Check the Mirror

CHICAGO — The voyage to one possible Laker future required a trip down memory lane.

That would be the familiar drive west down Madison Street. If you covered the NBA in the 1990s, eventually you found your way to Chicago Stadium or its replacement, the United Center, in the springtime, just as sure as horse racing writers traveled to Churchill Downs every May.

Then the Bulls parted ways with Phil Jackson, lost their most valuable player and watched other familiar faces scatter around the league. Sound familiar?

The Bulls wandered through the NBA wasteland, winning a total of 32 games in back-to-back seasons, watching as six NBA playoffs went on without them. Los Angeles became the near-annual Finals destination.

They kept stalling the rebuilding process by sending promising players such as Elton Brand and Ron Artest elsewhere, until General Manager Jerry Krause was sent packing himself.

John Paxson, whose clutch jump shots made him a hero in the first of the Bulls’ two triple-championship runs in the 1990s, watched the new millennium misery up close as a Bull broadcaster. Then he engineered the turnaround in two years on the job as general manager, moving from the high school kids favored by Krause to college players with Final Four experience such as Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Chris Duhon and Luol Deng. So he took some pride in hearing the full house at United Center roar its approval for the first step back Sunday in a 103-94 victory over Washington.

“It means a lot, because our fans have endured some really hard times,” Paxson said. “They’ve endured where there really hasn’t been a light at the end of the tunnel.... It’s nice to have good basketball back in Chicago.”

Maybe it will take seven years for the Lakers. Maybe equipment manager Rudy Garciduenas will sound like his Bull counterpart John Ligmanowski, who said, “It’s been so long, I forgot what it was like.”

Ligmanowski did remember the Michael Jordan-era tradition of wearing black shoes during the playoffs and when players wanted to make the switch during the regular season, Ligmanowski insisted they wait.

Sunday, he finally unpacked them, and went about distributing the matching black socks. The Bulls played the “Eye in the Sky” intro music, and the team went about doing what it has done in 27 of the 29 playoff series openers played in Chicago: It won.

Still, it didn’t feel quite the same. There wasn’t the same buzz in town that used to accompany the start of the playoffs. No sign of the giant inflatable bull that used to pop up on rooftops around town. The highest floor of the Hancock Center didn’t light up with the Bulls’ red and white colors. (In fact, the Merchandise Mart glowed with a hue similar to the Wizards’ blue.) You had to delve through multiple pages of NFL draft coverage and detailed analysis of the Bears’ pick before finding any Bull stories in the local Sunday sports sections.

Inside the United Center for the early stages of the game, “It was quiet, almost,” Paxson said. “They didn’t quite know how to react.”

It’s almost like learning to walk again after a bad injury.

“They’re going to have to win a couple more and then the fans will feel it again,” said Scottie Pippen, who played alongside Jordan on the six championship teams.

A city practically defined by its inability to win championships, most notably the Cubs, had grown accustomed to running things in the NBA. There was some bitterness at the regime of Krause and owner Jerry Reinsdorf when the dynasty was dismantled shortly after championship No. 6 in 1998, and it has taken a while for a new identity to emerge.

“I was very mad,” said Edward Nicholson, a season-ticket holder for a quarter century. “But not mad enough to get rid of my season tickets.”

It helped that Reinsdorf told season-ticket holders he wouldn’t raise prices until the Bulls had another worthy product on the court. (The Lakers hiked theirs for a team that did worse than the Clippers.)

At least the Bulls didn’t have to live with their ex-superstar haunting them in the playoffs, as Shaquille O’Neal is in Miami. Jordan did come back to play with the Wizards for two seasons, but they didn’t make it to the postseason.

The Bulls are gradually distancing themselves from Jordan enough to stand on their own. None of them played with Jordan. None of them had the burden of replacing Jordan in the starting lineup, as Pete Myers did after Jordan’s first retirement in 1993.

“They might not accomplish what Michael did, but there isn’t the pressure,” said Myers, now a Bull assistant coach. “That’s what makes things a lot easier.”

Ligmanowski still keeps Jordan’s old locker empty, just to make sure. But the fans are learning to appreciate this team on its own merits.

“We’re not going to see the same kind of play during the Michael Jordan years,” Nicholson said. “But the fact is that we’ve got a different team and we’ve got a good team. I think this city likes them. I think the city was surprised.”

Especially after they started this season 0-9. They relied heavily on four rookies, and now must go on without leading scorer Eddy Curry and Deng, both sidelined with injuries. Seven players made their playoff debuts Sunday, and one of them, Duhon, said, “I was real nervous at the start of the game.”

It helped that the Wizards used five playoff rookies themselves, and shot 38%. It helped that Gordon played like Jordan, scoring 30 points, and that Andres Nocioni set a rookie playoff record with 18 rebounds.

“For us, it’s just been all about the chemistry of the group, and playing hard,” Paxson said. “This team plays hard every night.”

A couple of times in the fourth quarter, the fans reached 1998-level decibels. And just like old times, “Another One Bites the Dust” thumped through the loudspeakers in the closing seconds.

How long will it be before we hear “I Love L.A.” at this time of year again?*

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande go to latimes.com/adande.