Following a basic instinct when it comes to Lakers

SO I kissed Sharon Stone.

Sorry, dropped a word there.

So I kissed off Sharon Stone the other night and passed on the L.A. Sports & Entertainment Commission soiree in her honor to stay home to watch the Lakers.

The Lakers had gotten pretty much everyone excited with their showing in Utah, and I thought I could always rent Sharon Stone if I really wanted to see her.

The Lakers were an eight-point favorite to beat Sacramento, only 24 games to go until we start the playoffs, and FSN’s Bill Macdonald was saying, “Big news -- Kwame Brown is back.”

Look out Dallas and Phoenix, here come the Lakers.

Then the game started and the Lakers trailed, 10-0. Just wait until Brown checks into the game.

It was 24-18 when Brown got the call, prompting FSN announcers Joel Meyers and Stu Lantz to make some kind of odd reference to Brown and Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points 45 years ago to the day. Or, maybe I misunderstood, and one of them was suggesting it would take Brown 45 years to score 100 points. I don’t know, like the Lakers, I was losing interest in the game.

The Lakers were down by 11 points at the end of the first quarter to one of the NBA’s worst teams. Ron Artest, who had carved “Kings” into his head -- and it would have been fun to see him try and carve “Clippers” into his head had that trade gone through -- hadn’t played in Sacramento’s last game because of a sore knee.

Lantz pointed out that Mike Bibby was limping up and down the floor, Brad Miller was in foul trouble, and matched against the NBA’s best all-time coach, the Kings were being guided by a guy who was wearing an ankle monitor a month ago while serving house arrest for a DUI. Not hard to understand why the guy coaching the Kings might be caught drinking too much.

And the Lakers think they have problems.

The Kings have almost no chance of making the playoffs, which might suggest they have less incentive to play as hard as surely as the Lakers would play in front of their hometown fans.

But it was getting so bad that FSN’s Patrick O’Neal was interviewing Ryan Seacrest and Randy Jackson of “American Idol” and the game was still going on and O’Neal just wouldn’t stop talking to Seacrest and Jackson. Do you think O’Neal would have put a microphone in front of Simon Cowell and asked him what he thought of the Lakers’ performance?

By the way, Jackson said he likes “the chances of the Lakers getting into the playoffs.” If only FSN had then switched to Jack Haley for his opinion; we could’ve had a Randy Jackson-Paula Abdul moment there.

It was halftime and the Lakers trailed by 17 points at home. They’ve won three games in a row, polishing off the mighty Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors before pulling off what some might call the biggest win of the season in Utah, and now this.

O’Neal reported at the end of halftime that he had talked to Brian Shaw, and Shaw contended the Kings were playing harder than the Lakers. I guess Jackson wouldn’t talk to O’Neal at halftime -- Phil or Randy.

Meyers and Lantz began to talk about the three days off the Lakers had, and how that might very well be the problem with this team.

I think they had the number right -- three, but instead of having three days off, it looked to me as if the Lakers were three players off from being much more than an average team any time soon.

More than that, it looks as if they might be three players shy, a luxury tax and just the way they do business in the NBA from ever being much more than a second-tier team -- thereby wasting the NBA lifespan of Jackson and Kobe Bryant.

THE LAKERS trailed by 18 points after three quarters, and Bryant and Lamar Odom were playing like great players. And getting no help.

If you believe a healthy Vladimir Radmanovic, Chris Mihm, Brown and Luke Walton would make this better than a sixth-place team, there is nothing wrong with hanging on to a dream.

Right now Brian Cook, Smush Parker and Andrew Bynum are starting for the Lakers, which explained why the Kings opened with a 10-0 lead. Is there a trio of worse defensive players starting in the league?

The hometown crowd gets a real kick out of Bynum when he does something on the court, and so do Los Angeles Kings’ fans when their hockey team scores. It just doesn’t happen very often.

The future of the Lakers is tied to just that -- it happening more often with Bynum. But will it happen in Bryant’s NBA lifetime?

Meanwhile, about the worst thing anyone can say, and Meyers said it during the third quarter, is, “Cook dribbles the ball and passes it to Smush,” three feet over his head and out of bounds. It would make a great 50-50 proposition in Las Vegas -- betting each Lakers game who will make more dumb plays, Parker or Cook?

The Lakers’ supporting cast has been a topic of debate ever since the team won its three titles. This season it has been all about the players who surround Bryant, and how he has changed his game to make them more confident.

But just how good is this supporting cast? Jackson has shifted from the future and Jordan Farmar to two guys who were spending the season on the bench. Walton is now being touted as the savior -- FSN showing the team’s record with Walton and without Walton.

The numbers are telling, all right, because it shows how mediocre a supporting cast the Lakers have assembled without Walton on the court.

The Lakers are locked into sixth place this season -- a season after finishing seventh. They will play San Antonio or Utah in the first round of the playoffs, and the return of Brown and Walton doesn’t figure to change that.

The Lakers have lost 10 games at home, and as Meyers pointed out, six have come against teams with records below .500. It speaks to an inconsistency that comes from the folks who have been hired to surround the Lakers’ superstars.

Scarier yet, most of these guys will be back next season.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.