ACT LIKE CHAMPIONS, NOT BABIES.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

OK, kiddies, can we all just grow up now?

The Los Angeles Lakers, three-time champions.

Has the ring of maturity, huh? Sounds like a highly developed team. A seasoned group of men.

Well, not quite. The Lakers just can't seem to help themselves. They revert to their youthful playground days. Unable to simply play a good game, they feel compelled to try to talk one, too.

How completely silly. How totally unnecessary. How ultimately demeaning.

Here's a thought Lakers: For something really different this season, let's see you win a fourth consecutive title with your mouths closed and fists at your side.

Let's see a champion respected not only for talent and heart, but for its class.

This shouldn't be much to ask. You'd think it'd be natural evolution, but it ain't happening.

A real rival has emerged in the form of the Sacramento Kings. This should make the Lakers happy. They need someone to push them, to test them, to be measured against.

They could simply continue beating up the Eastern Division's annual patsy in the Finals, but that would hardly serve as a measure of their greatness.

The giants in any sport have typically had another team of stature to push them to greater heights, to swell their legacy.

For the Lakers' first two runs at the title, it appeared there was no one who could stand up to them, look them in the eye, challenge them to prove their greatness.

And along came the Kings.

Tough, talented, determined, unafraid and hungry. They wanted what the Lakers had and believed they could take it away.

The Lakers should be putting their hands together in applause, not clenching them in some arena hallway.

This offseason, media day and preseason of taunting the Kings has been conduct unbecoming. In attempting to disparage the Kings, the Lakers disparage themselves.

A lot of it originates with Shaquille O'Neal, whose playful nature often gets the best of him.

Los Angeles is the true capitol of California. Center Vlade Divac is an old man. He's the King of Flop. They're the Sacramento Queens. And on and on.

In one breath, O'Neal tells us he's simply polishing his marketing skills for the league benefit and actually respects the Kings, and then in the other he's unable to withhold another zinger.

Shaq has fun with all this, as does his main verbal sparring partner on the Kings, Divac. Divac said recently, ``I say things to make my life exciting once in a while. Why not? Shaq does the same thing.'' Truer words were never spoken.

Then there is Rick Fox, who should know better. Here is a highly intelligent, worldly fellow, as nice and generous a man as you could ever hope to meet.

But he plays and talks a tough game. A small forward with an enforcer's attitude that has earned him boos throughout several NBA arenas for rough play.

Fox does not back down, for which he no doubt takes great personal pride. He is also extremely honest, for which reporters are grateful but which also adds gasoline to the fire.

So after pointing out Kings forward Doug Christie's quote that he might have been afraid to take the shot in Game 7 of the Western Division finals, and given Shaq's constant harping, it should not have been a surprise to see things taken to the next level in their preseason game.

So there are shoves and open-handed punches and closed punches, and then that absolutely ridiculous scene in the Staples Center tunnel, where Fox engaged in a little WWF action.

Even as he apologized this week for losing his cool, Fox couldn't help himself.

``They came to win a championship in a preseason game,'' Fox said. ``They should have thought about that a few months back. It's a little late to get brave now.''

And on a report that Christie's wife tried to join the fracas, ``I guess she thought he needed some help.''

See what we are dealing with here? My dad is bigger than your dad.

This hasn't been the best offseason for the Lakers anyway, what with Shaq putting off investigating his foot surgery until his belated decision cost him the start of the season and the Kings adding another big man in Keon Clark.

The West is loaded. You can almost expect the Lakers to fail to win it in the regular season with Shaq sitting out the first month or so, leaving the Spurs or the Mavs or the Kings or all of them with the home-court advantage come playoff time.

That should be enough to keep the Lakers challenged without lowering themselves into verbal wars that can develop into something more serious.

Just play the game, guys. You're the best team on the planet. Have two of the greatest players in the game, two of the greatest of all time.

Don't drag yourself down with all this. Be above it all, on the court and off.

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Photo:

The Lakers, the national champions, should be above the incident that occurred in a exhibition game against rival Sacramento last week.

John Hayes/Associated Press