get back to him and said immediately he would not be interested.

Tomjanovich appears to be the candidate left standing in a process initiated when Buss began to have doubts about Jackson. Those close to Jackson believe that occurred in September, when negotiations for a contract extension they thought should have been easy were not.

Buss formally and publicly ended those negotiations Feb. 13, 12 days after he’d spent part of Super Bowl Sunday in Newport Beach with Bryant.

On June 18, three days after the last loss in Detroit, Buss told Jackson he would not be back at any price. Buss’ candor was said to astonish Jackson, who had expected a lengthier and more philosophical conversation.

Buss offered Jackson a senior vice president position within the organization, which Jackson turned down June 30, the day his five-year contract expired. By Tuesday, as the Lakers initiated negotiations with Tomjanovich, Jackson’s thoughts had turned to returning to Montana, where he is building a new home with a view of his familiar lake.

He is expected to depart from Los Angeles by the end of the week. He will leave three gold trophies in his owner’s office.

Tomjanovich, his expected successor, won two championships with the Houston Rockets in the mid-1990s. He resigned after last season to recover from bladder cancer, which he appears to have done.

In the last five years, Tomjanovich has quit alcohol, caffeine and cigarettes. He has worked for the Rockets as a scout this last year.

Insiders expect Tomjanovich to bring assistants Larry Smith and, perhaps, Jim Boylen, with him. Also, Frank Hamblen, who in a management capacity drafted Tomjanovich out of Michigan for the San Diego Rockets in 1970, might remain on staff.

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Leading the Lakers

Overall records for Los Angeles Laker coaches:

*--* Coach Titles W-L Pct. Fred Schaus 0 348-283 552 Bill van Breda Kolff 0 128-69 650 Joe Mullaney 0 110-84 567 Bill Sharman 1 268-179 600 Jerry West 0 153-115 571 Jack McKinney 0 9-4 714 Paul Westhead 1 125-56 691 Pat Riley 4 635-241 725 Mike Dunleavy 0 114-73 610 Randy Pfund 0 68-83 450 Bill Bertka 0 2-1 667 Magic Johnson 0 5-11 313 Del Harris 0 241-135 641 Kurt Rambis 0 28-18 609 Phil Jackson 3 351-151 699

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