Aloha, Jerry ... Are You Coconuts?

Where have you gone, Jerry Buss? Lakerdom turns its lonely eyes to you.

HAWAII?

Despite what you may have read (here), Phil Jackson turned out to be a real possibility instead of a mass delusion. Buss, whose interest had been casual -- maddeningly so to his daughter -- came around last week, signaling he would pay Jackson $10 million a year. Phil was actually considering it.

(That gulp you heard was me swallowing three months’ worth of columns. Metaphorically, of course.)

This isn’t just good news for the Lakers, it’s a lightning bolt illuminating what’s left of their world. It may also be Buss’ last chance to keep them from falling into the abyss, so if it’s doable, he’d better do it.

Of course, it will have to be by phone. With serious negotiations finally set to start, Buss bopped off on an unannounced vacation in Hawaii ... ahead of his previously announced six-week trip to Europe, starting May 16.

I have to give it to him, that man can still party. When I come back from vacation, I need a year to rest up for the next one.

Personally, though, if I was trying to persuade one of the few men capable of restoring direction to my franchise to overlook the fact I terminated him a year ago, I’d put off one of my vacations to talk to him in person.

We’re talking major turning point in Laker history. It used to be OK if Buss was detached and optimistic to the point of clueless because he had Jerry West, whom he trusted implicitly, for the brutally honest perspective.

But that was (sigh) then and this is (shudder) now. Now, when the going gets tough, Buss is on an airplane and West is in Memphis.

Buss notes that people (OK, it was me) said the same thing last spring when he left for Europe with Shaquille O’Neal, still a Laker, demanding a trade and Kobe Bryant, a free agent, thinking of leaving.

Actually, that turned out disastrously unless I missed something positive....

Let’s see, Shaq goes to Miami, which is now atop the East. Rudy Tomjanovich gets a $30-million deal, lasts 10 weeks of the season, gives $27 million back and flees. Everyone bashes Kobe. Kobe runs off Karl Malone. The Lakers fade. Kobe takes over. Chucky Atkins calls him “the general manager.” After sucking it up all season trying to turn it around, Kobe’s standing in the league is worse than a year ago.

No, it was a nightmare, all right. Unlike Buss, I don’t think it was bad luck, either.

The Lakers are paralyzed at the top, deep in denial and running scared with their “town hall” sessions to reassure season-ticket holders. Once they leveled with fans as a matter of course. Doing it now would oblige Buss to first level with himself.

In last week’s chat, Buss almost buried the local media in naive hopes. His team could be in the West finals “in a couple of seasons.” This season was a debacle because the Lakers lost Tomjanovich (“a terrible blow”), Vlade Divac, Brian Grant and Devean George (“I don’t know how many teams have ever lost 60% of their lineup.”)

Divac would have averaged 25 minutes. Grant and George would have been reserves. Minutes after lamenting Tomjanovich’s departure, Buss was joking about Rudy’s offense (“In retrospect, I think we could have continued to shoot three-pointers and occasionally we would have won a game.”)

Buss is coming around slowly on this too, but his organization doesn’t run itself anymore. It isn’t Mitch Kupchak’s fault. The decisions now are the big ones only an owner can make, assuming he grasps the problem.

In the old days, West’s standing, with Buss and in general, gave him unmatched cachet. One of the all-time great executives, right up at the top with Red Auerbach, West was a living legend everyone was thrilled to deal with.

Kupchak doesn’t have West’s cachet, nor does any other GM. If Buss says he wants to go a certain way -- Let’s do Showtime again! -- Kupchak can’t say, “I don’t think so.”

Much of West’s angst made the newspapers, but in those days the dysfunction was downstairs. Now it’s bounding up the stairs as Jim Buss, the owner’s son, a former horse trainer who holds the title of “assistant GM,” joins the inner circle.

Jim, the eldest of the Fabulous Buss Boys, dabbled at his job for seven years. In a tacit show of where he stood, his bio in this season’s media guide is below and half the size of Ronnie Lester’s, although they hold identical titles.

Jerry, the poor kid from Wyoming, was brilliant at what he did but didn’t have the modern mogul’s belief that his genius could cut across disciplines. He was thrilled to be among people like West and Bill Sharman and respected their expertise. Among the stories told about Jim is the time he announced 10 guys in a bar could draft as well as NBA teams.

Jim Buss reportedly is down on Kupchak. Rival alliances are forming. The front office that was once a model is fracturing.

