Bryant Back, but Greatness Is Gone

For you Laker fans, the good news today is you’re not stuck with an expansion team, after all!

The bad news is everything else.

Kobe Bryant returned to the fold Thursday, saving owner Jerry Buss the embarrassment of losing Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal in the same week, which would have gone down as the greatest managerial pratfall in sports history.

Instead, Buss is merely presiding over a garden-variety farewell to greatness.

That’s as close as the Lakers may get to a silver lining in the next decade. The Lakers just went out of the business of being the Lakers, just as the Dodgers went out of the business of being the Dodgers when Peter O’Malley sold the team to that media guy, whatever his name was.

In the Lakers’ place, and wearing their uniforms, will be a young, uptempo team that may turn out to be exciting in its own right. It just won’t be as good.

“It’s not even close,” said Bryant at Thursday’s news conference. “We know that. Everybody knows that. It’s an uphill battle for us....

“We don’t have the most dominant player in the game so that’s going to change things drastically. It’s going to be more of a struggle for us. We know that.”

What are the Lakers raising the price of those $175 seats in the lower bowl to, again?

The franchise was in danger of disappearing down a crevice as Bryant and his wife, Vanessa, agonized over the decision right up until the end. Insiders said even Bryant’s agent, Rob Pelinka, didn’t know the decision Wednesday night.

Had Bryant left, the Lakers’ season ticket base might have canceled en masse. Buss might have had to roll back ticket prices or stay in Italy permanently.

Now most NBA people think the reconfigured, pre-shrunk Lakers will be No. 5-8 in the West. In other words, they now look like a second-echelon power and a first-round out.

Nevertheless, that should keep them in business (ka-ching!) for the moment. The team may well be entertaining and people will talk hopefully about what might happen in the playoffs.

Of course, if they depart in the first round, there will be some concern, especially when people begin to realize it’s going to be hard to make any more dramatic changes.

Expectations flow from what you’ve accomplished. In the Lakers’ case, their recent teams represented a proud tradition and carried it onward, winning three titles and appearing in four Finals in five seasons.

Even when they finished second in the West (2001), or third (2002), or fifth (2003) or fourth (2004), they were a force to be reckoned with at the end. Now hope replaces the old certainty.

Their greatness flew East with O’Neal, terminating the partnership with Bryant which, however rocky, made them the game’s greatest tandem. Even if O’Neal was in decline and Bryant was distracted, there was still nothing like them -- Wilt Chamberlain playing with Michael Jordan, as Boston Celtic executive Danny Ainge once put it.

The trick was in not splitting them up, as opposed to Buss’ “business decision” to treat O’Neal, who wanted two or three additional seasons at about $25 million per, as too great a risk.

O’Neal was, indeed, declining and high maintenance but he was still a once-in-a-generation player whose massive bulk made them a big team, all by himself.

Now he’s gone and they’re hoping to sign Vlade Divac, who is 36 and, as we all know, a prince, but not the same thing.

“Can I win without Shaq?” Bryant said, grinning. “I don’t know. We’ll try to get some players in here who can help us.”

Actually, there’s a problem with that too.

The new players may have to be on salary-cap exceptions until 2008, because the package from Miami carries enough salary to keep the Lakers off the free-agent market until then.

The players the Lakers got back were all legitimate; it’s just that none of them was 7 feet, 340 pounds.

Lamar Odom, coming off a tremendous season, is a star, assuming he keeps his head on straight. Of course, he had good seasons before, after which his head went askew.

Brian Grant is a widebody with a lot of heart on and off the floor, where he is a winner of the Walter Kennedy Award for citizenship. Unfortunately for the Lakers, he’s only 6-8, has knee problems and at age 32, just dropped from a career-high 10.2 rebounds a game in 2002-03, to 6.6 in 2003-04.

Caron Butler had knee problems but came back to play well in the playoffs. However, at midseason, the Heat was so worried, it was shopping him all over the league.

Of course, Butler will be a restricted free agent in 2006 so if he’s a star by then and someone tenders him an offer sheet, the Lakers may have to choose between keeping him or making a run at, say, Yao Ming, in 2007.

Determined to stay in the area from the start, Bryant wound up with a tricky choice, himself.

Early in the process, he was adamant that money wasn’t going to be an issue (“I’ll make enough money playing this game”), but by spring, with legal bills reportedly in the $4-million range, things may have changed.

As one insider put it, “I can’t believe he’d leave $30 million on the table.”

Indeed, there’s a fear that Commissioner David Stern’s hard line in upcoming negotiations for a new labor contract will result in shorter-term deals.

Said an agent last week: “There’s a belief if you can get $130 million, you’d better take it before the train leaves the station.”

Nevertheless, the Clippers had a big, promising supporting cast. Bryant was warned ad infinitum about owner Donald T. Sterling, but being Bryant, he was intrigued by the challenge of turning a laughingstock into a real team.

As recently as last week, Bryant reportedly told Clipper officials, “I want to be a Clipper.”

Bryant may, indeed, be a Laker for life, although the honor may be diminished if he has to hear that he chased O’Neal off for the rest of his career.

Bryant says he didn’t and Buss backs him up. Of course, they would both have said that in any case.

The scary part for the Lakers is, it may very well be true.