The Seat’s Already Getting Hot

It’s interesting, this reaction to the Lakers’ early struggles, people throwing up their hands in shock, acting as if this is something new.

This is not new.

They lost their last four games of last season, remember?

They were swept out of the playoffs by the Utah Jazz with embarrassing inefficiency, remember?

Exactly how is this team different from that team?

Same coach. Same stars. Same type role players.

The same search for somebody to take the blame.

The same unfortunate answer.

Nick Van Exel is gone, so we can’t pin it on him.

Kobe Bryant has suddenly grown up, so we can’t look there.

Shaquille O’Neal still plays harder than the nine other guys on the floor combined, so it’s not his fault.

Like it or not--and I don’t--the burden again falls on the wide shoulders of a man with arguably the most stressful job in the NBA.

Last season ended with speculation about the future of Del Harris.

This season must begin the same way.

No, this is not another column railing about the necessity of firing Harris. That is unnecessary.

By not giving him a new contract--making him a lame duck amid modern-day players who feast on that species--owner Jerry Buss has essentially already fired Harris.

This is a column about the timing.

Do the Lakers wait until the end of what could be a very long season that could be damaging to everyone?

Or do they put a good, decent man out of his misery right now?

And maybe give Kurt Rambis a chance to remind everyone what it takes to win four championship rings?

Any other year, this column is being written too early. Even struggling NFL coaches are given more than 12 games.

But this, of course, is not any other year.

With the league still in disarray because of the lockout, with the older teams expected to wilt by the end of the hectic shortened schedule, this is the young Lakers’ best chance in a decade to win a championship.

If they can steal one here, they can learn what it takes to win more later.

If they can simply outrun and outlast the others during this sprint, they can understand how to win ensuing marathons.

This year is the chance of a lifetime.

Except they’re playing as if they belong on the Lifetime channel.

Every other night, it’s another sob story, with somebody getting mistreated, misused or abused.

Every other night is filled with overwrought bits of drama that are just plain silly.

A team once symbolized by Dyan Cannon now plays a lot more like Meredith Baxter.

They are outscored in the fourth quarter, 30-22, at home by Utah, using the same plays that have fooled this group for the previous two years.

They are out-worked in Seattle, scoring only 10 second-chance points to the SuperSonics’ 20, while losing to a team they dominated in last year’s playoffs.

Then to lose a 12-point lead in Denver to what may be the NBA’s worst team outside of the Sports Arena?

It’s not entirely fair to lay this at the feet of a good coach.

And whatever you may think about his practice sermons or substitution patterns, Del Harris is a good coach.

He just may not be the right coach.

And that’s what the NBA is all about. Not just good strategy, but good fits.

When the team was young and Shaq needed direction and Kobe needed teaching and Eddie Jones needed stroking, Harris was perfect.

But the Lakers might have outgrown him.

At times, it seems as if they are playing at fast forward, and he is coaching on rewind.

At times, it seems as if they are playing on one side of a soundproof window, and he is coaching from the other.

You wonder, of course, how much blame lies with the players and management.

Rick Fox had the whole lockout to figure out he was wearing the wrong shoes and didn’t tumble till just before the abbreviated season began. Until Monday, it seemed that Eddie Jones was looking more at Charlotte than the basket.

Jerry West traded Van Exel and still doesn’t have a regular point guard.

West traded for Robert Horry and signed him to a long-term deal and still there has been a huge hole at power forward.

Which brings us to you-know-who.

No, you don’t fire Del Harris because he won’t get along with Dennis Rodman.

That’s like firing a teacher just because the school has admitted the spitball king.

There will be battles. Rodman is smart enough to understand that Harris is propped up by a flimsy four-month contract. Rodman is nothing if not opportunistic.

He will test the coach, rip the coach, perhaps try to undermine the coach.

But Harris has been around long enough to figure that stuff out.

The question is, will he want to?

What will be Harris’ attitude when he realizes that Buss must not think very much of him, or he wouldn’t have welcomed this troublemaker in the first place?

These next four months could be as painful as a pierced navel.

Whether we like it or not, everything has been set up for Harris to become the former coach of the Lakers.

So what are they waiting for?