|
GAME 3
 Lakers in a Three-Fall
PLASCHKE: Lakers Need More than Rambis Can Give
HEISLER: Front Office Leads Transition to Nowhere
GAME 2
Lakers Throw It Away
PLASCHKE: Lakers Disappear
HEISLER: Duncan Sends Them Back to Drawing Board
OFF DAY
Lakers Need to Bolster Bench
PLASCHKE: As Big Man on a Small Campus, O'Neal Was a Good Fit in High School
GAME 1
Lakers Hit a Rough Spot
PLASCHKE: Their Body Language Told the Whole Story
HEISLER: Formerly Soft Spurs Go Hard After Shaq
LAKERS - ROCKETS
Lakers Can Keep Spurs On
|
|
 ince if you’ve heard this one before.
Some day there may again be a team in Laker purple and gold that lives up to its potential and tradition, that doesn’t fall apart at the first sign of trouble and disappear in a column of smoke each spring.
Of course, we’ll probably have to wait until next spring to see it, at the earliest, because this team seems headed back down the path the ’90s Lakers have carved into ignominy:
1996--Magic Johnson rejoins Lakers, who surge late in the season and open at home as favorites over the Rockets. Magic second-guesses Del Harris’ game plan after they lose Game 1. Lakers fall, 3-1.
1997--Lakers fall, 4-1 to Utah as tensions surface between point guard Nick Van Exel and Harris.
1998--Lakers fall, 4-0, to Utah, as the Van Exel-Harris battle of wills boils over.
1999--Lakers fall behind, 3-0, to the Spurs, although they can’t pin this one on Delmer and Nick, who have been sent packing.
Kurt Rambis is sure to take the fall for this, and it won’t improve Glen Rice’s chances of staying around, or, likely, his desire to, but this one belongs to the organization, specifically the front office that melted down so shockingly. Maybe the people in charge got tired of watching the kids running amok each spring and decided to join them.
Where the old Lakers waited for the spring to implode, this time they staged a season-long implosion. Jerry Buss’ dangerous flirtation with Dennis Rodman, the sacking of Harris and Jerry West’s withdrawal left them essentially directionless, with a rookie coach in charge of headstrong young players.
There was a day, and the Lakers have lived it, when you could put an untested assistant, like Pat Riley, in charge of a talented team. It was a players’ game in 1982, when Riles was left on his players’ doorstep, like a foundling, and if you were good enough, and your guys were motivated enough, they didn’t need much from you and you had time to learn your craft on the job.
Rambis’ Lakers, however, needed a lot, starting with stability, which was not forthcoming.
He had Rodman. Management made the Rice trade while they were in the middle of a 10-game winning streak and the next thing you knew, they were back in transition.
To nowhere, it turned out.
There were only 11 games left in the season when the front office finally brought itself to acknowledge the Rodman adventure was a disaster and an embarrassment. By the time the team got off the road and regrouped, only four games remained. They finished 4-0 and went on a mini-roll in the first round against the creaky Rockets, but after that, they wouldn’t have home-court advantage, nor could they beat up on the divided and elderly.
The playoffs are a test of toughness, poise and cohesion and, as recent springs have proven, the Lakers, who have all this infernal talent, don’t have enough of the other stuff they need to go with it.
Late Saturday afternoon, a numb-looking Rambis appeared in the interview room to try to explain the unexplainable, why they turned the ball over at the end, and couldn’t run an offense.
"Those things just can’t happen," he said, "but they happen with a young, inexperienced ball club."
Not to mention a young, inexperienced coach, who neglects to make a point of telling them to foul at the key moment of the series, and can’t get them to double down on the opponent’s most dangerous player if he has the ball seven feet from the hoop.
Not that this was Rambis’ fault. This has been an organizational debacle.
"Talent doesn’t win in this league," a grieving Rick Fox said late Saturday afternoon, his voice a whisper.
"It may win in the regular season. It doesn’t win you championships. It didn’t win in high school. It didn’t win in college.
"My high school coach told me, talent, attitude and skill make a basketball player. And most people think the most important one is talent--when it isn’t. It’s having the right attitude and obviously developing the skills as you go along.
"Because, as you’ve seen, the most talented teams in this league aren’t always the ones that win. I’ve watched that enough to know it."
So have Laker fans, over and over and over and over. Unless someone upstairs wises up, whose initials are Dr. J.B., you can come back next spring and see it over again.
Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
|