Parting Shots

One issue was immediately addressed Tuesday.

“I see no reason for us to feel we need a new coach here, period,” said Jerry West, the Lakers’ executive vice president. “I’ve said that before and I’ll say that again.”

Just in case there was any doubt about the future of Del Harris. What with all the other doubts around the Lakers.

Will free agent Robert Horry be back? Yes. He wants them and they want him. Barring an unexpected fallout over the contract itself, an unlikely event, it’ll get done.

Will free agent Travis Knight be back? “Probably,” he said, an encouraging response for the organization. The problem is that, because of a salary-cap technicality, the Lakers can offer only $326,700 while other teams can, and will, go much higher for a promising big man. He wants to stay and is willing to take the lower amount, but will also wait until bidding begins July 1 before making a firm commitment, just to see if anyone makes a stunning offer that’s impossible to turn down.

Will free agent Jerome Kersey be back? Same problem--$326,700, as in Knight’s case nonnegotiable unless the Lakers go into a salary dump and get under the cap. The difference is that Kersey, even coming off a nice season, won’t get the same offers.

Will free agent Byron Scott be back? He said Tuesday he has changed the previous stance and that he will play next season no matter what, with the Lakers or someone else. He also said he could also change his mind again in a couple of weeks. The popular reserve guard very much wants to retire a Laker--just maybe not at the expense of retiring before he’s ready, and certainly not since that would have meant his last game will have come and gone while sidelined by injury.

“That had a little bit to do with it,” Scott said. “No. 1, I don’t want to go out sitting on the bench.”

Will free agent George McCloud be back? Left off the playoff roster and frustrated with his role even when active, let’s just say he probably doesn’t have a lot of warm fuzzy feelings for the organization these days.

Will Nick Van Exel be back?

Oh, that doubt.

Much of the answer depends on Van Exel, from his meeting with West sometime in the near future. If the point guard and team captain reaffirms his comments after the overtime loss Monday night at Utah ended the Lakers’ season, that he absolutely, positively cannot co-exist with Harris, there’s a good chance he’ll go on the block. If the days in the interim provide the cooling-off period, as management expects, and Van Exel agrees to make it work, the situation is defused. Until the next time.

And there will be one. Their run-in Saturday at the Forum, in the opening minutes of Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals, clearly apparent to fans and TV cameras, was another in a series.

It wasn’t even the ugliest of the last two months. That was April 29, at a Saturday afternoon practice at the Forum, when Van Exel commented about a call by one of the pseudo-officials during a scrimmage, and Harris, having long ago made the Lakers’ attempts at double duty as players and referees an issue, told Van Exel to leave it alone and go on playing.

According to witnesses, Van Exel pretty much told Harris where he could go. Harris kicked him out of practice, but the player wouldn’t go. It got loud. It nearly got physical, before Shaquille O’Neal, injured and sitting nearby, and Laker security aide Jerome Crawford gently pulled Van Exel away.

The only thing nastier may have been West’s mood when he had to come in the next day--Easter Sunday--to play peacemaker. Having smoothed over so many of these in the last three years, he’s either going for NBA executive of the year or the Nobel Peace Prize.

Two days later, the Lakers beat the SuperSonics in Seattle, and Van Exel had 30 points. The next game, against the Denver Nuggets, he got 12 assists. That was all part of a stretch in which they won 11 of 13 games.

So the Lakers, with the secretary-general in charge of basketball operations, are by no means going to dump Van Exel as the quick solution. It only creates other questions.

Exactly which team is going to send a better point guard in return? At what stage did people stop realizing that plenty of teams can’t come close to a talent like Van Exel? Lee Mayberry, Anthony Goldwire, Tyus Edney or Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Pooh Richardson, Bimbo Coles--all started at least 14% of the time this season.

Kobe Bryant? He showed flashes of greatness as a rookie, but not as a distributor. Even if that comes in time, the notion of having someone who could be a great scorer responsible for dumping the ball inside to O’Neal seems to be missing the point with the point. That could be restricting to Bryant, for much the same reasons the Orlando Magic might move Penny Hardaway to shooting guard next season.

There may be potential explosiveness with Bryant at the point next season, but there’s also potential trouble because of the inexperience. Van Exel may have erratic behavior and be a streaky shooter, but he’s also one of the most stable ballhandlers in the league, only six players in the league having finished with a better assist-to-turnover ratio. Put a turnover-prone player such as Bryant in there for a season in which anything less than reaching the finals would be a disappointment at your own risk.

Maybe West has all the answers in mind. He’s awaiting the meeting with Van Exel before making final decisions, but his stance for now is clear.

“I don’t think there’s too much work to do,” he said as the players cleaned out their lockers at the Forum and divided up the playoff shares to the 12 on the postseason roster, meaning McCloud and Cedric Ceballos, among others, had been passed over.

“We’re very, very pleased with the group of players we have here. Very pleased.”