Close Shaves, Not Smooth Ones

A funny thing happened on the way to that last roundup.

One month and one day ago, the San Antonio Spurs led the Lakers, 2-0, and Laker Coach Phil Jackson was issuing reminders of the doomsday awaiting when something happened that even optimists had given up hoping for:

The Lakers had an outbreak of harmony.

Of course, that’s a Laker rite of spring here, making up and taking care of business, or it was before this nightmare season that looked as if it would end the Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant era.

None of them ever talked about it, but this is a new day, they hope.

“I [wanted] to come to a tough situation,” said Laker den father Karl Malone last week. “I had to come to a tough situation.

“Now, I didn’t understand, I didn’t know all this was going to happen....

“When we were going through some pretty tough times, I used to sit in the locker room and I kidded the guys. I said, ‘Damn, you guys won three championships with all this going on?’

“I would say that and they would laugh.... Rick [Fox] looked at me and said, ‘Karl, if it was smooth around here, we wouldn’t have won any of them.’ ”

Once again, there’s a happy ending possible, perhaps even extending to the summer, when their free agents will include Bryant, Jackson, Malone, Gary Payton and Derek Fisher.

Insiders say Bryant now considers the Lakers a viable option, which might not sound like much but is a lot better than what he thought about them six months ago.

So, with the possibility that their dynasty will continue after a season in which Bryant faced a trial and called O’Neal a fat, malingering baby, could the Laker golden age, in which they all just get along, finally be at hand?

Maybe not in this lifetime.

Having forgiven, if not completely forgotten, O’Neal, who once seemed to be rooting for Bryant to leave, has begun taking a constructive line, suggesting he understands the situation, up to a point.

That point is the same one it would be for anyone else -- when O’Neal finds out he’s the one who has to make the sacrifice.

He recently told the Washington Post that he felt “a sign of disrespect,” because the Lakers “make promises and they don’t stand for them,” although he wasn’t specific.

People close to O’Neal acknowledge that the program is changing in ways that aren’t easy for him. If this is still his team as much as Bryant’s, the pendulum is swinging from the oft-injured 32-year-old Shaq to the 25-year-old Bryant.

Thicker-skinned players than O’Neal would be upset at reports that owner Jerry Buss was willing to trade him, if that was what it took to keep Bryant.

No specific trade was ever proposed, and none might ever be, but Buss visited Bryant in his Newport Beach home at midseason to assure Kobe he was committed to keeping him.

The Lakers then yanked their extension offer to Jackson -- reportedly $10 million a season, with Jackson seeking $12.5 million -- off the table. They even called the press to announce it, risking turning Jackson into a lame duck to signal Bryant that if it came down to Bryant or Jackson, it would be Bryant.

Soon thereafter, Buss consented to go on with ESPN’s Jim Gray during a game in Phoenix and, instead of the usual owner blather, dropped pointed hints all over.

Buss said he believed Bryant would “be a Laker for life,” but hedged on O’Neal (“Well, Shaq’s under contract for one more year, really two more years. At the end of the season we have to talk and see if he wants to stay here”) and Jackson (“I can’t read Phil’s mind. There are times I feel he definitely wants to coach and there are times when it seems he doesn’t want to coach”).

Of course, after that came so much turmoil, everyone forgot about everything but the latest episode.

Gary Payton’s agent said Payton was sorry he’d signed here. Teammates got upset at Bryant for shooting too much -- again -- or as Payton noted, diplomatically, “In Seattle, if he would have come to my team, I probably would have been dominating the ball too.”

Finally came Bryant’s one-shot first half at Sacramento, after which a Laker player told The Times’ Tim Brown, “I don’t know how we can forgive him,” precipitating a showdown with teammates a team official described as Bryant “melting down.”

No, seriously, after all this, they’re still in title contention?

Before Game 2 in San Antonio, a Laker official, looking unusually upbeat, was asked why he was so happy.

“I can see the light,” he said.

“Which way are you rooting?” he was asked.

“The light,” the official said.

*

From Shaq and Kobe to Kobe and Shaq

The last time O’Neal got to the Finals, and the time before that, and the time before that, nothing could stand in his way. He averaged 39 points in 2000, 33 in 2001 and 36 in 2002, winning the Finals MVP award all three times.

This season, he’s averaging 20 points in the playoffs, his career low. Bryant is averaging 25.

You could see the difference in one play in the third quarter of Game 6 against the Minnesota Timberwolves, when O’Neal got an offensive rebound, was able to gather himself only briefly, and had to settle for laying the ball up and missed while being fouled.

Said a Laker official, “Four years ago, he would have torn the basket down.”

However, O’Neal’s play is disappointing only if you compare it to his peak. He’s still the game’s dominating player. Given what he has lost in quickness and explosion (and forgetting free-throw shooting), he holds up his end on offense while playing better than ever at the defensive end, averaging 13.9 rebounds and 3.4 blocks against regular-season averages of 11.5 and 2.5.

The combination of O’Neal and Bryant still rules, assuming they’re combined. Despite that “Shaq’s team” and “Kobe’s team” stuff, it’s still their partnership that’s special, the one Boston General Manager Danny Ainge compared to Wilt Chamberlain playing with Michael Jordan.

Of course, it often seemed hard enough for O’Neal when he was at his peak, as when he expressed disappointment at the one vote he missed (thanks, Fred Hickman) that kept him from becoming the first unanimous regular-season MVP in 2000.

Once, Jackson had to shoehorn Bryant into place behind O’Neal, a process that didn’t go smoothly but worked well enough to win three titles.

Now the question is, can O’Neal handle Bryant’s continuing rise?

“As long as we’re winning,” O’Neal says. “If we’re winning, all that’s fine. If we’re not winning, then everybody has a problem, including me.”

In other words, even if they stay together, they’d still better not get off to a bad start next season, or any season.

*

Going Down to the Crossroads

Not that it should come as a surprise, although it certainly did a month ago, but the Lakers’ mood is lightening.

Clueless as they always seemed, they had a surprising ability to turn lucid in the spring and seem to be doing it again. A teammate says O’Neal recently told him, “We need to keep this together, because when it’s gone, it’s going to be gone.”

Nor would there ever be any hope of fixing it, or duplicating it. If Bryant left, it wasn’t going to be long before he missed O’Neal, and Shaq missed Kobe.

Not that anyone really thought that, or anything else, would keep these twin icons of over-entitled youth together, although now it seems it might.

“I just point to two guys,” Malone says. “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.

“So it’s no coincidence that [turnaround] happened. Because, I don’t know, it’s just like an older brother, he comes in the house throwing stuff and upset, it kind of trickles down. Next thing you know, you got a 5-year-old that’s mad at everybody.

“That’s just the way this is, but you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way. As tough as it’s been on us all year long, and to be right here today says a lot about these guys in this locker room and I really like that....

“Winning helps everything, but even when we went through some tough stretches, every guy said it was going to be all right.

“The turning point, as far as I’m concerned, we’re down 0-2 to San Antonio. Every person in that room when Phil said, ‘Do you think you all can win this series?’ every guy in there said yes and not one guy, I thought, was lying. Not one guy who said, ‘OK, yeah, I heard this before,’ and they want to be on vacation somewhere.”

Of course, the mood is usually lightening around here in May and June.

Check back in December, assuming the Lakers are still the Lakers and anyone cares.