- The Lakers are satisfied with their championship last season. Former Laker Rick Fox told John Ireland that some teams don’t like being “the hunted.” And this may be what ails the Lakers. Last year they rose to the challenge because they had been humiliated in the Finals; this year, they know they are the champs no matter what the result on the floor is.

- The Lakers are burned out. Being the defending champion is no easy thing. That’s why it’s so hard to repeat. This Laker group has played a lot of games and maybe when they reach deep inside, there’s nothing there right now.

- These are the “as usual” Lakers. After all, last season even in the Playoffs against Houston, fans were panicking and the media was heaping abuse on the team for its lack of effort, focus, etc. Then, suddenly, everything clicked.

- The weak point is Pau, who has played too many games. Pau seemed to answer the questions about being “soft,” last season, but seems to be back to playing “soft” again. Two weeks before the Lakers played Boston on the road, Gasol was griping about not getting enough touches. So late in the game, when he gets the ball, what does he do? He tries to pass to Shannon Brown. Turnover. Game. He did the same thing against the Sixers, passing in the paint to someone else in the paint – only this time he got away with it. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all,” Vince Lombardi said. Hmmmm.

- The weak point is …Kobe. The Lakers looked pretty energetic in the five games that Kobe missed. On offense, they played the triangle offense perfectly, spacing themselves well and passing to the open man. On defense, the rotations were crisp. Kobe comes back and all of a sudden they look flat again. Could it be that they are tiring of Kobe pushing them so hard?

- It’s that time of year: everyone is tired and injured, and everyone is trying to conserve energy for the Playoffs.

- There’s nothing wrong. The fans and the media are just too impatient, too focused on perfection, too, well, fanatical. The Lakers have, after all, the best record in the East, second-best record in the league, the best closer in the league and a team that won it last year…

1. Can Ron Artest keep it real?

Anyone following Ron Artest the last few months has to wonder if he is all there or if, like Shaquille O’Neal, he is all about marketing. That is, about generating buzz by what he says and does. Artest has certainly said and done some strange things. Stories filtering out of Houston say that in one of his last Playoff games there he took the last bus to the game, the bus the media and staffers ride and which players never ride unless they are LATE, wearing nothing but his underwear. Is he plain loony and if so, will he be able to fit into the Laker team chemistry? On the other hand, there are signs that he may just be shrewdly playing the media. The good news for the Lakers is that Artest has also said if the Lakers do not repeat, the players and fans can blame him. Can he keep that focus?

2. Will Andrew Bynum stay healthy and contribute?

Bynum is frustrating to the Lakers. There are moments, brief flashes so far for the most part, where he reveals signs of potential greatness. Those flashes can take one’s breath away because of the vision of what could be. Then they disappear and Bynum is making the foolish mistakes of a young, unseasoned player or, worse, getting hurt. There is little doubt that being mentored by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has been good for him, but he has to step up now. He’s getting the contract big bucks – now he has to show that he deserves them. Can he do it?

3. Is Fisher still a factor at 35?

Every Laker fan loves Derek Fisher. He is the Southern California version of the “little Engine That Could.” He just keeps plugging away. Yes, at times he looks like his feet are in deep, thick mud against quicker point guards. And yet at key moments, especially during the Playoffs, he comes up big. It will be a sad day the day he has to step aside. The good thing is that he is egoless and could come off the bench without complaint if he has, in fact, lost another step.

4. Can the back-up point guards provide productive minutes?

The Fish that ate San Antonio lost some effectiveness late in the regular season last year because Phil Jackson was forced to overplay him because of injuries and some bench weaknesses. Like Bynum, the two Laker back-up point guards, Jordan Farmar and Shannon Brown, have shown some signs of being keepers. Farmar has changed his jersey number to number one, as symbolic a move as there is. In the past, he has balanced out some good moments with poor decision-making and weak defense. Has he matured? Is he ready? If he isn’t, he will be challenged as he was during the Playoffs last season by newcomer Shannon Brown who earned a permanent moment in replay heaven with a rocking slam dunk over Denver’s Chris Anderson in the Playoffs in May.

