It’s a Tale of One City, but There’s a Twist to the Plot

Once upon a time, there were two kingdoms around here.

One was in a shining palace where everyone loved everyone else, most of the time anyway. Its good and wise king, Dr. Jerry I, lavished gifts upon his subjects, who enjoyed a wonderful standard of living with many Mercedes-Benzes and sang the praises of their generous sovereign.

The other was in a run-down castle on the urban frontier. It was ruled by a well-intentioned monarch, Donald the Melancholy, who wanted only the best for everyone but was powerless--or clueless, according to the local pundits. His subjects ate thin gruel, wept bitter tears and as soon as they could, escaped over the wall and never looked back.

Year after year, Dr. Jerry’s lands prospered and his flocks multiplied. Artisans such as the giant Shaquille O’Neal and golden child Kobe Bryant came from afar to ply their trade in this golden (and purple) place.

Meanwhile, Donald the Melancholy asked everyone, “What would you do in my place?” then ignored the answers, while his subjects filed away at their chains and dreamed of better days.

Since Dr. Jerry was so wise and Donald the Melancholy so powerless, it didn’t seem that things would ever change, until one shocking weekend in the spring of 1998 when the world turned upside down.

We, your pundits, are still trying to figure out what in the name of status quo happened to our quiet, little two-kingdom town, where up used to be up, down used to be down and never the twain would meet.

So here goes . . .

DIVORCE, LAKER STYLE

So much for your old Laker family.

No, Jerry West isn’t leaving because he’s stressed. He has been stressed all his life and, truth be told, probably would miss it if he weren’t.

Friends say he’s not only wrung out, as usual, but feels unappreciated and hamstrung. Money is part of it, but only a part.

Once, Jerry Buss let West call the shots, happy merely to know him and burnish his own playboy image in the reflected glow. Buss proved his gratitude to his stars many times over, giving Magic Johnson a $12-million balloon after he retired and Pat Riley $1 million-$2 million in severance, just so he wouldn’t go away mad.

They were a great team. It was West who gave them a shot at O’Neal by rebuilding while saving salary-cap room, and Buss who made it happen, insisting they keep going and dumping players when West worried that the risk was getting too high.

However, Buss was never one of the richest owners. Now, with media companies like News Corp. and Cablevision and billionaires like Rich DeVos of the Orlando Magic and Amway, Mickey Arison of the Miami Heat and Carnival Cruise Line, and Paul Allen of the Portland Trail Blazers and Microsoft, he was like Peter O’Malley, the proprietor of one of the last mom-and-pop stores.

Now financial people had to sign off on expensive items like Mitch Richmond. West wanted to acquire him for Eddie Jones but was vetoed because Richmond, whose contract runs out next summer, would want $10 million a year.

Meanwhile, West was making $1.25 million, while top scale for coach-GMs zoomed to $7 million. His old caddie, Riley, has a 20% stake in the Heat, which can’t even be compared to mere wages. West complained privately but didn’t push it. As he recently told a friend, he understood about the money because, “I let that happen.”

He did, however, ask Buss to fund an annuity, a reasonable request considering his previous service, current utility and raw market value.

“Buss just wouldn’t give him anything, if you can believe that,” says a friend of West.

It’s hard to believe, all right. West was the Lakers’ beating heart, a direct line to their storied past, the architect of their promising present and the man who would certainly deliver them to a bright future. Maybe after all these years, Buss couldn’t imagine West leaving him.

Nevertheless, Buss still needs him--and may only now understand how badly.

O’Neal and his agent, Leonard Armato, have close ties with West, only casual ties to Buss. Shaq said he’d be listening attentively to what West said and if it wasn’t good, “I’ll be upset to the highest of upsetivity.” Bryant’s agent, Arn Tellem, is a personal friend of West and looked particularly shaken.

O’Neal and Bryant can be free agents in ’99. In the old days, neither would have as much as considered leaving. But the old days are over.

On a cost-efficient basis, Buss should have given West that annuity, but, like Cedric Ceballos’ houseboat, that’s a ship that has already sailed into Laker history, leaving behind a shining palace, smoldering.

MEANWHILE, IN THE LOVE NEST ACROSS TOWN

The sexiest rumor around is that Donald T. Sterling will give West 20% of the Clippers to run them for him. I ought to know, I started it.

