BLING BLING: THE RING IS THE THING.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - It is the ornament a millionaire cannot buy, the symbol the coolest young man cannot order at the tattoo parlor, the facet of his own destiny even the most dominant athlete cannot control.

The Ring.

It's the refracted light at the end of the tunnel for these Lakers. It's what they were playing for in the 100 regular-season and playoff games that brought them to tonight, when they can clinch an NBA championship three-peat by formally finishing off the New Jersey Nets. It's what one of them was not playing for.

``I think this is a testament to what you have to go through (to win a title in pro basketball),'' Mitch Richmond said of his decision last summer to give up stardom and ride the Lakers bench to the first team title of his long career. ``I will go through it in order to get The Ring.''

The Ring wasn't always the thing, the hip-lingo synonym for winning it all.

In the old days, the jewelry was small and simple. Championship teams didn't create their own distinctive rings; the league office designed rings that were similar from year to year.

``It was kind of, 'Oh, we get a ring, too?' '' said Jack Ramsay, the 1976 champion Portland Trail Blazers coach who now is an ESPN analyst. ``Today, it's a symbol of success, of making it in the NBA. It's a rite of passage. Everybody wants one.''

Even as early as '76, The Ring was getting gaudy, so big and heavy that modest individuals like Ramsey decline to wear one.

``You could break a glass if you hit it with that ring,'' Ramsay said.

When the Lakers won the first title of Shaq-Kobe-Phil era in 2000, the ring presented to the players before the next home opener was, by current standards, relatively simple: Lakers logo in diamonds on a gold background, with an inscription of ``Bling Bling'' - Shaquille O'Neal's championship slogan - and the team's season and playoff won-lost records. Its face value was $7,100, said John Black, the Lakers' publicist.

When they repeated in 2001, the ring was supersized: It had gold and yellow diamonds, ``World Champion Lakers,'' pictures of two Lawrence O'Brien Trophies, a triangle (for the offense) with ``Back to Back'' on the sides, and the season and playoff records. Face value: $8,000.

Of course, The Ring is priceless.

Players speak of it as if it imbues its wearer with super powers, like the Green Lantern's.

In truth, all it does is identify the wearer as a man among the NBA's very large men, permit him entry to the league's most exclusive club, imply he knows secrets that 90 percent of the game does not.

So Mitch Richmond, a 20,000-point scorer in the league, looks with understandable envy at less-illustrious teammates like Robert Horry, who won two rings in his first three NBA seasons in Houston and two more in Los Angeles, and Devean George, who won rings in his first two NBA seasons - mostly sedentary seasons - in Los Angeles.

How come they have rings and he doesn't? How come Phil Jackson has 10 (two playing, eight coaching)?

``I've had a lot of time to sit over there and reflect,'' Richmond said with a nod to the visitors' bench at Continental Airlines Arena. ``I think this year has really been a reflection of what I did in the past.''

A lifetime-achievement award, as he has said.

``It may validate his career,'' Ramsey said.

Three of the players who will suit up for the Lakers as they shoot for an NBA Finals sweep tonight are seeking their first NBA titles, their first rings. Samaki Walker is in his sixth season with his third franchise. ``It means everything in the world,'' Walker said. ``What separates guys is the ring.''

Lindsey Hunter is in his ninth season with his third franchise. ``I think when we look back,'' Hunter said, ``we'll say we wouldn't (change) anything for the opportunity to win a ring.''

Richmond is in his 14th season with his fourth franchise. He was a star for more than a decade with Golden State and Sacramento. But he never got past the second playoff round. He averaged 11.1 minutes and 4.1 points a game this regular season and has played only three minutes and scored one point (in the Lakers' game 5 loss at Sacramento) in these playoffs. But he will get The Ring.

``This is what makes everything he's gone through worth it,'' Hunter said of Richmond.

Richmond, his contract bought out by Washington, signed with the Lakers expecting to come off the bench more often than he has. At 36, sore-kneed, he never showed the quickness Jackson wanted.

Unless he gets into tonight's game, he faces wearing a ring that others earned for him. Anywhere but in the NBA, that would be a fashion faux pas. In the NBA, it makes you a winner.

``I want to play real bad,'' Richmond said Tuesday. ``(But), last game of the season, I don't think he (Jackson) will change up the rotation right now. We've got four quarters to win it all. So I'm not going to gripe about playing time. I'm just going to cheer the guys on.

``I thought I'd be able to play 20, 25 minutes a game. You can't have it all.''

Years from now, when fans read basketball history, ``No one will know I didn't play any minutes in this series,'' Richmond believes. ``They'll just know I have The Ring.''