Crunch time: stuck in the deepest hole of the Phil Jackson era, the Lakers have set up their most arduous finals run yet—and that's if they even make the playoffs

Basketball Digest, March, 2003 by Tom Kertes

AT THE END OF 1961'S "THE FALL OF the Roman Empire--an earlier, and far superior, version of the too-gloomy "Gladiator"--the most cacophonic chaos imaginable reigns. Houses are being broken into and sacked, people are injuring each other indiscriminantly, and decent folks are charioting themselves out of town with scant success. The screaming is copious, the fighting furious, the drinking lascivious. And in the middle of all this, filthy rich merchants, and filthier rich noblemen, are unashamedly bargaining with tribunes and the rest of the military for the throne--"60,000,000 sestercies," "70,000,000 sestercies!" 80!"--right out in file open street.

Such a mess wouldn't be seen for another 2,000 or so years. Now, welcome to Lakerland.

It was one thing when, at the start of the season, the three-time defending NBA champs played 3-9 ball sans Shaquille O'Neal. "With Shaq they're a great team," Sacramento Kings center Vlade Divac says. "Without him, they're an average team."

The problem has been that with Shaq, who finally returned to the wars on November 29, L.A. has remained an average-at-best team. And they had to improve a bit in mid-January just to get that less-than-impressive point.

Going just 12-11 over the next 23 games left the Lakers in an unimaginable situation: They might miss the playoffs altogether. And if they do make it to postseason, they'll most likely be such a sad seed that they'll have to defend their threepeat without the home-court advantage.

This just doesn't seem possible, not for a team with Shaq. And Kobe. And Phil. When you're talking of a gathering of such hoop royalty that last names are not even necessary--"Michael," "Charles," "Hakeem"--such collapse is unprecedented. Sure, a team such as the Lakers can lag and sag a bit They can have a good-to-great regular season and, say, lose in the second round of the playoffs. In seven games.

But this? This is nonsense. The Lakers' struggles come as a seismic shock for those of us--and, admit it, you are in there--who thought Shaq and Kobe could make a legitimate run at a four-peat teamed up with three sportswriters, a freelance shepherd, and a bipolar librarian.

Instead--and you can't say they haven't tried everything--the Lakers lost when Shaq pulverized them with words of venom and when Shaq cooed like a carrier pigeon. When Kobe took every shot and when Kobe took no shots. When they stuck to the Triangle and when they strayed from the Triangle. When Jackson Phil-osophized them to distraction and when Phil was so distracted that he barely talked to them.

It's all been just too, too much. And, perhaps, therein lies the problem.

THE DUDES

Shaq, who was wonderfully modest as a kid and quite Magic-ally human through his stint in Orlando, has been too big for too long in too many venues by this point. He's the greatest center of all time--and he knows it. To make it worse, "There are not a lot of great centers in the league today," Lakers assistant Tex Winter says. "Shaq is totally dominant. And I think he would take [Wilt] Chamberlain or [Bill] Russell, too. Chamberlain would just look small next to him. There is little doubt in my mind who would dominate that duel."

But has all this--the championships, the dominance, the adulation--left Shaq just a little lazy? "Let's put it this way," a team source says. "I don't think he's a fanatic any longer. I don't think he prepares his body in the offseason as he should."

Or has his toe-surgery when he should. An earlier date, and the Lakes don't stumble to a 3-9 start.

Kobe? Kobe is probably the best player not named Shaq in the league, "better than [Tracy] McGrady, better than [Kevin] Garnett," according to Winter. But Kobe is also a kid; a kid who shows up at the Rucker League over the summer with an entourage of bodyguards, hangers-on, and other assorted leeches. Yes, this is a kid who simply loves the trappings of stardom. A kid who is very much of today's me-generation.

"I think I know Kobe pretty well," an Eastern Conference GM says. "I talk to him all the time, I hung out with his father. I think he's not all that happy that Shaq's back. This is what's going through the back his mind: `I've done it all for the team. I won three championships. Now let me do something I've never accomplished--win an NBA scoring title."

THE 'TUDES

In mid-December, Shaq said, "just let me have eight blankety-blankers out there with me who want to play and I'll win the whole thing again." Then, in early January, he confessed to be "pissed to the ultimate height of pissification."

Then nothing. Silence, blessed or otherwise. Shaq stopped communing with the press.

Not good.

Kobe started out doing everything in Shaq's absence. Yet the team was losing--and he was accused of straying from the system--the inviolable Triangle, natch--overmuch.

In response, Kobe came up with games where he wouldn't shoot the ball at all, overtly passing up good shots to involve his teammates. As if he was pouting, "Screw you, if you don't want me to shoot that much, I won't shoot at all."