Fond Farewells Give Laker Fan an Identity Crisis

There is a question all red-blooded, purple-hearted basketball fans are asking themselves these days, even in August, probably even in Portland and Phoenix and San Antonio and Salt Lake City and Seattle and Dallas and yes, you can’t forget the Motor City.

Are the Lakers going to be the Lakers anymore?

Pat Riley--gone.

Orlando Woolridge--gone.

Kareem--long gone.

Kurt Rambis--gone.

Michael Cooper--going.

Byron Scott and A.C. Green--going?

Yes, Laker likers, get ready for next season’s ball club, Magic Johnson and the Mysterians. How does an opening-night lineup featuring Craig Ehlo, Sam Perkins and John (Hot Rod) Williams grab you?

I know what you’re asking yourself about now.

Who?

Those can’t be the Lakers.

Where’s Byron? Where’s A.C.? Where’s Coop?

Well, things change.

Turn to the person next to you and give them 10 seconds to name the new coach of the Lakers. Let’s see. It’s right on the tip of my tongue. His name sounds just like what’s-his-name, that sportswriter.

Buzzzzzzzzz.

Sorry, time’s up.

See, we’re all going to have to get used to these things. Like a basketball team, we need to make adjustments.

Someday even Chick Hearn won’t be around to do the Laker play-by-play, and it won’t be the same. We’ll end up instead with Musburger and Vitale, and instead of listening to Laker games on the radio, we’ll just go out and stand on the ledge until the fire department comes with the net.

We all knew the Lakers couldn’t stay the same forever.

Little by little, there had to be erosion. We got accustomed to them without Norm Nixon, and then without Jamaal Wilkes, and even without Abdul-Jabbar, which is a really big without.

Now, no more Pat Riley.

How many of us are going to blink a few times our first night back in the Forum, when Mike Dunleavy (ah, that’s his name!) shows up in front of the Laker bench?

It’ll be like seeing Gene Bartow at his first UCLA game.

Riley wasn’t forced out. His leave is voluntary. He wanted out of the business, and drove Jerry West half-nuts dawdling over his decision.

Last time I spoke with Jerry, I believe his exact quote was: “The . . . guy just won’t make up his . . . mind!” A couple of words have been omitted.

Riley will go to the TV booth, having spent his summer at the Larry King Famous Sportscaster Academy. The first time Pat says, “This young man is going to be a player,” whistle a technological foul.

Meanwhile, back at the gym, West will be giving Mike Dunleavy a new set of toys.

Big ones, too. Perkins already is in the fold. A big rookie from Clemson is on the way. And, by the time camp opens, it is entirely possible that West will have spirited Ehlo and Williams away from Cleveland for our old friends Byron Scott and A.C. Green, as has been rumored.

If it happens, Laker fans will react reflexively, leading with their hearts. We all hate to lose old friends.

But don’t have a cow, man. The trade could very well be an excellent one for Los Angeles, because Williams, in particular, can seriously play.

Besides, any guy who calls himself Hot Rod deserves to be stuck on all these damned freeways. That will slow him down.

The Lakers caught people off-guard by dealing the off-forward Woolridge, who went to the hoop with gusto last season on many an occasion. What they were doing, though, was making room for Perkins, who is far more consistent a player than the pretty-big O.

A far bigger decision awaits West and Jerry Buss and their advisers now. Scott and Green formed two-fifths of an extremely successful starting lineup. They can play. But their trade value might never be higher, and West has to think beyond a player’s popularity.

He knows those expensive seats will always be occupied, as long as a winning team takes the floor. What West doesn’t want to do is let a dynasty crumble, the way those of the New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys inevitably did.

It’s a fine line. The Yankees were too quick to make wholesale changes; the Cowboys waited too long.

Personally, I could live with a Laker team that carries Worthy, Perkins, Williams, Vlade Divac and Mychal Thompson up front, with a fabulous backcourt of Magic and Anybody.

Whether such a team would be good enough to win the Western Conference, I have no idea. I do know that the Portland Trail Blazers now have Buck Williams and Danny Ainge, so they mean business. And the too-young San Antonio Spurs are a year older and ready to jingle, jangle, jingle.

I think if the Lakers have another move to make, they’d better make it.