Only afterward did I learn it’s really being discussed. Many people--including Sterling’s partners, the gang at Fox--are urging him to do it. Of course, you don’t get to be “The Donald” of the NBA without letting an opportunity or two slip past.

This is the no-brainer of no-brainers. The day they do the deal, Donald’s 80% of an NBA team would be worth as much as 100% of whatever that is he owns now.

(That’s even assuming no O’Neal or Bryant, who are odds-on to remain Lakers, however shaken. If you had all the choices in the world, would you gamble on Sterling, however reformed?)

Sterling is in an unfamiliar position. Before, he could let his team molder in the solitude of the Sports Arena without drawing too much fire. But now that he has announced he’s moving downtown, he has lost his old comfort, failing anonymously.

He has never had an alternative so inviting before. This one’s so easy, he may be able to handle it.

HE CAME, HE SAW, HE CARED (HE GOT A $4-MILLION BUYOUT)

Bill Fitch’s problem was, he arrived in the old regime that was, rather than the new one that may be.

Fitch does wear on people and he was here four years, but in a basketball operation, the old dinosaur’s rough-hewn virtues would have meant something. Here, the players got younger, tuned him out, and the gang in the front office went for their knives.

It was happening before they sneaked into the playoffs last spring, prompting Sterling to give Fitch a two-year, $4-million extension that starts next season, without checking with his execs.

Then they lost Bo Outlaw, saw Loy Vaught get hurt and the next thing you know, the players had quit and Fitch was left to accept all the responsibility.

It wasn’t fair, but it was a state-of-the-art 401(k).

FACES AND FIGURES

Dysfunction is as dysfunction does: Your squabbling Bulls dynasts, in an even worse mood than usual, opened their “repeat three-peat” drive by savaging some familiar targets: one another. Phil Jackson told the Chicago Sun-Times that while owner Jerry Reinsdorf held off, General Manager Jerry Krause wanted to break them up last spring, adding of Krause, “socially, he’s a pretty unskilled person.” . . . Krause, prickly enough in the best of times, blew up when TNT’s Craig Sager asked about “back stabbing,” sputtering: “First of all, there’s no back stabbing going on here. OK? Understand me when I say that? I’m not surprised and I’m even amazed you would even make a statement like that. This team is composed of professionals, composed of guys who understand what they have to do and are winners, unlike the comment you made.” Krause then cut off the interview and left, presumably to brush up on his social skills. . . . Not that Phil should be lecturing anyone: Jackson, who has shamelessly campaigned for the Knick coaching job, while Jeff Van Gundy was in it, has shifted his gaze to the Laker job, still held by Del Harris, and is campaigning shamelessly for that: “I watched a little of the [late-season] Lakers-Suns game,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times. “ . . . Shaq got taken out of the game for committing his fourth foul, a brutish foul, because he was angry. He comes to the bench and Del Harris is saying, ‘You can’t do that.’ I’m reading their lips and Shaq is saying, ‘What the . . . do you mean I can’t? The . . . ref didn’t call a foul on the other end.’ Shaq can’t get it through his head. It didn’t frighten me, but it was a warning signal: Is this kid smart enough yet to know what he can and can’t do in this game to be a winner? I see that as a challenge. But the challenge also would be to have him submit to the triangle offense. I believe in its principles. It’s a center-in offense. Who’s the perfect center for the triangle? Shaq.” . . . The good news for Harris is, that’s one candidate he doesn’t have to worry about, not after O’Neal reads this. . . . Looking more like a last hurrah by the minute: Isn’t it a little soon for them to need Michael Jordan’s heroics? What’s with Dennis Rodman taking eight rebounds in 40 minutes? “He’s not ready for the playoffs yet,” Jackson said. How about having to play a terrified-looking Dickie Simpkins in overtime when Rodman fouled out, since Krause traded dependable Jason Caffey? . . . Last update, Brian Williams: After he finished impressively, Piston management is back to being leery of him, rather than determined to get rid of him. However, he still holds a special place in their hearts. Said Joe Dumars, announcing he’d play another season, when Williams walked by wearing a sailor hat like Gilligan’s: “Oh, Lord, will you look at that? You mean I have to play one more season with that? That’s it, I change my mind.” . . . Doug Collins, asked if he’d consider a return to coaching at his alma mater, Illinois State: “Nowhere and especially not down at ISU. The way my coaching turns have ended, they’d probably wind up taking the jersey they retired for me there down from the rafters and hang me with it.”