Buss Not Ready for Sticker Shock

MONTECITO, Calif. — Too much money, too long a contract. If not for that, Scottie Pippen would be a Laker right now.

In the most direct comments from a team official on the matter to date, Laker owner Jerry Buss acknowledged that, at Coach Phil Jackson’s request, acquiring Pippen has been strongly considered, but said that the Lakers are unwilling to take on the remaining $54 million and four years of Pippen’s contract.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it, Scottie’s just a great player, and certainly for a year or two it would’ve been the right thing to do,” Buss said Wednesday in an informal session with reporters at the Lakers’ training camp hotel.

“And we probably would’ve done it had he not had a four-year contract.”

The problem, Buss said, is that Pippen’s contract, combined with those of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, would destroy all long-term Laker salary-cap flexibility.

“When you take him, you’re basically saying, ‘This is our personnel for the next four years,’ ” Buss said. “Right now, we have a lot more leeway than that, and I think we should maintain that. . . .

“You essentially get into an untradeable team, and you can’t get free agents and you’re not going to be drafting very high. So what you’re saying is until 2004, some number like that, that you’re not going to have any change in personnel.”

Buss also indicated that his friend Dennis Rodman is unlikely to return to the Lakers.

“I don’t think anybody’s really seriously considered bringing back Dennis,” Buss said.

But Buss, who was instrumental in the decision to sign Rodman last season, said he did not regret the move, despite Rodman’s chaotic personal habits, which led the team to waive him after 23 fitful games.

“Dennis is a gamble, he always has been a gamble ever since all of us have known him,” Buss said. “But we did need a rebounder. And as I recall when he first came in, we won 10 in a row [nine with Rodman].

“I think it was a worthwhile gamble. Had he been able to maintain better, who knows, we may have gone all the way.”

Though he said he was frustrated by the team’s unsuccessful off-season pursuit of several free agents, including power forward Charles Oakley, Buss said that the team as currently formulated has a good chance to win the franchise’s first NBA title since 1988.

“I think this is the best team we’ve had in the last four or five years,” said Buss, who had not spoken at length with reporters since midway through last season. “I think we are more experienced and I think we needed some experience.

“I think we came reasonably close to San Antonio last year. And with the personnel going into this year . . . hopefully the triangle offense and some more work and maturity by the players will make us a better team.

“I think they have an excellent chance with the personnel we have right now.”

Asked about the decision to bring in Jackson, who had previous ties neither to the Lakers nor to Executive Vice President Jerry West, Buss suggested that the team’s chemistry problems convinced him that a big name from the outside was necessary.

And Buss laughed when Jackson’s five-year, $30-million contract--far more than Buss has ever paid a coach--was mentioned.

“It is a lot of money for a coach,” Buss said. “When you’re used to paying $1 million and perhaps $2 million, to jump to perhaps three times that amount, takes a while.”

While Jackson’s six-championship run in Chicago and his unique coaching style have drawn almost all of the attention at Laker camp, West has been almost invisible, attending practice but staying away from the media.

Buss said he believes that West and Jackson, both with very strong wills and title-winning backgrounds, will have a cohesive working relationship.

“I don’t know Phil well enough to see what’s going to happen down the stream,” Buss said. “But Jerry knows him very well, and he thinks it’s a normal relationship.”

Which means, Buss conceded, there are bound to be differences of opinion between the two.

“Well, I think that situation always occurs in every franchise,” Buss said. “And that’s when you [bring in] the owner.

“But I don’t think there will be any more disputes between them than other places. I mean, after all, Phil comes from working with a pretty strong-minded guy in Chicago [Bull executive Jerry Krause]. So this could well be a relief for him.

“Also, I think that both Phil and Jerry have a lot of respect for each other’s basketball knowledge. I just don’t see that there’s going to be a lot of conflict that way.”