Local expectations notwithstanding, Jackson can’t bring back the good old days, either, but he’s smart, unafraid, has credibility and, best of all, tells the truth, to a fault.

Maybe he’ll wait a few more weeks or months or however long it takes.

Otherwise, there are always the Clippers, or TiVo.

Faces and Figures

I almost forgot, the playoffs are still on! ... It looks as if we’re heading toward Phoenix and San Antonio in the West and Miami and Detroit in the East, in what could be the best set of conference finals in many years, with all four teams legitimate title contenders. In the meantime, however, everyone seems to be going nuts.... In an unprecedented loss of poise that might have finished him as a Celtic, team captain Paul Pierce almost threw away Game 6, shoving away Indiana’s Jamal Tinsley, who fouled him intentionally with 12 seconds left and Boston ahead by a point. Pierce was ejected and the Pacers tied the score, but Boston won in overtime behind Antoine Walker, who earlier in the series had committed his own breach of poise and responsibility, getting himself suspended for a game for pushing Jermaine O’Neal and a referee.... Pierce apologized at the postgame news conference, looking, as the Boston Herald’s Mark Murphy noted, “like the ghost of Jacob Marley” with a stretch bandage swaddling his face to show how badly Tinsley had hurt him. Obviously a fast healer, Pierce took the bandage off the next day.... If I were Celtic GM Danny Ainge, my only question would be who should leave town first: Pierce, Walker or me.

Then there was the someone’s-up-past-his-bedtime series between the Bulls and Wizards to see who was youngest and dumbest. The Wizards won after an unforgettable Game 6: With 34 seconds left and the score 91-91, Chicago’s Kirk Hinrich throws an inbounds pass off the back of teammate Chris Duhon, who has turned away. Washington’s Jared Jeffries picks it up, goes in and dunks to put the Wizards ahead to stay. Trailing by three at the end, the Bulls’ Tyson Chandler rebounds teammate Jannero Pargo’s three-point miss and inexplicably puts up an 18-footer instead of throwing the ball out for another three-point try. Washington’s Gilbert Arenas rebounds Chandler’s miss with 1.5 seconds left and inexplicably throws the ball into the stands. Fortunately, he throws it high enough that time expires before it comes down. The Wizards take about one minute to celebrate before they start complaining that someone on ESPN says Miami will make short work of them in the next round.... Guess what, the Heat is going to make short work of them in the next round.

The Houston-Dallas first-round war didn’t end a moment too soon for Rocket Coach Jeff Van Gundy, who was threatened with lifetime banishment by David Stern, and Maverick Coach Avery Johnson, who ran after the referee crew after Game 1 and almost lost it in the news conference after Game 6. Van Gundy made the usual complaint about getting cheated by the referees. Johnson’s complaint was even lamer -- he wanted to know why the media hadn’t given the Mavericks more credit. “It surprised me to have a team come in here down, 0-2, in the series, and everybody had them written off,” said Johnson, vibrating like a violin string. “Then I don’t hear anything about the Mavs winning three in a row. Maybe I need to go crazy. Maybe if I do, you won’t talk about who won and lost Game 6. You’ll talk about the coach who went crazy. Maybe that’s what needs to happen.” ... Maybe someone had one too many shots of espresso.

Wizard Coach Eddie Jordan, on his playing days: “When I was with the Lakers, Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] called me King Kong. I thought it was because I was lifting. Then someone asked him, ‘Why do you call Eddie King Kong?’ Kareem said, ‘Every time he shoots it goes ‘kong,’ and he’s king of the kong.’ ” ... Sacramento owners Gavin and Joe Maloof have no shot at Jackson, but their avid interest means Rick Adelman is a goner. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have tacked another year at $3 million onto Adelman’s deal. The Maloofs think their post-Chris Webber team is better than it performed (wrong) and are worried about losing Peja Stojakovic, whose contract is up next summer (right).... Cleveland papers say LeBron James will fire agent Aaron Goodwin, turning over his management to his high school buddies, including his current “road manager,” Randy Mims, and Maverick Carter, who is now a Nike executive.... The big question, other than how big is LeBron’s head getting, is what does this mean in terms of keeping him in town? Goodwin appeared open to testing the free-agent market in 2008.... Correction: I said ESPN had stopped claiming credit for scoops on every story that comes up, but it just did it again, saying one of its staffers was reporting Steve Nash would win the MVP race. The Arizona Republic, which polled 106 of 127 voters, had already reported it in a story headlined: “All signs point to Nash winning NBA’s MVP.”