Jackson’s Value May Be Lost in the Shallow Pockets of Buss

So much for the healing process. . . .

The report the Laker brass is leaning toward rehiring Kurt Rambis was a stunner, even factoring in the fact he’s family and owner Jerry Buss is in his corner. Intimates say Buss is wild to win his next title, so why is he ignoring a candidate as eager and accomplished as Phil Jackson?

Maybe everyone felt bad about abandoning Rambis to handle Dennis Rodman and the Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant thing by himself and reconfiguring his team in the middle of a 10-game winning streak by trading Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell.

On the other hand, Rambis was an untested assistant and looked it. The pressure turned him into a pretzel. He snapped at subordinates and fenced with the press, acting as if it was a conspiracy aimed at him, answering routine inquiries with, “What do you mean by that question?� Matters every other coach, even the ones deemed pains in the rear end, deal with routinely, became dead ends.

Take the news conference after the Houston series, a triumphant moment (the Lakers’ last):

Reporter: “Now that the series is over, can you tell us what your game plan was?�

Rambis: “I can’t tell you that.�

Nor did the team respond to him in any dramatic way. Although Rambis stressed defense, they couldn’t execute much. They double-teamed softly and rotated slowly, leaving shooters open on the perimeter.

Mostly, they milled around in the middle, as San Antonio’s Tim Duncan proved in Games 3 and 4, scoring 70 points--and making 20 of 33 shots--while supposedly double-teamed.

Laker officials, trying to explain the failure to even contact Jackson, note Buss has relatively modest means for an NBA owner and actually lives off his team.

Of course, the Lakers grossed about $90 million in each of O’Neal’s first two seasons, before this truncated one. Next season when they move into the Staples Center, they’re expected to harvest $135 million. Say next season’s payroll is $45 million, add $20 million in other expenses and it looks like a windfall profit of $70 million.

And Buss can’t hire the best man to get his divided, young team over the hump? Who’s handling his money, Rodman?

And it’s hardly their only problem. O’Neal blew off the breakup meeting and teammates said he blew out of town, heading for his house in Orlando, Fla. Said Derek Harper: “Maybe he had an excused absence.�

(Just like Rodman used to get all the time! Actually, that would be a pretty good title for this season’s highlight film: “The Excused Absence.�)

O’Neal can opt out of his contract and, even though he doesn’t have any good alternatives--the only teams with $15 million under the cap are dogs like the Chicago Bulls--his teammates are worried.

“He was crazy upset,� said one.

If O’Neal doesn’t return, forget the number. If he does, someone still has to sit down with him and Bryant. You’d also like someone to break the news to O’Neal they need him to give up a little on offense and work harder on defense.

Somewhere in there, they may also want to tell the big guy he can’t expect to get the ball in crunch time if he can’t make free throws which, despite his promises, he can’t.

They also must solve the Glen Rice puzzle--Can he be happy with anything less than 15 shots a game and a new contract starting at $14 million?--and find a power forward and, perhaps, a point guard.

In the old days, you’d have liked their chances. Now, we’re just going day to day.

WHAT A LOVELY LITTLE WAR

As usual, the Knicks are all on the same page--the back one on the New York tabloids, where they run the two-inch headlines.

The tabs hit the Mother Lode with last week’s report Madison Square Garden President Dave Checketts contacted Jackson several weeks ago, before the Knicks began their Cinderella run.

First of all, it happened during the Atlanta series, in which the Hawks were DOA, which meant everyone needed some diversion.

A lot was forthcoming. Checketts first denied it, then said he only sent word through an intermediary before finally admitting he and Jackson had a two-hour dinner. Maybe the waiter was the intermediary?

Coach Jeff Van Gundy took the high road, refusing to discuss it, saying he had games to win, etc.

Unfortunately, while he was out winning games, his lawyer, Robert Ades, confided to the New York Post: “I was very embarrassed for Dave Checketts that he conducted himself in this fashion. I’ve never had a situation where management came out and said, ‘I lied. I lied and too bad.’ When you get caught, it’s pretty bad.

“I don’t believe Dave Checketts is indicative of the attitude of Cablevision [which owns the team]. Historically, it’s not the way they do business. Remember that Dave Checketts is an employee. Mr. Checketts is a representative of Cablevision. If they want to avoid publicity, here you have an executive in your corporation who says, ‘I lied to the press. I lied to everyone. Blatantly.’ �

This looked like Ades’ attempt to get Cablevision to rein in, or even sack Checketts. However, Checketts is a powerful figure in New York and a smooth corporate maneuverer, so this isn’t likely to work unless Van Gundy delivers something a lot bigger than a lark in the Eastern finals, like a title.

