BLAME IT ON BUSS: TEAM NOT AS GOOD.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

The Lakers are in trouble and you're waiting for them to turn it on? This is on. Waiting for them to flip a switch? It's been flipped.

These are your 2002 playoff Lakers. They are not the dominant team of last postseason and you have to wonder if it's not because, in an effort to be a good team player for the NBA, Lakers owner Jerry Buss sacrificed his own team.

The Lakers might yet prove to be good enough to come back from this 2-3 deficit they are up against in the Western Conference finals, but it will not be because they are just so vastly superior.

And the Lakers are in some serious trouble if they believe they can simply come into tonight's Game 6 and summon the ghosts of last season, elevate their game and surge past the Kings.

It's one thing to be confident, quite another to be delusional.

Because although the core remains the same, the sum of their parts is very different.

Wanting to avoid triggering a so-called luxury tax, Buss let Horace Grant, Tyronn Lue and Ron Harper depart, and then in an embarrassing moment for the franchise, at the last moment cut and re-signed Brian Shaw to a lower salary.

All to avoid a luxury-tax threshold that was never announced. That, as it turned out, never went into effect (but very likely will next season).

If Buss had elected simply to retain last year's team, would the Lakers be looking at a double-elimination situation? Would Grant not be a better second defender for both Chris Webber and Vlade Divac than Samaki Walker has proven to be?

Wouldn't they kill to have Lue do his Allen Iverson thing right now and guard Mike Bibby and Bobby Jackson, rather than rely on Lindsey Hunter? Wouldn't he better understand his role and not launch continual 3-pointers?

And wouldn't Harper add savvy and experience that could pay dividends in exactly these kind of moments?

Last year, the Lakers weren't just good, they were incredible. The greatest playoff team in NBA history. A commanding, supremely confident team.

This Lakers team clings to the past like some frayed security blanket. This is not last year and these Lakers better recognize their new persona. The Lakers have sounded almost uncomfortably overconfident in discussing their current dilemma.

Which might be understandable if they were the same team from a year ago. The Kings have grown up and added a clutch player in Mike Bibby but would have gone quietly against last year's Lakers team.

But the NBA wanted to institute its legal form of collusion with a luxury tax, and Buss - quoting the high cost of tickets and escalating salaries - wanted to be the good soldier. He didn't want to be perceived as the owner of the Lakers, trying to buy a championship, but one acting in the best interest of the league.

``I feel like I should be a leader in this,'' Buss said last fall.

Estimates were coming in at $55 to $57 million for a tax threshold - teams that exceeded it were to pay a dollar-for-dollar penalty to the NBA - and Buss made sure general manager Mitch Kupchak had the Lakers under.

So say goodbye to Grant, who signed with Orlando for $2.5 million per year. Goodbye to Lue, who went to the Wizards for an admittedly pricey $2 million per, and to Harper, who could have been had for the $1 million minimum but retired.

These were not the centerpieces to last year's championship but remained key figures. To think you could throw just any three players out there with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal and win another title smacks of arrogance.

Of course, the Lakers claimed they had improved themselves in the process. Had got younger with the still-raw Walker. Had added a veteran point guard in Hunter, who could start with Derek Fisher coming off his second foot surgery. Added another dangerous scorer in Mitch Richmond.

``On paper, I think this is a really good team,'' Buss said before the season. ``It might be the best team of the last three years.''

Hunter was the starting point guard at the beginning of the season and the Lakers jumped out to a 16-1 start. His season had peaked. Hunter is a lifetime 39.4-percent shooter and hit only 24.2 percent in the playoffs last year for Milwaukee, so it should hardly come as a surprise that right now he couldn't knock down Gavin Maloof from the press table.

Walker had his moments, although his rebounding, assist and steal totals all trailed what Grant had given them last season.

Richmond averaged 16.2 points per game for the Wizards last year but can't get off the bench for the Lakers. He turns 37 next month, hasn't shown he can be an effective role player and could be done.

Right now, you just hope the Lakers aren't. They have their champion's will, for now a continuing byproduct of last year's greatness.

But these aren't last year's Lakers. Buss never gave them a chance to be.

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Photo:

JERRY BUSS

The Lakers owner allowed three key players to depart, and cut Brian Shaw's pay