How the Lakers Buried a Civic Treasure

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Was it only eight years ago we were in a tent at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta where the Lakers were introducing Shaquille O’Neal and he said he’d already “won at every level, except college and the pros”?

It seems a lot longer. Now that he’s gone, it feels as if we’ve lost a landmark, like the Hollywood sign.

In fact, we did lose one of the most beloved local institutions, the Lakers.

O’Neal may have been everything Kobe Bryant said he was (and vice versa), but there was only one Shaq and one Kobe and never before had there been a tandem like them. Now the partnership is over and so are the Lakers.

Owner Jerry Buss’ “business decision” was actually a going-out-of-business decision, as far as winning titles was concerned.

If “business” means they’re going to keep milking their cash cow, while assuring their fans and themselves they’re still contenders, that’s ongoing.

Of course, if they don’t get out of the second round in the next two seasons, and if they still don’t have any cap room in 2006 when Pau Gasol and Tyson Chandler may be on the market, or 2007 when Yao Ming and Amare Stoudemire may be, they may have a little problem with their ticket base.

Not that this would be unprecedented. In the early ‘90s after Magic Johnson left, Jack Nicholson, Mr. Laker himself, started turning up in Madison Square Garden to root for Pat Riley’s Knicks.

Anyone up for 2008 when LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Darko Milicic can be free agents?

Bryant will be 29, although, as he said as a four-year veteran at the tender age of 22, “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.”

For the Lakers, so recently the sharpest operators around, with eight titles and 13 NBA Finals appearances in Buss’ 25 seasons, this was a historic pratfall.

Unless someone is lying big-time, Bryant was willing to play with O’Neal, who was willing to stay but wanted an extension that Buss didn’t want to give.

Jackson says he was willing to stay and Bryant says he was willing to play for him but Buss didn’t like Jackson’s price, either.

The question that had to be answered at the end -- could Bryant and O’Neal still play together? -- was never even asked.

The tandem that didn’t have to be busted up was.

Someone had to lead but no one did. That’s how it goes with dynasties that have run their course.

Where Have You

Gone, Mr. Clutch?

Not that they were in trouble, but when clutch time rolled around this time, Buss was in Italy, Jerry West was in Memphis and General Manager Mitch Kupchak was in over his head.

West put this team together as his piece de resistance and West may have been the only man who could have kept it together.

Kupchak, West’s protege, had to go out front through this ordeal while being whipsawed on all sides, but he suffered, first of all, for the sin of not being West.

West was an icon. Kupchak was regarded as a guy who worked for Buss.

West might have been able to persuade Buss they still needed O’Neal when the owner began leaning the other way, but Kupchak didn’t have the same cachet.

West might have been able to persuade O’Neal to drop his price, zip his mouth and keep this from getting personal. Instead, O’Neal stubbornly clung to his number, blamed Kupchak for carrying out the owner’s orders and ran Kupchak down in the papers.

West’s counsel would have been a comfort to Bryant, who was going through enough and could have used a surrogate father on the premises.

Nevertheless, it’s arguable if even West could have headed off this train wreck. In his latter years, he became reluctant to challenge Buss, especially on matters involving business.

Even in as patent a disaster as the signing of Dennis Rodman in 1999, West stood aside and let the folly go down, expressing his dismay by absenting himself most of that season.

Moreover, if West wasn’t there, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. If he had problems with Jackson, and especially when Jackson began dating Jeanie Buss, it was just stuff in West’s head. Jackson wasn’t challenging West, who still had power no other executive dreamed of and a $3.5-million salary, the largest of all the GMs.

If West became so strung out he had to leave, that was part of his charm. West was always strung out.

The void West left wasn’t immediately noticed because Jackson, running a version of the triangle that even the inventor of the offense, Tex Winter, barely recognized, effectively became the No. 2 man in the organization.

If the Lakers made mistakes, as in the summer of 2002 when they stood pat while the rest of the West geared up, it was because Jackson thought they were OK.

When Jackson wanted something, Kupchak performed capably, as when they signed Karl Malone and Gary Payton in 2003.

For his part, Buss became more and more detached in the ‘90s, although he remained an important piece of the puzzle.

It was the owner’s vision of a flashy, crowd-pleasing team that helped create Showtime in the first place. It was his vote that decided they would draft Johnson in 1979.

It was Buss who told West to keep pursuing O’Neal in 1996 after Shaq turned down their $98-million offer.

It was the owner’s willingness to turn Laker tradition on its head and bring in an outsider, Jackson, at an eye-popping $6 million a year (plus a $2-million bonus for titles) that led to their last three championships.

By now, Buss was used to an organization that, by and large, ran itself, but last season posed problems, the likes of which no team had ever seen.

Bryant, facing trial and nearing free agency, was determined to leave, signaling the Clippers more than once, as when his agent, Rob Pelinka, was overheard telling a Clipper official, “Save your cap space.”

O’Neal, two years from free agency and focused on an extension, had concerns of his own.

Buss was being asked to add two years and $60 million to O’Neal’s deal, for a total of four years at $107 million, and was hearing that Bryant would walk, so the owner had his concerns.

It looked as if the Lakers would do the standard denial number -- Kobe can’t leave us for the Clippers -- because they were the Lakers and nothing bad ever happened to them.

Actually, Buss understood there was a problem and tried to get on top of it. On Feb. 1, Super Bowl Sunday, with the team on the East Coast and Bryant on the injured list, Buss came down to Bryant’s Newport Beach home.

