Buss Is Star of Chat Room

In 10 days, Laker owner Jerry Buss leaves for a six-week European vacation that will include Shakespearean theater in London and fine wine in Venice.

Before that, he is expected to meet formally with Phil Jackson within a few days, perhaps emerging with his new coach after extracting a few things from his former coach, namely that health and heart are not a concern and that Jackson believes this team can go far enough in the playoffs to warrant a reunion.

Buss is warming to the idea of reuniting with Jackson, sources said, even though they parted abruptly less than 11 months ago, and the new price for doing business with him could reach $10 million annually.

“I suspect we’re going to pay something relatively close to that, regardless of who the coach is,” Buss said Wednesday.

Jackson, 59, will not be offered a piece of the franchise or a front-office role in addition to coaching, said Buss, who thought Jackson and Kobe Bryant could patch up any wounds stemming from Jackson’s criticism of Bryant as being uncoachable in a tell-all book released in October.

“No question, absolutely,” Buss said. “I think it’s the media that [caused] problems. From Kobe’s perspective, he wants to win and if he thinks that Phil Jackson is the guy that’s going to cause him to win, he’ll hug him, kiss him and send him a birthday present. And I say the same about Phil. Phil is about winning. He wants the championship. If it has to be for him to go to lunch every day with Kobe, he’ll do it. These people want to win.”

So Bryant would endorse Jackson if asked?

“I really don’t want to ask that question because he’s not part of the decisionary factor,” Buss said. “Kobe is the leader of this team but in terms of front-office decisions, that’s up to Mitch, Jimmy and myself,” he said, referring to General Manager Mitch Kupchak and assistant general manager Jim Buss, his son.

Jackson underwent an angioplasty to open a blocked heart artery in May 2003 and has been bothered by arthritis in his knees and hips, part of the health concern Buss mentioned Wednesday. After watching Rudy Tomjanovich resign halfway through the season, Buss wants to make sure Jackson’s mind-set includes a steadfast commitment to return to the game.

Buss, who normally allows one in-depth interview session a year, allowed as much while sitting with media members Wednesday for the third time in 10 months.

With his eight championship trophies off to his right in an office at Laker headquarters in El Segundo, Buss talked about the Shaquille O’Neal trade and the direction of the franchise, reserving praise for Kupchak along the way.

Ever the gambler and a mainstay at numerous celebrity poker tournaments, Buss denied that he threw away a sure hand by trading O’Neal to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Brian Grant, Caron Butler and a first-round selection.

“He’s 60 pounds lighter in Miami than he was in Los Angeles,” Buss said. “And as you’ve probably gathered recently, he seems to be having some [health] problems. My reaction was, if he was not willing to get in shape, which he had five, eight years, some number of times to do, and we urged him. It seems that the motivation for him to lose weight was to trade him.

“As you know, Shaq is in his middle 30s and it might be difficult to build around him. I suspect if I had known he was going to lose 60 pounds I probably would have made a different decision.”

O’Neal’s departure left the Lakers without a game-breaking presence in the post, among other roster concerns.

They have an unbalanced roster with four small forwards, are razor-thin at point guard and rarely show a desire to play anything other than half-hearted defense.

They are more than $20 million over the projected salary cap for next season, not including the cost of signing their first-round draft pick and the possibility of picking up a $5.4-million option for center Vlade Divac, but they could be busy in the trade market.

“I don’t think anybody is untouchable,” Buss said. “We would have to get awfully good value for some of the people on this team. I like the material on this team. But you know, when it comes right down to it, if you’re offered something better than what you have, most people would take it.

“Don’t go off and write that I want to trade Kobe. I don’t want to trade Kobe. And I really think that somebody would have to give me their franchise, their arena, and the city in order to get him. I just can’t imagine anybody coming up with an offer that I’d be willing to do that. But I don’t like to say never.”

Buss acknowledged that the second of his six children, Jim, had become one of his top advisors, but he saved the most admiration for Kupchak.

“Mitch has done in my estimation an absolutely incredible job in every single department I can possibly think of,” Buss said. “Mitch has been around for quite a while and a lot of things that occurred before Jerry [West] left, Mitch had a big part to do with. I know what part he played and probably other people don’t give him that credit but I do because he was there.”

The Lakers failed to make the playoffs for the fifth time in the franchise’s 58-year existence, but Buss filed the season away under disappointing, not devastating.

“The hardest season was the last time we didn’t make the playoffs because I couldn’t see any way out at that point,” he said of the 1993-94 season. “And it took years to come out. I do not feel that we’re years away now. I think we have much better material. Sedale Threatt was the only real ballplayer we had then.”