Sporting News, The: We should have known better: the Lakers weren't better with Malone and Payton

Shortly after Karl Malone and Gary Pay-ton signed with the Lakers, I was interviewed by BBC London. The resident sports expert opened the dialogue by eagerly asking two questions: "Are the Lakers now better than Dream Team I?" And, "What are the chances of the Lakers losing only three or four games next season?"

I fought back a laugh and said, "No. None."

The interviewer hemmed, hawed and gracefully aborted our conversation. Obviously, I had disqualified myself as a basketball expert.

Though the sports media in the United States generally are not quite so naive, they are prone to the same kind of starry-eyed pronouncements.

According to the media, four of the Lakers' five starting spots were filled with future Hall of Famers. When Malone signed last summer, he was pushing 40 but had averaged 20.6 points for the Jazz in 2002-03 and remained among the league's premier power forwards. Payton was a sprightly 34 and coming off another All-Star season in which he had averaged 20.4 points and 8.3 assists.

Matching those two with the incomparable Shaq and the routine razzle-dazzle of Kobe, the Lakers were a lock to secure coach Phil Jackson's record-setting 10th championship. The consensus of the pundits was that the 2003-04 season would be little more than a coronation.

In truth, too many of the scribes and commentators who work the NBA beat are spectacularly uninformed about the less-than-obvious intricacies of the game. For them, the basketball alphabet of X's and O's remains illegible. They think they can discern what a player does, but they have no idea what he's supposed to do. The biggest flaw in the average media muppet's game plan is a slavish reliance on, and devotion to, numbers.

This is so despite the fact most statistical categories measure what happens only when a player is in contact with, or in the close proximity of, the basketball. Because there are 10 players on the court at any given time and only one ball, each player normally will have his hands on the rock 10 percent of any given game--this, of course, varies slightly according to position. Numbers freaks, then, are missing 90 percent of NBA action.

So let's take a more comprehensive look at the true value of Malone and Payton.

Even when he was young and his wheels were intact, Malone was regarded as overrated by coaches and his peers--and routinely dueless in clutch situations. When the Bulls played Malone's Jazz in back-to-back Finals, Chicago's game plan called for playing Malone one-on-one, knowing that he rarely took charge of an important game. Fellow players also had little respect for Malone's defense, which was predicated on straight-ahead bullying, gambling and, when all else failed, swiping at the ball as his opponent gathered to shoot.

With the Lakers, Malone never understood even the basics of the triangle offense. He invariably zigged when he should have zagged and was instrumental in the team's difficulties executing its offense. Whenever and wherever he received the ball, Malone either would try to throw a touchdown pass or launch one of his erratic jumpers.

OK, Malone did provide necessary leadership and was one of the few Lakers who had friendly connections with both Kobe and Shaq. And, yes, he occasionally could Bogart fainthearted pivotmen with his defense. Still, it was no surprise to serious hoop-o-philes when Malone's brief sojourn with the Lakers developed into an exercise in mediocrity. He was old and in the way, and his injury had very little to do with the Lakers' demise in The Finals.

Payton's lack of production likewise was predictable. With the SuperSonics and Bucks, he required virtual full-time possession of the ball to record his accustomed numbers. Once in L.A., Payton made no secret of his dissatisfaction with the triangle offense. But having faced Jackson's teams for so many years--including in the 1996 Finals--wasn't Payton at least dimly aware of RJ's offensive schemes? What offense did Payton believe the Lakers would run after he blew into town? The single-wing?

Having lost a step to boot, Payton's unjustly celebrated defensive prowess was revealed to be profoundly pitiful in L.A.

If the effectiveness of the Lakers' newest future Hall of Famers was significantly less than met the eye, their other pair of eventual immortals also were flawed. At long last, even the star-struck L.A. media concluded this season that Kobe was a very selfish player. Hey, where have these guys been for the past eight years? Kid Kobe unquestionably is one of the best basketball talents in the history of Western Civilization--hut he always has been incorrigibly self-involved. Jackson was able to remedy Bryant's me-first mind-set during the playoffs of the Lakers' three championship seasons, but as this past season unfolded, Kobe simply turned a deaf ear to his coach's ministrations.

Shaq always bought into the requisites of the triangle, but his game was increasingly shackled by the excess poundage he insists on carrying. As a rookie, Shaq was sinewy, strong and lithe. But over the years, he has insisted that he needs extra weight to maintain his power advantage. At an estimated 360 pounds, Shaq is 45 pounds overweight.

One result of the added pounds is Shaq's reduced lateral mobility, which negatively impacted the Lakers' interior defense. Even more noticeable was his inability to get off the ground quickly. How many times during The Finals did smaller, quicker-jumping players beat Shaq to rebounds?

So then, if the Fabulous Four weren't quite the celebrated forces they were hyped to be, why did the Lakers survive into The Finals? Simply because the overpowering brilliance of Kobe and Shaq (plus periodic clutch performances by Derek Fisher, Luke Walton and Kareem Rush) was sufficient to best an out-of-sync San Antonio team and the powerless Timberwolves. But even in those series, the Lakers' seasonlong shortcomings--inefficient execution of the offense, poor screen-and-roll defense and an absence of passion--were manifest.

Against the Pistons, the Lakers played the same way they had played from the get-go. A major difference was that Detroit was superbly coached by Larry Brown. The Pistons were hungrier, more cohesive, quicker and more athletic. To defeat a team that plays like a team, the opponent must also play like a team. In The Finals, the Lakers merely reaped what they had so selfishly sowed. And the media, typically, was left destroying the bogus heroes it had ill advisedly created.