So, Coach, How Do You Like the Roster?

Dear Rudy,

As we say here in Italy, Buongiorno, and welcome to the Lakers.

We're all rooting for you.

Ciao,

Dr. Jerry Buss

*

As we say here in Los Angeles, good luck, you'll need it.

About to start the Rudy Tomjanovich era, the Lakers now have the best players' coach around. The problem is, they're a little light on players.

Their problem as they deconstruct the team everyone still fears has little to do with coaches. It wouldn't have mattered whether Phil Jackson stayed, or whether Mike Krzyzewski came, or if Phil, Mike, Rudy T and John Wooden joined hands and coached them. If either Shaquille O'Neal or Kobe Bryant was on his way out, they were no longer an elite team.

O'Neal is, indeed, outbound, and, to the Lakers' dismay, Bryant is still in play. The coach was the issue in 1999 when Jackson arrived, but those were the good old days.

Now it's about who's left.

The Lakers should have at least tried to see if they could make it work with O'Neal and Bryant, even if it was a longshot. Their partnership was too good, and the alternatives were too dire, not to try.

Now the Lakers aren't inclined to try. And even if they were, all Dr. Buss' horses and all Dr. Buss' men couldn't hoist this Humpty back up on the wall again.

Buss and Tomjanovich could crawl in on their stomachs, but the Lakers are Bryant's team now and O'Neal knows it. Shaq got upset enough in the days when it was his team and everyone did crawl in on their stomachs.

For the Lakers, the really bad news is even if they talk to Bryant's agent daily, they still can't seem to figure out what Bryant wants. They still have no commitment from their star guard, who expressed frustration at their direction and tried unsuccessfully to bring in Krzyzewski.

The Lakers were intent on taking their time to move O'Neal, to avoid auctioning off their last asset in a fire sale. Suddenly, sources said they were "desperate" to unload O'Neal before Wednesday, the day Bryant would be free, in theory, to sign with the Clippers.

So the fire sale is on again. For whatever it's worth, the packages getting into the papers are jokes. Lamar Odom and Brian Grant or Eddie Jones from Miami?

Odom is coming off a fine season, but we saw him have two of those when he broke in with the Clippers and that didn't turn out very well.