COAST TO COAST

Real Lakers fans like Bulls, too

With Lakers fans rooting for the Bulls, who could all become Lakers if they don’t start winning, Chicago’s 1-5 start had fans in two cities paralyzed with fear.

Bulls officials are worried about their players’ heads after Ben Gordon and Luol Deng turned down extensions and the entire rotation was mentioned in trade proposals for Kobe Bryant.

“It’s not going to end,” Deng said, despite GM John Paxson’s announcement they’re out of the Kobe Derby.

“You can tell Kobe doesn’t want to be in L.A. With a player like Kobe, every team is going to see what’s going on.”

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We’re all leaders on this team

After the Bulls dropped to 0-4, Joakim Noah noted, “Everybody is, like, in their own world a little bit. I think everybody, like, especially on defense, has to be in unison.”

Of course, it would have meant more if Noah wasn’t, like, a rookie who had just played his first game.

“If I had just played my first pro game,” Coach Scott Skiles said, “I’d probably have kept my mouth shut, to be honest with you.”

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What are neighbors for?

Then there’s Ben Wallace, averaging 4.8 rebounds while Chicago writers ask if he retired without telling anyone.

Wallace has a sore ankle . . . which his old Detroit teammates said came from his $15 Big Ben sneakers.

“We’re already on him about the shoes he’s playing in,” Antonio McDyess said. “That’s why his ankle’s hurting him.”

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No more Mr. Nice Guy

Not content to abandon Seattle, the nation’s No. 14 market, Commissioner David Stern announced that if the SuperSonics leave for Oklahoma City, the NBA will be “very unlikely to put another team there.”

That was for local politicians, waiting to fund a new arena until they get a new team -- as Charlotte did -- to replace their fallen one that’s now 0-6.

Predictably, they weren’t enchanted. Said deputy mayor Tim Ceis: “It’s getting a little old.”

As commissioner, Stern, a liberal Democrat once mentioned as a Senatorial candidate, has discovered the virtues of tax boondoggles for the rich.

It remains to be seen who has the whip hand. If Seattle wins its suit to enforce the KeyArena lease, it could take this season and two more to get out of town.

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There’s a place for us

Happily, the NBA is still hot . . . ... somewhere.

Friday’s Houston victory over Milwaukee may have been the most watched basketball game of all time, blowing away the 1979 NCAA Finals matchup between Michigan State’s Magic Johnson and Indiana State’s Larry Bird.

This one matched the Rockets’ Yao Ming and the Bucks’ Yi Jianlian and was televised by 12 Chinese networks.

Wang Meng, who covers the Rockets for Titan Sports, a Beijing daily, projected the audience at 200 million -- about twice what Super Bowls get.

Here, as the Houston Chronicle’s Jonathan Feigen noted, “It’s still the Rockets vs. the Bucks, available for viewing throughout all of Houston and Milwaukee.”

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Famous last words

Steve Nash on Phil Jackson’s helpful suggestion that the Suns’ window is closing: “Maybe the game of basketball will end after this season. The game may cease.”

-- Mark Heisler