No Trade Was Good Deal for Scott : Pro basketball: Plagued by injuries, he thought the Lakers would ship him out. But talks didn’t pan out, and now he’s eager to show he’s back.

An hour after the Lakers’ recent exhibition victory over Maccabi Tel Aviv, an Israeli sportswriter suggested to Byron Scott that many people think he’s coming off a disappointing season.

“Many people are right,” Scott said amiably.

Word of Scott’s tribulations have extended to the Middle East? What’s next, a journalist crawling out of a spacecraft, suggesting that life forms around Alpha Centauri think Byron had a bad season, and Scott answering “Many aliens are right.”?

It hasn’t been easy for the Lakers’ guard, cut down on the verge of greatness by a series of injuries, notably the torn left hamstring that cost him the ’89 finals and some of his efficiency last season, too.

In this league, they don’t just patch you up and wish you well. Scott narrowly missed launching his comeback from Cleveland, where the Lakers tried to send him for Hot Rod Williams, or from Indianapolis, where they would have dispatched him for Reggie Miller.

What did Byron Scott do this summer?

Listened and waited.

“Before I even heard the trade talk, when the season was over, I kind of told my wife, ‘I’ve just got a feeling this is going to be the year,’ ” he says.

“We sat down and tried to figure out what would we do, family-wise. Would everybody move or would I just go?

“After you start hearing it, you start thinking about certain places. You hear Cleveland, Indiana, New Jersey. And certain places you say, ‘No! Please! Not there!’

“And certain places, you say, ‘Well, that wouldn’t be so bad.’ ”

There’s no place like home, especially if it’s Los Angeles and you’re from Inglewood and you’ve played on three NBA championship teams in seven seasons.

What happened to get Scott dangled over his doorstep?

On the threshold of the stardom predicted for him, his numbers fell from his 1987-88 highs of 21.7 points a game, 52.7% from the field, 85.8% from the free-throw line, to last season’s 15.5, 47% and 76.6%.

In ‘88-89, he had a series of injuries, culminating with the big one: the torn left hamstring in practice the day before the finals against Detroit.

The hamstring was still weak last season; Scott did right-leg lifts with 65 pounds, left-leg lifts with 30. By the Phoenix series, he was a sitting duck for the Suns’ Gatling gun, Kevin Johnson.

“As the season went on, it just got worse and worse,” Scott says. “No matter what type of work I did to try and strengthen it, it just got progressively worse.

“I didn’t have the quick first step I used to have. Even though my mind was saying, ‘Take the gap!’ when I got to the gap it was closed. I found myself pulling up more (for outside shots). A couple years ago, I was telling myself, ‘Take it to the rim. Try to dunk everything.’

“Once you get left out there all alone with Kevin, you’re in big trouble anyway, I don’t care if you’re healthy or not. I was trying to concentrate on Kevin, and I don’t think I looked to shoot as much as I should have.

“A couple of years ago, it was concentrate on Kevin at one end, but at the other end, he has to guard you. A couple of years ago, I could go right by him, take the easy shots. At that particular point in the (‘89-90) season, it seemed like my leg was pretty much shot.”

Good news pierced the gloom only later and arrived inauspiciously. A physical therapist from Santa Monica named Robert Foster wrote, offering his services. Scott was interested but skeptical.

“I asked him the basic question. ‘What could you do for me that hasn’t already been done?’ ” Scott said.

Foster showed Scott a massage technique that was painful but effective in breaking up the remaining knots of scar tissue. Scott threw himself into a conditioning program and is now running, jumping and taking the ball to the basket like vintage Byron.

Now, where was he when he was interrupted?

Not defiant, not defensive, just determined.

“I think a lot of people over the last couple of years have forgotten what I’ve done and how I’ve played here,” he says. “That goes with the territory. You have to come out each year and pretty much prove yourself. Last year I didn’t really prove myself because of the things that happened to me. This year is the first time in 2 1/2 years I’ve felt completely healthy.

“I don’t feel I have to prove myself to anybody, besides my teammates and the organization. To myself, I have to prove something. I have to prove last year was a fluke because of the injuries. And to Earvin (Johnson) and James (Worthy), to prove that I’m back the way I was a couple years ago.”

Summer’s over, he’s still in Los Angeles and Cleveland is just a cold-weather stop, once a season.

Scott aims to keep it that way, too.