Lakers Are Faced With Cold Reality

Looks like anything can’t happen in the playoffs, after all, at least not for the Lakers.

That illusion is only available to participants. The only way the Lakers will be heating up this postseason is by sitting in the sun in Cancun or Aruba or wherever they’re vacationing.

After all their triumphs, this is a major stunner for the organization and its fans ... or at the least the ones who have been in denial or hibernation.

Anyone who was surprised to find the Lakers eliminated in Tuesday night’s 125-99 rout by the Suns hasn’t been paying attention or has been living in a dream. If that’s you, this is your wake-up call.

Make the playoffs? Humble as that goal was, the Lakers didn’t come close. Forget eighth place, which is too far away to even think about, they’re six games out of ninth.

Who gets eliminated on April 5? In the old days, Shaquille O’Neal would just be rounding into shape now, Kobe Bryant would be rejoining the program and Phil Jackson would be dropping the “What, me worry?” pose to remind everyone it was time to get serious.

In case you didn’t hear, those days ended last summer. If you don’t believe it, listen to someone who knows how the present Lakers compare to the team of recent years.

“It’s not even close. We know that. Everybody knows that. It’s an uphill battle for us.... We don’t have the most dominant player in the game, so that’s going to change things drastically. It’s going to be more of a struggle for us. We know that.”

That was Kobe the day he re-signed last July. Of course, a lot happened after that.

Bryant was hardly at the height of his popularity but there was growing speculation he wouldn’t be convicted. He had finished the season at the top of his game, outscoring O’Neal in the playoffs for the first time, carrying the Lakers to the Finals.

By fall, Bryant was being blamed for the breakup by Jackson and O’Neal. Everyone was saying Kobe had gotten what he wanted. By the start of the season, Bryant was wild to show it could work. Then he had that misunderstanding with Karl Malone that was like the railroad spike in the coffin as far as his image went.

In fact, it would be even more of a struggle for the Lakers than it looked. They were generally picked to finish No. 8 but if anyone had known the Suns and Seattle SuperSonics would be so good, only blood relatives would have given the Lakers a shot at making the playoffs.

Bryant’s assessment in July was the last realistic one any Laker made in public. The organization forbade the word “rebuilding” on the theory they were a long way from square one. Management also picked this promising moment in Laker history to raise ticket prices.

This just in: Whatever square they’re at, there are a lot of squares left to go.

It was too bad Jackson was gone, and it’s too bad he probably isn’t coming back, because he would have popped this bubble last fall. Jackson’s deal is to tell it like it is so everyone can start to deal with it.

In his absence, it’s actually good for the Lakers not to make the playoffs, just to find out who they really are so they can start to deal with it.

It’s actually fortunate the Lakers are in the West too. If they were in the East, they could be like the Knicks, who spent 10 years patching instead of rebuilding, insisting all the while they only had to be good enough to finish No. 8, since anything can happen in the playoffs.

The fact that this season turned into a debacle is also good for Lakers, since they still may not have come to grips with how ordinary they are. They’ve talked so much about losing Vlade Divac, you’d think he was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Prince that he is, Vlade is 37 and averaged 28 minutes a game last season, which is why the Lakers, who can buy out the final $5.4 million year on his contract, wanted to see what he has left. Not that this was the best night for an aging artiste to return, against Amare Stoudemire and the Suns’ track team.

“We talked about that a little at the shootaround so I don’t know how much he will play tonight,” said Coach Frank Hamblen before the game, laughing. “He’s probably not in very good shape. We have to be a little careful at this stage of his career.”

Mercifully, Vlade went nine minutes and didn’t get hurt.

Unfortunately for the Lakers, hope springs eternal. In this case, it’s unfortunate because there’s a time to hope and a time to plan.

For you hard cases, if this season wasn’t enough to convince you the good times are over, wait till next year.

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Going Nowhere

A look at the seasons in which the Lakers failed to make the playoffs since moving to Los Angeles before the 1960-61 season:

*--* Season Record Finish Top player Coach * 1974-75 30-52 5th in Pacific Division Goodrich Sharman * 1975-76 40-42 4th in Pacific Division Abdul-Jabbar Sharman * 1993-94 33-49 5th in Pacific Division Divac * * 2004-05 33-41** 11th in Western Conf. Bryant *

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* The 1993-94 team had three coaches: Randy Pfund (27-37), Bill Bertka (1-1) and Magic Johnson (5-11); the 2004-05 team has been coached by Rudy Tomjanovich (24-19) and Frank Hamblen (9-22).

** With eight games remaining