Meanwhile, the Garden crowd proved it can climb on a bandwagon as fast as anyone, chanting “Jeff Van Gun-dy! Jeff Van Gun-dy!� during the Game 4 mop-up of the Hawks. Van Gundy’s wife, Kim, cried and he called it one of the most memorable moments of his career.

Some day he can look back on it fondly, wherever he’s working after Checketts finally punches his ticket, and the Garden crowd will be cheering that too.

MEANWHILE, RILES SURVEYS THE ANNUAL WRECKAGE

In Pat Riley’s second season in Miami, the Heat made the Eastern Conference finals. Unfortunately, in his third it was upset as the No. 2-seeded team by the No. 7 Knicks, and in the fourth, it toppled as the No. 1 at the hands of the No. 8 Knicks.

Not even Riley can make that sound like progress.

“We’re four years into this,� he said. “This team has been dismantled and built up. It has won three Atlantic Division titles. It’s the best road team in the NBA and one bounce of the ball with 0.8 seconds left [Allan Houston’s series-winning shot] in a game is not going to deter me from staying with these guys.

“Does it need to be improved? Yes. . . . We will find Ike Austins, Voshon Lenards and Mark Stricklands and develop those players.�

In other words, they’ll have to look under rocks. Riley is hopelessly capped. He says he’d trade for a scorer, if someone feels like donating one.

“I’m not giving away core players to do that,� he said. “The day [owner] Micky Arison says to me, ‘Do it!’ and I won’t do it, is the day that I’ll be gone and I understand that. But he and I are in accordance with that.�

At a critical juncture in 1986, after his Lakers had been KOd by Houston’s Twin Towers, Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson, and everyone thought they were over the hill, Riley came up with the notion of demanding the “Career Best Effort� from his players. The Lakers made no major changes and won titles in 1987 and 1988.

Now it’s that time in Miami.

“I’m going to ask more of them than I’ve ever asked of them in their life during the off-season,� Riley said. “This summer will be unlike any summer they’ve ever had. We have coaches come in at 7 in the morning. The players are going to tell me whether they want to be part of the Miami Heat and want to improve or I will look for 12 guys. I know there are 12 guys in this world who want to be part of the Miami Heat desperately. I hope they’re in that locker room there. If they’re not, I will find them.�

In other words, it’s time to start worrying in Miami.

FACES AND FIGURES

This just in from the rumor wire: Despite Riley’s vow not to break up his core, there’s speculation in Miami he’d be willing to trade power forward P.J. Brown to the Lakers for Rice, who still has a home in Miami. The Lakers could keep Brown, a fine defender, or trade him for a point guard, or to Vancouver, which wants a veteran four, for its No. 2 draft choice. . . . Say good night: Every time Karl Malone got serious, Brian Grant got stitches, until Game 6 of the Utah-Portland series when the Mailman just flamed out, an eerie sight for those who have watched him carry the Jazz for so long. However, he’s about to turn 36, and was coming off five tough games of looking up against Sacramento’s Vlade Divac and Chris Webber, and six more against Grant, Arvydas Sabonis, Rasheed Wallace and Kelvin Cato. In other words, the Jazz is in trouble. With new attitudes in Portland and San Antonio, and all that talent in Los Angeles, Utah could be fourth best in the West by this time next year. . . . Not that it went easily. The Jazz was 3-0 in elimination games this postseason (and 3-1 last spring) before the Trail Blazers drove a stake in its heart. . . . All Lenny Wilkens does is win 50-plus games every season, but people are tiring of his first- and second-round exits. Hawk General Manager Pete Babcock is also upset Wilkens won’t play rookies like Roshown MacLeod. “I will say this,� Hawk President Stan Kasten said. “If we’re healthy, we should have a deep enough and good enough team where we’re getting nine or 10 players on our 12-man roster into our games, and if a year from now we don’t, that would concern me. It doesn’t concern me now because of the screwy nature of our season, but if it were true next year again that would be a real red flag to me.� . . . Reggie Miller, told that Knick fans chanted his name at the end of the Hawks series: “Sometimes you got to be careful what you ask for.