5. Will the players keep listening to Phil?

There were moments last season – the darkest and most depressing times – when the Lakers seemed to have shut coach Phil Jackson out. These were games when they played foolishly and without energy, basically giving away games. Every team has some of those games in the long 82-game season and the Lakers’ ability to rebound and win a championship suggests that it was nothing more than temporary bits of boredom or fatigue. Most coaches run into a stone wall after a while, where players get tired of their message. Jackson, along with Gregg Popovich and Jerry Sloan, has been one of a small handful who have yet to experience players rejecting their message. But Phil is getting up there in age, is missing his trusty aide Tex Winters, and is satisfied with thinking one year at a time with regard to his own status as the Lakers coach. In addition, Phil considered just coaching home games in order to avoid the rigors of the travel schedule – until GM Mitch Kupchak vetoed that idea. All this suggests Phil’s time as the coach may be winding down. The most important thing is for the Lakers to keep listening to Phil’s message. Will they?

6. Will Pau’s summer “vacation” tire him out?

Pau Gasol, the MVP of this summer’s Eurobasket tournament and a member of the team from Spain, which won its first Eurobasket title after six runner-up results, could be exhausted. The best thing for Gasol would be if Bynum is healthy and active, which would limit Pau’s minutes, at least in the early going. Pau did all right last season coming off the Olympics. Can he do it two years in a row?

7. Has The Machine been repaired?

Sasha Vujacic, aka The Machine, had an abysmal season last year and Jackson urged him to cut his hair as a way of regenerating himself for this season. Last season his long hair and a hair band that Sasha wore attracted a lot of attention. Phil, ever the sensitive Zen master paying attention to small details, appears to be making the hair cut a symbolic move for a change. The Lakers definitely need a three-ball threat off the bench. Will Sasha fill that role?

8. Can Adam Morrison make a contribution?

In the event that The Machine is still under repair, Adam Morrison could step forward and take that three-ball specialist spot. Like J.J. Redick, Morrison can shoot. The problem is that he is coming off a year-long injury and on top of that is dealing with what has to be some loss of confidence. Morrison has no pressure here. So can he step up?

9. Can Luke Walton continue to excel in a cameo role?

Laker haters and even some Laker fans like to snicker about Walton, a slow, can’t-jump, can’t shoot small forward for the Lakers. Why is he even on this team? Maybe it’s his genes, but Walton has a superb basketball IQ. He improves the Lakers’ triangle offense when he is in the game and manages to get key rebounds. The real question is: on a team this deep, can he even get some playing time?

10. Can Kobe keep this team together?

No one doubts Kobe’s preparation and motivation, the fiercest since Michael Jordan was still playing. Kobe knows by now that this is a team game and he needs his teammates to know he trusts them. He did that last season and they came through. This year, the delicate task of getting Ron Artest to fit into the mix falls largely on Kobe’s shoulders. He also needs to coax more out of Bynum and perhaps help rebuild Morrison’s confidence. Can he do it?

If the answer is “Yes” to six or more of these questions, opposing teams will have to watch out.

I remembered this saying after recent events in Minnesota. After all, take a look at this. In the 1984 NBA Finals that pitted finals perennials the Celtics and the Lakers, in Game 4 Celtic power forward Kevin McHale clothes-lined Kurt Rambis as he was going in for an easy bucket. Rambis landed hard on his back and neck. As ugly a play as you’ll see, but those were pre-flagrant days. The benches emptied, but there were no fights – or suspensions. Rambis went after McHale but tumbled into the courtside cameramen. Celtic star Larry Bird helped Rambis up. The Lakers, who were favored to win, were so shaken that their nemesis took another final from them. (You can see it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7r6vXeOfyQ.)

So 25 years later – this coming around business can take time, you see – McHale, now the coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves after being demoted from a front office job, is unceremoniously pushed out the door. And weeks later is replaced by Rambis, who gets a nice 4-year deal. It’s not like Rambis had been waiting for 25 years; the Lakers beat those same Celtics in two other Finals match-ups a few years later. But there does seem to be something, well, karmic about this.