Bryant says he didn’t say anything bad about Jackson or O’Neal, but they weren’t best friends at that moment, so who knows what could have slipped out.

In any case, Buss immediately terminated the extension talks with Jackson.

These had been considered routine when they started in the fall, when Buss was just happy Jackson still wanted to work, but had slowed down after Jackson asked for something over $10 million a season.

Buss decided if he had to choose, he would go with Bryant, rather than O’Neal. Bryant was 25 to O’Neal’s 32 and with O’Neal’s approach to off-season conditioning, extending him was a risk.

On the other hand, they were probably well over $150 million in profit for O’Neal’s eight seasons in town and stood to make more. The Lakers were always giving you that mom-and-pop-corner-grocery story, while knocking down $25 million-plus in profits annually.

Committed to Bryant and leery of extending O’Neal, Buss started to think about trading O’Neal at that point and he may never have looked back.

Rites of Spring:

Lakers in Love

Had Buss remained interested in keeping O’Neal, he would have been heartened to see the usual late-season thaw even in this, the wildest of Laker seasons.

Even the Sacramento debacle, in which Bryant took one shot in the first half and furiously grilled teammates, trying to find out who had ripped him anonymously in the papers, didn’t stop it.

By late April, with the Lakers in the process of disposing with Houston in the first round, Bryant said privately he was still intrigued by the Clippers but thinking about staying too.

After the Lakers’ escape in the second round when Derek Fisher’s miracle shot turned the San Antonio series around, love was breaking out all over.

“I just point to two guys,” said Malone. “And I said it probably about a month ago. Kobe and Shaq, seems like they relaxed and with that, the team has relaxed, as well.”

In Minnesota during the West finals, I asked Bryant if he was more inclined to come back.

“I told you I was,” he said, laughing.

“I didn’t believe you,” I said.

Before the NBA Finals, I asked if he still intended to opt out, as he had insisted he would all along. Now he said, “I haven’t decided.”

Of course, that was when everyone thought the Lakers were title-bound. Things looked a lot darker 10 days later, after the Detroit Pistons walked on them.

In the aftermath, people who saw Bryant said he was calm, focused on his upcoming decision, planning to stay in the area and not venting about Jackson or O’Neal.

Buss, on the other hand, was reportedly angry at O’Neal after the final game in Detroit. Actually, O’Neal had been as good as any other Laker in the Finals, including Bryant.

Two days later, Kupchak made his qualified commitment to O’Neal’s future as a Laker. O’Neal, who had been hearing all spring that Buss would move him to keep Bryant, went off, demanding a trade.

Laker officials didn’t mind at all; O’Neal’s demand gave them cover. Whenever they were asked about it, they could say he had forced their hand.

The mystery is why the Lakers were in such a hurry, in effect holding a fire sale for their only disposable asset.

Had Bryant demanded that O’Neal be moved as his price for returning?

Bryant and Buss say he didn’t, but they would say that if he did.

Jackson and O’Neal have suggested they fell out of favor because of Bryant, but have offered no specifics.

A Laker official says Kupchak, underwhelmed by offers, moved fast to get what he could. He didn’t want to trade O’Neal for players with expiring contracts, pointing for free agency in 2006 and 2007, since Bryant might not feel like waiting around till then.

Indeed, when Bryant met with the Clippers last week, he reportedly not only told them he wanted to come, he said pointedly he was not going back to the Lakers.

The offers that came in for O’Neal were laughable.

Sacramento offered Chris Webber and Bobby Jackson, which would have been OK, if both didn’t have injury problems.

Dallas’ final offer was Antoine Walker, Jerry Stackhouse and Christian Laettner.

Indiana, desperate to break up its logjam at small forward, appeared willing to give up Jermaine O’Neal, but Shaq had a list and the Pacers weren’t on it.

Memphis, significantly, made no offer, although West was looking for a center.

So the Lakers did the Miami deal, which didn’t leave them looking like an elite team, while putting enough money on their cap to keep them out of the running for big-ticket free agents until 2007, if they start being careful today.

Not that this was easy to figure out. I started out congratulating Buss for choosing Bryant, before it occurred to me that they first had to make sure they had done all they could -- including extending O’Neal -- to avoid having to choose.

Let’s just say this isn’t going to look good on any of the principals’ resumes, except Riley’s.

Personally, I’ll miss O’Neal, even if the big lug was as high-maintenance as a royal princess. He could be tons of fun too, like the night he tried to squeeze into a pair of John Stockton’s uniform shorts, looking like a whale in hot pants.

Lots of people around here are going to miss the Shaq-Kobe Lakers, but now they exist only in Laker history.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Breakdown

In the five seasons of Phil Jackson’s triangle offense, Kobe Bryant was the Lakers’ leading scorer the last two seasons but the Lakers did not win the NBA title. Shaquille O’Neal led the team in scoring for the first three seasons and all three ended in championships.

KOBE BRYANT

*--* REG PLAYOFFS ULA R SEA SON SEASON G AVG FGM-FGA PCT G AVG FGM-FGA PCT FINISH 1999-00 66 22.5 554-1,183 468 22 21.1 174-394 442 Won NBA title 2000-01 68 28.5 701-1,510 464 16 29.4 168-358 469 Won NBA title 2001-02 80 25.2 749-1,597 469 19 26.6 187-431 434 Won NBA title 2002-03 82 30.0 868-1,924 451 12 32.1 137-317 432 Lost in conf. semis 2003-04 65 24.0 516-1,178 438 22 24.5 190-460 413 Lost in NBA Finals

*--*

SHAQUILLE O’NEAL