It’s Almost Time to Four-Get

When Game 4 was over, Mitch Kupchak sat in the stands at Continental Airlines Arena, watching.

He has run the basketball operations for the Lakers for two seasons, and won two championships, both by touching up around Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, just as Jerry West had done before him.

On Wednesday night, the seats around Kupchak emptied, leaving him with an old friend from Long Island.

They talked awhile about the game, the series and the three-peat.

“Hey,” his friend finally said, “you’ve got a lot of work to do this summer, don’t you? What do you have, seven free agents?”

Kupchak smiled.

“It’s been 15 minutes,” he pleaded.

Kupchak allowed himself a few more minutes of satisfaction. He walked the halls near the Laker locker room, offered congratulations and thanks to some players, accepting them from others. He spoke to Magic Johnson briefly. Johnson offered his help in preparing for the draft, and they agreed they should probably talk soon.

Not far away, New Jersey Net center Todd MacCulloch put his head on the shoulder of a friend, who told him, “We tried. We tried,” and MacCulloch nodded sadly.

Leaning against a cinder-block wall, Kupchak said, “We do have a lot of work. This is the time to enjoy this. The draft is coming up. Most importantly, Kobe and Shaquille, the core group, is going to be with us. We face some tough decisions on players to sign back. We’ll see where we end up.”

Beyond O’Neal, Bryant and Coach Phil Jackson, there is little that is critical, and those three will return. Jackson, in fact, would appear to have his first real shot at four consecutive titles, after twice having won three in succession at Chicago.

After the Bulls’ first three-peat, Michael Jordan went off to play baseball. After the second, Jackson and Jordan retired and Scottie Pippen was traded to the Houston Rockets, and the Bulls have been awful since.

Only the Boston Celtics, who won eight in a row from 1959-66, have won more than three consecutive championships. Four in a row would give Jackson his 10th title as a coach, one more than Red Auerbach.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge of trying to get back here and win a 10th,” Jackson said. “I think that’s the distinction.”

The complications of the summer start with O’Neal, who again is contemplating surgery, this time on his big right toe. It is arthritic and limited him severely for long parts of the season. Yet Wednesday, he suggested he would not choose a course of treatment until well into the off-season.

“Going to enjoy the moment and take most of the summer off,” said O’Neal, who in the series averaged 36.3 points and 12.3 rebounds and was its MVP, again. “Then I’ll make a decision at the end of the summer on what I’m going to do.”

The recovery time for surgery, depending on the procedure, is two to three months, according to Robert Mohr, O’Neal’s doctor and the chief of podiatric surgery at UCLA Medical Center, so O’Neal’s tentative schedule could again complicate training camp and the regular season. There is still much to decide, however, and in recent weeks O’Neal’s toe improved enough that surgery is no longer a given.

Team doctors expect to perform exit examinations in the coming days, and an early course for O’Neal will be determined then. If surgery is the best option, the club would prefer O’Neal to have it sooner rather than later, giving him time to rehabilitate and condition himself for next season.

“I’ll go out, meet all the best foot doctors in the world, then I’ll make the best decision possible,” O’Neal said. “Somebody to help me with my pinkie-winkies.”

While other Lakers danced, Kupchak was reminded that not much was easy in their three-peat, despite the sweep in the Finals. By the end of the series, besides lauding the Lakers for their ferocity, observers were wondering if the New Jersey Nets weren’t the worst team ever to play in the Finals. Not that it mattered to the Lakers, of course. The sweep simply hastened the arrival of today’s parade, a 14th franchise title, and an off-season that will test Kupchak’s judgment in the face of the ever-challenging Western Conference.

The Lakers intend to offer Bryant a three-year, $54.8-million contract extension, the maximum allowed under the collective bargaining agreement.

In the third year of a six-year extension that expires after the 2004-05 season, Bryant is due $40.5 million in the next three seasons. Then, by the same process that brought O’Neal a three-year, $88.4 million extension 1 1/2 years ago, Bryant would be due $16.4 million, $18.3 million and $20.1 million through the 2007-08 season.

Bryant has suggested he might not accept the offer, though not because he does not enjoy the organization.

Including a final-year owners’ option almost certain to be exercised, the collective bargaining agreement expires after 2004-05, the same time as Bryant’s contract. He could be inclined to examine the terms of a new agreement first.

The Lakers have seven potential free agents, two--Samaki Walker and Lindsey Hunter--with contract opt-outs. Devean George, Brian Shaw, Mitch Richmond and Jelani McCoy, all drenched with champagne two nights ago, are unrestricted free agents. Slava Medvedenko is a restricted free agent, meaning the Lakers can keep him by matching any offers.

It would seem the Lakers would be interested in keeping young free agents George and Medvedenko, and Shaw, who was particularly capable at times in the playoffs. They’ll wait with Walker and Hunter, and still go into the draft and the free-agent market looking first for a power forward and then a shooting guard or small forward.

The club almost certainly will inquire about free agent Malik Rose, the 6-foot-6 unrestricted free agent with San Antonio. Although undersized, Rose is a tough defender and, probably, would be pleased to guard someone other than O’Neal next May. Veteran Charles Oakley, also a free agent, will be considered as well, among others.

It appears that the Lakers are prepared to use their $4.5-million exception to the salary cap, which last off-season went unspent because of luxury-tax concerns.

For one more night, however, Kupchak tried not to allow the daunting decisions ahead to detract from his sense of accomplishment. The Lakers, for a third consecutive season, had what it took.

“They had such great chemistry, and it was clear they trusted each other, and demonstrated they could win the games they had to win,” he said. “I think that’s the biggest satisfaction of the whole thing. Having said that, we almost lost the seventh game in Sacramento. So, it’s that close.

“They just seemed to know the games they had to win.”