I wasn’t the only one to notice that, of course. But that turning continued today when Bill Laimbeer was named one of the assistants to Rambis. Yes, Bill Laimbeer, the former center of the Detroit Pistons. One of the Bad Boys. Perhaps the ugliest, meanest, least-liked of the Bad Boys. The same Bad Boys who pushed the Lakers to 7 games in 1987 before losing (on some questionable referee calls, it should be noted, for the conspiracy theorists). A year later, they dethroned the Lakers, who were without Magic Johnson and Byron Scott. Laimbeer pushed around Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Jabbar’s last games as a pro. (Rambo’s last year as a Laker, too, it should be noted.)

Laimbeer, you may recall, retired as coach of the defending WNBA champion Detroit Shock just a game or two into the WNBA season this summer. Coincidentally, his old team, the NBA Detroit Pistons, were looking for a new coach. Fans in Detroit wrote to the papers and called in to radio sports talk shows urging that Laimbeer be given a shot as the coach of the Pistons. The Pistons’ front office head honcho, Joe Dumars, a teammate of Laimbeer’s from those Bad Boy days, quietly went his way, finally opting for the relatively unknown (outside NBA coaching circles anyway), John Kuester, an assistant with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

A colleague in Detroit calls that the right move, noting that when Laimbeer was a commentator for the Pistons, he rarely talked to players before or after games, and the few times he did venture into the locker room, he was largely ignored. Not a guy with people skills, you might say. My colleague goes so far as to say Laimbeer was actively disliked and would have been a terrible choice as Pistons head coach.

Bill Laimbeer as an assistant to Kurt Rambis? This coming around karma thing has me worried. What next? Robert Parish as an assistant? Isiah Thomas as a consultant? Tommy Heinsohn as the Wolves TV Commentator?

So I’ll get in that game, too. The Lakers should have won 70 games and didn’t. The 1971-1972 Lakers, I mean. That was the team that starred Gail Goodrich and Jerry West, who both averaged 25+ points a game. That was the team that went on a 33-game winning streak and then brought home the first championship trophy since the team had moved to California. Elgin Baylor retired five games into the season (for a look at a very young Chick Hearn the day the team announced Baylor’s retirement, look at 1972 Lakers on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PYxhdpdNEI), and the team jelled after Jim McMillan stepped into Elgin’s spot.

Those Lakers flat out dominated other teams: they averaged 121.0 ppg to opponents’ 108.7 ppg. And their schedule was not the wimpy schedule of today: the Lakers played six sets of back-to-back-to-back games(!) that had one travel date in the mix. They lost two of three in the first set at the end of October and then went 15-0 in the rest. Yeah, let’s see one of today’s teams do that. (Blasphemous thought: could the 72-10 Chicago Bulls have won 72 playing 6 sets of back-to-back-to-back games?)

The Lakers came into Cleveland on March 22, 1972 for their last road game of the season with a 67-12 record and an 8-game winning streak. The night before, they had beat the Chicago Bulls by five points. A close game by their standards that summer. But they were bummed out. They had just heard that key back-up swingman Keith Erickson had had knee surgery earlier in the day and would be out eight weeks, taking him out of the Playoffs. Still, a win would tie them with the 1966-1967 Philadelphia 76ers for best regular season record in the NBA with 68 wins.

I was a freshman in college then, home for spring break (which was in Crestline, Ohio then, smack dab in the middle of the state of Ohio) and my father had somehow – well, maybe that’s not the right word for a Cav team that had won only 22 games up to that point – had somehow managed to get sixth-row seats behind one basket. The Lakers trotted onto the court just to our left and I recall looking up at Wilt Chamberlain and thinking “he must be the tallest man in the world!”

Sports coverage has changed dramatically since then. I know this because Wilt walked into the center circle when it was time for the jump and looked down at the Cav center, Rick Roberson, a 6’9” former Laker back-up power forward/center, Wilt’s back-up, in fact, a first-round draft pick two years earlier (15th overall) out of the University of Cincinnati, whom the Cavs had taken in the expansion draft. Wilt laughed – or pretended to laugh. He stepped out of the center circle and tried to push Goodrich, who was generously listed as 6’1” in the guidebook but was called “Stumpy” by teammates who knew better, into the center circle. The crowd loved it. (Who today remembers Wilt’s sense of humor?) Interestingly, neither the Cleveland Plain Dealer nor the Los Angeles Times mentioned Chamberlain’s clowning around. Today that would be an ESPN multiple replay. It would be on YouTube.

