| | |  | | With Kobe a mere 21 years of age, and Shaq not yet 30, look for more celebrating ahead. |
LOS ANGELES -- They are not a dynasty yet, agreed. Not even close. Old math or new math, dynasties make you count past one.
Laker-haters, however, best beware, because these three will eventually get there. This triumvirate of triangle-drawing Zen Men will wind up dynastic and fantastic, even if Phil Jackson leaves Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant on their own after a few titles.
At present, L.A.'s Lakers are arguably the worst 67-win team of all-time -- and still champions. For all their flaws, and after all their playoff hiccups, they still managed to win the NBA tournament without trailing in a single series.
Then there's this sobering fact: They're only going to get better.
Shaq has no peer, even if he never learns to make free throws. Kobe, unlike our dear friend Scottie The Sidekick, can carry the team when he has to and will gradually master the science of composed domination, as he hinted in the Game 4 overtime epic against the Pacers.
The Twin Terrors will also be joined by the best $2-million free agent in the league, summer after summer, for as long as they keep winning. Example: Portland's Brian Grant, if the talk is true, might actually walk away from $41.5 million over the next four seasons to sign a $2.25 million exception in Hollywood. YIKES! No one in today's NBA, Portland aside, can deal with the Lakers now, when it's mostly just Shaq and Kobe and a creaky cast of thirtysomethings: Ron Harper, A.C. Green, Brian Shaw, Rick Fox, Robert Horry and John Salley.
Dynasty?
"If we don't screw it up," said the Lakers' ever-optimistic Jerry West.
The rest of the NBA knows it, too. This is not the Showtime era, when Magic, Kareem and Worthy could peer across the conference divide and see an equally imposing Big Three from Boston in Bird, McHale and Parish. In the Shaqtime era, the Lakers have two of the five best players available. Unless one or the other gets hurt, it will be tough to beat L.A. until O'Neal gets bored with basketball and moves full-time into the business and entertainment worlds.
The only hopefuls on the horizon are Portland and Indiana -- with San Antonio and Orlando standing as longshots. But the Trail Blazers have age concerns, and remain without a clear-cut gamebreaker. Rasheed Wallace is too volatile. Mr. Pippen was helpless to stop the team-wide, Game 7 gag that gave the Lakers the chance to start all this dynasty stuff.
And the Blazers might get thinner before they get deeper, with Grant and Jermaine O'Neal potentially leaving and Detlef Schrempf contemplating retirement. The Pacers, meanwhile, could be dismantled, with Jalen Rose and Reggie Miller bound for free agency. Indiana has to hang onto both, expand the role of Austin Croshere and get something from Al Harrington and/or Jonathan Bender to stay in the mix.
As for the Spurs and Magic, they're big-time maybes. Can the Spurs keep Tim Duncan and add Grant Hill? Can the Magic steal Duncan and Hill? Can I get a date with the neurotic Jewish girl on Will and Grace, since we're a perfect match?
"Stars win," said Del Harris, the tandem's first coach in L.A. and now a Dallas Mavericks assistant. "Shaq and Kobe, each in his own way, is at any given time unstoppable."
Added guard Derek Fisher, the only Laker who has been with O'Neal and Bryant since all three debuted under Harris in 1996-97: "They have definitely made their mark as one of the best combinations ever to play this game. How far this team could go depended on how far those two wanted to take us. They both accepted the fact that there is enough room in this city for the both of them."
The reward was the Lakers' first crown since 1988, in spite of a serious outside-shooting shortage. In spite of their eight playoff defeats, compared to just 15 in the regular season. In spite of the reality that three of their starters might very well be replaced by training camp; Glen Rice will almost certainly be traded, while Harper and Green could easily meet Schrempf in line at the league's alumni association office.
Yes, they still need have a major need for a power forward (Grant? P.J. Brown?) Yes, Jackson would undeniably rather have Toni Kukoc over Rice. Yes, of the six NBA champions before the Lakers to win at least 67 games, none came close to losing six close-out games in a single playoff run. And, yes, it's a diluted league that, at least for the moment, offers little hope of a rivalry at the Lakers-Celtics level.
"The Bulls," Harper asserts, "would have beat the crap out of us."
Add it all up, though, and you've still got a three-sided monster for the new millennium. Shaq. Kobe. And Phil, the prof who got them to love the triangle offense -- and each other.
The Big Everything believes Jackson is the only coach who could take the Lakers this far, and we're not about to argue with a 335-pounder on a hot streak. And whether or not Jackson serves out his entire five-year contract -- he has hinted otherwise -- The Big Little Brother is already joking, at 21, about the opportunity to double Michael Jordan's six-ring haul.
"I've got toes, too," quipped Bryant, inevitably thinking dynasty without actually saying the word.
Wandering the West
As if a 15-point collapse in the fourth quarter of Game 7 in the conference finals wasn't heartbreaking enough, now comes word that Brian Grant is seriously contemplating the prospect of giving up four seasons' worth at $10 million per in Portland to take the Lakers' $2.25 million exception. The Blazers have to at least find a way to keep Grant away from L.A. Don't they?
Besides the Knicks, another possible destination for Indiana's Chris Mullin is Golden State. The Warriors need a boost at the gate any way they can get one, and Mullin, who wants to go out as an active contributor, had his best years with the Warriors. It'd make a touching farewell for Mully, as would a stint in New York, but he's got to get out of his Pacers contract first.
Derek Anderson remains highly coveted by the Spurs in their quest to get younger and more athletic. Mind you, all indications still point to Anderson joining the Nuggets in a sign-and-trade swap that would send Tariq Abdul-Wahad to the Clippers.
Phoenix figures to make a free-agent push for Utah's Howard Eisley. ... The Blazers want a top-three draft pick for Jermaine O'Neal. Chicago's No. 4 might be the best offer they get. ... Don't expect DerMarr Johnson to slip past Houston if he's still available at No. 9, even though the Rockets seemingly need power players more than a small forward. ... Memo to Glen Rice: If you're wondering where your maxed-out new contract is, check with Jalen Rose. He's getting it.
Sacrilegious as it sounds -- especially to the hundreds of media types whose long-awaited week in New York was re-routed to Indiana -- having the Pacers face the Lakers was the best thing that could have happened to the Finals. Indiana shoots the ball and racks up points like it belongs in the West. How nice it was to actually see some beautiful basketball, Hack-A-Shaq aside, just a year removed from Spurs 85, Knicks 79 every single damn night.
Marc Stein, who covers the NBA for The Dallas Morning News, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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