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Still second best

Sporting News, The, Feb 15, 1999 by Randy Harvey

The Lakers are talking about winning a championship this season, but that might not happen unless they find a way to beat the Jazz

Karl Malone spent his extended summer vacation as an afternoon host for a Los Angeles sports talk radio station, quickly becoming the most imitated voice in this town since Cagney and Bogie.

"Karl Malone, hangin' up," he would say, dismissing a disagreeable caller as abruptly as he might a Master P drive to the hole.

"Next call."

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Unfortunately for the Lakers, they have not been so quick to find a Malone impersonator on the court. They spent the frantic month after the lockout addressing their vacuum at power forward, but after talk about acquiring Tom Gugliotta, Chris Webber, Charles Oakley, Horace Grant and even Dennis Rodman turned out to be just that, the Lakers were left with virtually the same team that was swept by the Jazz in last season's Western Conference finals.

So, despite the perception around the league that this is the Lakers' year, no one should have been surprised by Utah's 100-91 victory at the Great Western Forum last Sunday, when Malone once again proved the Lakers don't have a power forward--or even four of them--who can stop him.

The Lakers had Corie Blount, Robert Horry, Elden Campbell and Sean Rooks defend Malone, who finished with 28 points and eight rebounds even though he missed all but 40 seconds of the second quarter because of foul trouble.

Granted, Malone isn't the only power forward who looks forward to playing the Lakers. Of the other contenders in the West, all have an advantage over the Lakers with Gugliotta in Phoenix, Tim Duncan in San Antonio, Vin Baker in Seattle and Charles Barkley in Houston. Barkley scored 31 points in the season opener at the Forum.

But the Lakers can't help it if they're focusing on the team they consider the greatest threat to their title hopes, the team that has eliminated them from the playoffs the past two seasons.

"We'll probably meet up again," says Lakers point guard Derek Fisher, penciling in dates in May for the Lakers and Jazz. "I would like to be part of something. To accomplish that, we'll probably have to go through Utah."

That means they'll have to go through Malone.

"There's no reason Campbell and Horry and all the guys they have can't get the job done against Malone," says NBC analyst and former NBA coach Doug Collins. "They just have to play him like Chicago did the last two years, which means giving him jump shots instead of layups."

That is easier said than done. Not that the Lakers are giving up. Not yet. They have various approaches in mind:

We're not getting older, we're getting better. The Jazz are just getting older. The Lakers have one player over 30, backup point guard Derek Harper. The rest finally seem ready to drop the word "immature" from the list of adjectives most often used to describe them. That is particularly true of Kobe Bryant. Starting in the opener at small forward because of an injury to Rick Fox, Bryant, 20, had his first double-double with 25 points and 10 rebounds. He had another against the Jazz with 16 and 12. "He's a little bit more patient, it seems," Rockets forward Scottie Pippen says.

But no matter how quickly Bryant develops, the Lakers will be Shaquille O'Neal's team well into the next decade. He turns 27 next month. "We think this can be a breakthrough year for us," Lakers coach Del Harris says. "Shaq is 27. Michael (Jordan) was 28 when he won his first championship."

The best defense is a good offense. Harris is the first to admit that the Lakers don't have anyone to match up with Malone. He's also the first to boast that the Jazz can't match up with O'Neal, Bryant and Eddie Jones.

"We don't want to get beat at (the power forward) position," Harris says. "For five years, we've wanted to try to improve that. It's just hard to do. But we do all right. It's not like we didn't win 61 games last season. You're not going to have a perfect guy, an All-Star at every position. All four of our (power forwards) are very good players. I think we'll figure out a way, through the efforts of all of them, to get the job done."

To save the village, you've got to burn the village. The Lakers' first choice for power forward was Gugliotta, but Minnesota chose to lose him to the Suns as a free agent rather than accept the offer of Jones, Campbell and a first-round pick. Why should an old Celtic like Kevin McHale help the Lakers?

The Lakers since have turned to Rodman. That's not a popular option with everyone in the organization, starting with executive vice president Jerry West, who once said there was "no (bleeping) way" the Lakers would sign Rodman. But owner Jerry Buss considers Rodman a friend.

O'Neal, who once called Rodman a "gimmick," gave his approval. So did Hams, who is in the last year of his contract and knows he might not get another one with the Lakers unless they reach the Finals. No one denies Rodman could contribute as a rebounder, but entering this week, he had not signed because the Lakers couldn't offer any more than $1 million or guarantees of a movie deal from Buss' partners at Fox.

Still second best

Sporting News, The, Feb 15, 1999 by Randy Harvey

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