DUE GRATITUDE EXTENDS TO FATHER WEST.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

He spawned the NBA careers of Derek Fisher and Tyronn Lue. He has been like a surrogate dad to Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.

The Lakers team that took on Philadelphia in this year's NBA Finals really is Jerry West's brood. So it was brilliant that two days before Father's Day the players got together and made a 2-hour, 47-minute video that West will be able to enjoy forever more.

A colorful tie has nothing on a second consecutive NBA title. On this weekend when it really is the thought that counts, we trust West knows he was very much in the Lakers' minds as they systematically dismantled the 76ers in five games.

``It's his group. This is the group that he basically put together,'' said Mitch Kupchak, who succeeded West as the Lakers' general manager last summer after West decided, as inevitably does any patriarch worth his paunch, that he was done molding, that it was time to step back and admire his handiwork.

``At the end of the day, the major pieces were in place and that credit goes to Jerry West,'' said Kupchak, who of course deserves kudos, too.

In his first major move, Kupchak last summer pried loose power forward Horace Grant from Seattle in a multiplayer, four-team deal that took weeks to seal. Grant did a marvelous job in the first three rounds of the playoffs defending Rasheed Wallace, Chris Webber and Tim Duncan, the league's three premier power forwards. Against the Sixers he made Allen Iverson and Co. work themselves to exhaustion for second-chance scoring opportunities.

But still. When Bryant was at his wits' end earlier this year, it was West's counsel he sought. The two met for dinner and spoke well past dessert.

``He's had an influence on me from day one,'' the fifth-year guard told ESPN The Magazine. ``Every time I talk to Jerry, I learn something new.''

When West tells O'Neal something, the center pays attention. West long ago won O'Neal's trust.

``Jerry promised me that he would always have a great team around me, and he kept his promise,'' O'Neal said after the Lakers' 108-96 win Friday.

The single most memorable play of the Lakers' championship run last year was a Bryant lob for O'Neal that O'Neal thundered home and then ran wild-eyed up the court, pointing with both index fingers as if calling out some invisible demons.

Bryant and O'Neal were stellar again this year but they provided us with no singular moment. As much as any of Bryant's dribble drives or O'Neal's dunks, Lakers fans are likely to remember the defense that Lue played on Iverson and that Rick Fox played on everybody and the 3-pointers that Fisher knocked down (and Ron Harper, Brian Shaw, Robert Horry and Lue, too).

Fisher found nothing but net when he said Friday night, ``Our entire team won this. There isn't one guy on our team that can't feel good about what he did for us.''

Of all the people who can claim a piece of this championship, West should feel the best. All of his nervous pacing and all of his heart palpitations were not in vain.

O'Neal said the Lakers won last year's title for the beleaguered city of L.A. This year they won for themselves and one other.

``This one's also for Mr. West,'' O'Neal said.

Amen to that. Amen to this, too: ``My guess,'' Kupchak said, ``is the group you see right now will be back here next year.''

The way the Lakers played as a unit the last two months, winning 23 of 24 games, they earned the right to stay together. Don't believe everything you read in the box scores. The Lakers need Harper's equanimity and Horry's postseason presence and Grant's take-nothing-for-granted approach to the game and Lue's quickness.

They need assistant coach Tex Winter back, too, for the triangle's sake. Winter cares so keenly, he was critiquing the players' performance Friday while everybody else around him was celebrating.

``Tex, even after the game, he had something to say about the triangle offense, how we weren't executing,'' marveled Bryant. ``He's a perfectionist. We need that.''

It's the standard West set.

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

``This one's also for Mr. West,'' Shaquille O'Neal said after the Lakers' title-clinching win, honoring former GM Jerry West.

Jeff Haynes/Associated Press

Box: PARADE (see text)