Ironically, or maybe because of that public humiliation, Roberson largely outplayed Wilt that night. He finished with a career high (and team high) 29 points that night. He added 14 boards. Wilt wasn’t embarrassed. He had 23 points and 19 boards (but missed six free throws).

The Lakers came out sluggish and the Cavs ran out to an 18-point second quarter lead at 45-27. The 10,819 fans in the sold out Cleveland Arena were loving it. But Goodrich and West, who both tossed in 31 points that night, brought the Lakers back. The game stood 60-all at half-time.

The Lakers outscored the Cavs 22-6 at one point, but could never take the lead. Late in the game Johnny Johnson and Robert “Bingo” Smith took over for the Cavs. Who? Johnson finished with 28, but it was Smith who is etched into my memory. Bingo sported a huge afro that jumped up and down seemingly on its on as he trotted up and down the court. A 6’5” swingman out of the University of Tulsa, Bingo had a solid 11-year career, 9 of those with the Cavs, though he never averaged more than 15.2 ppg for a season. He was a bit like Walt Frazier – not just with the do, but also in the way he seemed to move slowly, almost lazily yet was right there all the time. The Cleveland public address announcer loved him, too.

“Bingo!” he screamed into the mike with every big shot Smith made – and late in the game, they were all big. Bingo finished with 27 points, but the reverberation of the announcer calling his name made me feel like he had 30 or 40 – or more.

“Bingo!”

“Bingo!”

Still, the game was close. The Lakers tied it at 96 and then pulled to within two at 122-120 with 39 seconds left. But Walt Wesley hit a jumper – it was a total team effort for the Cavs – with 14 seconds left to seal the Lakers’ fate.

Laker coach Bill Sharman, not usually a complainer, blamed the refs for several goaltending calls on Wilt that he thought had been bona fide blocks. “It’s a shame,” Sharman said, “to play 80 games and have a shot at the record and not get it, perhaps, because of those calls.” He wanted that record.

“I knew we had a chance when we didn’t fold when they hit us with a hot streak in the third quarter,” Cav coach Bill Fitch (Phil Jackson’s old college coach) told the Cleveland Plain Dealer afterwards.

I had grown up a Laker fan and during the hour and half drive home and in my sleep that night all I could hear or think of was “Bingo!” I’m not clear how I found out I was a Laker fan, but in my mind I have re-created the scene. My father called my brother and me into the dining room in our house in Welch, West Virginia, where I grew up (until the season of that Cav game). We always sat there when he had something important to tell us. I was probably six or seven years old, sometime during West”s rookie season in 1960-1961. “Jerry West is one of the best basketball players in the United States,” I hear him telling us in my scenario. “He is from West Virginia and played at West Virginia University. Now he is with the Los Angeles Lakers. So we are Laker fans.” It almost surely didn’t happen that way, but memory plays curious tricks on the mind. I went home depressed.

The Lakers went home and two days later tied the NBA regular season winning record with a two-point win over Phoenix. Two days after that, they routed Seattle to set a regular season record of 69 wins and 13 losses that would stand for 24 years.

Because I had been home for spring break, I felt the game had occurred earlier in the season. I was stunned when I recently looked at old records and realized it was the Lakers’ last road game and third-to-last game. In fact, it was their last loss. And then the weight of what happened hit me: the Lakers could have won 70 games! Should have won 70! After all, the Cavs were an expansion team. The Cavs had never beaten the Lakers until that point.

The Lakers play 17 of their first 21 games at home next season. Already – before pre-season practice starts! – some people in the media have been predicting a fast start. And though not a game has been played yet, after the Lakers re-signed Lamar Odom, some even started talking about a 70-win season. A warning though: last year’s Lakers were swept – swept! – by the Charlotte Bobcats. There’s always a pebble in the road, like those 1972 Cavs, that can make even the strongest of teams slip and stumble on their way to 70 wins.