Shaq vs. Kobe, the next stage

Guess who's coming to dinner.

If a Lakers Spectre rises over the West, lots of people saw it coming, including the Phoenix Suns, who blew themselves up in advance.

Junking the offense no one could guard but which was comprised of Munchkins, the Suns acquired Shaquille O'Neal, who's still a 7-footer, even at 36.

It was a bombshell that still reverberates and Shaq's Suns haven't even played Kobe Bryant's Lakers yet this season.

That will end Thursday with the Lakers in Phoenix, so please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position.

SHAQ AND KOBE IN YET ANOTHER DIMENSION!

Actually, if you want to call what they had a feud, it ended years ago.

Nevertheless, speaking for the people who count hits on our website and welcome any development that puts "Shaq and Kobe" in a headline, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Once Lakers teammates, once separated by a continent with O'Neal in Miami (but together every Christmas, courtesy of ABC), Shaq and Kobe are now Pacific Division rivals who meet four times this season (all nationally televised.)

Neither bitter enemies nor close friends -- but to all appearances, now totally cool with each other -- they may not be joined at the hip, but their destinies are.

Whatever it takes to bring them together, whether it was fate or an accident of history, it just happened again.

A year ago at this time, the Lakers had already popped up on the Suns' radar, blasting them, 119-98, in the season's second game in Phoenix.

Andrew Bynum, who had 14 points and 13 rebounds off the bench, then dropped 28 and12 on the Suns in the Lakers' Christmas romp. Coach Mike D'Antoni, asked if Andrew was up-and-coming, said, laughing, "He's there. . . . I hope he's not up and coming."

On Feb. 1 with Bynum out, the Lakers got Pau Gasol. The entire West gulped, but no one more than the Suns.

"The West is so big and we were 6-foot-10 and 6-7 at center and power forward," Steve Nash said last week. "We had a hard time with some of these teams. The Lakers have a 7-footer [Lamar Odom] at small forward."

Actually, the Suns were 6-8 1/2 at center (Amare Stoudemire's height in bare feet at the 2002 pre-draft camp) and 6-6 1/2 at power forward (Shawn Marion's height at the 1999 camp) so if Odom is only 6-10, it's still sobering.

Within days of the Gasol trade, Miami owner Mickey Arison offered O'Neal to Phoenix owner Bob Sarver, who took it to President Steve Kerr, all atwitter.