Lakers Gear Up for Title Defense

On the gym floor that will support the first steps in the defense of their NBA championship, the Lakers milled agreeably on Monday afternoon at their El Segundo training facility, and a summer trimmed in pleasant memories down to a few hours.

Shaquille O’Neal, who momentarily donned a Rasta hat and fake dreadlocks, returned to find a real power forward--Horace Grant--in the gym. He grinned through a narrow beard that he could not shave, he insisted, because Halle Berry told him it felt good on her cheek.

Kobe Bryant, unmarried still but with a secret date set, he said, for during the basketball season, has further streamlined his game. He returned from a summer spent practicing his perimeter shooting, a strategy to foil those defenders who sag back and take away his slashing jaunts to the rim, with a message intended for any who covets the Lakers’ title: “Come and get it,” he said.

Guard Ron Harper stole in behind Grant and tugged the forward’s shorts to his knees. Isaiah Rider said this stop would be different, patiently said it about 75 times, and then said it a few more. But, he smiled and seemed genuinely pleased to be here and admitted that the more about basketball and the less about his own personal history the better.

Emanual Davis, one of the three Seattle players who made it to camp from the Glen Rice trade, stood in the center of it all and absorbed it with soft brown eyes.

Davis, though, is not worry free. In fact, on a day filled nearly to the top with hope and promise and laughter, Davis felt only uncertainty. He still gets the headaches, the bad ones where he must seek quiet and darkness, where the nausea is almost unbearable. His vision occasionally distorts. His jaw sometimes throbs.

Through it, he can’t stop thinking of his children and his wife, and what will become of his life, and then his career.

“I’m scared,” he said, and then almost chuckled because emotion that solemn sounded so out of place. He shrugged. “I’m very scared.”

On March 13, Davis, 32, struck the left side of his head on a bin door during a charter flight with the SuperSonics. The left half of his face suffered temporary paralysis. The other symptoms have yet to prove temporary. He has seen as many as four neurologists. They told him he could be better in six months. Maybe a year. Two, perhaps. They’re not sure, exactly.

Camp opens today. Coach Phil Jackson, who last season taught the Lakers how to win a championship, will spend this one covering the lessons of repeating. In the absence of Derek Fisher, who is rehabilitating a stress fracture in his foot, and Brian Shaw, who is negotiating his contract, and in the tapering of Ron Harper’s playing time, the Lakers could use a big, defense-oriented guard such as Davis, who is 6 feet 5.

He’s not sure he can help, as badly as he wants to.

“This has been the scariest part of my life,” Davis said. “I’m going to try to play. I’m not going to quit. If I can play at all, I will. If I can’t, health comes first.

“It may turn out that I come out here and things just change. I’m hoping that’s what happens. I hope I can come out here and keep up.”

General Manager Mitch Kupchak said Seattle officials revealed Davis’ impairment during trade negotiations and that the Lakers assume his condition will improve.

Meanwhile, Davis pointed to his left eye, which appeared to wobble.

“Sometimes it does what it wants,” he said.

He then turned wistful.

“I could be in the best situation of my life,” he said. “I could actually play on a championship team. And I’m sitting here with you, questioning whether I’ll be ready to go. We’ll see.”

Notes

Robert Horry did not attend media day and, according to a club official, will be fined. Horry tended to personal business in Houston, something the Lakers believe should have been handled earlier. He is expected for today’s opening of camp. . . . In addition to five road exhibition games, the Lakers scheduled two preseason games at Staples Center. In what the club is calling “The Shootout,” the Lakers play Cleveland on Oct. 19 at 8 p.m., then play Seattle or Golden State on Oct. 20 at 8 p.m. Tip-off for the early games on both days is 5 p.m. . . . The Lakers signed 6-foot-3 guard Mike Penberthy, a 1997 graduate of The Master’s, to a one-year contract. . . . Brian Shaw remains unsigned. General Manager Mitch Kupchak said Shaw could miss up to a week of camp without falling behind.