DRAMA? TRY WILT VS. BUTCH.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

The Lakers superstar and head coach kept butting heads. Two strong personalities, two huge egos, two guys used to getting their way.

It was oil and water, the irresistible force and immovable object of their sporting time. Most will swear it cost the Lakers a title.

Only this wasn't Shaquille O'Neal vs. Phil Jackson, or Kobe Bryant vs. Jackson.

This was Wilt Chamberlain and Butch van Breda Kolff, the original Lakers soap opera.

It predated Shaq-Kobe-Phil by more than 30 years. It was the mother of all team feuds, bad blood played out most dramatically at the absolute worst possible moment.

Van Breda Kolff, 84, died Wednesday in Spokane after a long illness. He coached more than 1,300 basketball games at every conceivable level.

Yet more than leading Bill Bradley and Princeton to the Final Four or coaching Pete Maravich in New Orleans or twice taking the Lakers to the NBA Finals, van Breda Kolff will always be best remembered around here for what he did not do for that instant in 1969 at the Forum, when he did not put Chamberlain back in during the waning moments of Game 7 against the Celtics.

A game the Lakers lost by twopoints. A game, perhaps more than any other, that haunted Jerry West.

Maybe the clash was foreseeable. Maybe more could have been done to prevent that nadir in Lakers history.

Van Breda Kolff was a tough-talking New Yorker and animated coach. He stormed the sideline. He made what he wanted abundantly clear. He expected to be followed. He was the man in control.

He'd been selected by Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke, also the past owner of the Daily News, straight out of Princeton.

By then Chamberlain was already celebrated as one of the greatest players in NBA history. He was a force, unique both on and off the court. He was laid back. He very much had a mind of his own.

"Butch was a fiery ex-Marine sergeant," said long-time Lakers assistant coach Bill Bertka. "He was highly intelligent. He had strong convictions. It was his way or the highway.

"Both had extremely strong personalities. Wilt was a legend. Butch in his way had been a great success.

"They just butted heads."

Over and over and over.

Then for his second consecutive year, van Breda Kolff had the Lakers in the finals against nemesis Boston.

Only this time, for the first time, they had the better team. They had Elgin Baylor, West and Chamberlain. And for the first time, Game 7 was at home.

But the Celtics, in what would be Bill Russell's final game, broke out to 17-point lead in the fourth quarter. Trailing by nine, Chamberlain hurt his knee and asked to come out.

He was replaced by Mel Counts, and led by a hobbling West, the Lakers made a dramatic run. When Counts made a jumper with 3 minutes to play that pulled the Lakers within one, Chamberlain asked to return.

With the championship on the line, Van Breda Kolff told him "we're doing well enough without you" and to sit. He never re-entered the game.

The center still considered by many as the greatest player in NBA history watched as the Lakers let it slip away, falling to the Celtics in the Finals for the seventh time without a championship.

Cooke's infamous balloons remained in the Forum rafters, and van Breda Kolff would be ridiculed for his rash decision until his final days.

Van Breda Kolff coached the Lakers to 52-30 and 55-27 records in his two seasons, to the NBA Finals -- and then resigned.

"I am very sorry to hear about the passing of Butch Van Breda Kolff," Baylor said in a statement. "We had a very good relationship that extended beyond the court. Butch enjoyed life and he was always fun to be around. He will be missed."

Baylor was an assistant coach for van Breda Kolff later in New Orleans and eventually replaced him as head coach. It was Bertka, then the Jazz general manager, who brought van Breda Kolff to the expansion Jazz.

"If ever there was a perfect marriage, it was Butch and New Orleans," Bertka said. "He was a fun-loving, hard-living guy and people down there just loved him."

Van Breda Kolff coached in the NBA for Detroit, Phoenix, the New Orleans Jazz and the Lakers. He held 13 head coaching jobs. Van Breda Kolff posted a 482-272 coaching record in 28 college seasons, and was 287-316 in 10 seasons as an NBA and ABA coach. He took six teams to the NCAA tournament at a time when tournament berths were much more scarce, and won seven conference titles.

He coached a professional women's team, coached a high school team at age 61.

"People are always asking me, if you had the chance to do it all over again, would you do anything different?" he once said. "I say, not a bit.

"I wouldn't change one thing. You do what you're going to do, and make the best of it."

West would finally win a championship under coach Bill Sharman in 1972, with what is considered one of the greatest teams in NBA history.

"Butch was a real basketball purist who believed in a team-oriented game, and I enjoyed playing for him very much," West said in a statement. "Not only did I have two of the best seasons of my career while he was our coach, but our team enjoyed a high level of success as well."

Yet West knows better than most that van Breda Kolff will best remembered for not putting Chamberlain back in that Game7. A soap opera played out before a national television audience. That seemingly turned it into part of the Lakers' DNA.

That, really, dwarfs all this Kobe will-he or won't-he melodrama.

[e-mail]

[phone]

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Butch van Breda Kolff coached the Lakers to the NBA Finals in his only two seasons with the team -- 1967-68 and '68-'69.

Associated Press