FIVE TO MAKE THREE SHAQ, KOBE, DEREK, RICK AND ROBERT DO A DYNASTY MAKE.

Byline: Howard Beck Staff Writer

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - It looks like a dynasty now, but it looked like so much less when the Lakers began this journey.

They are champions three times over, the first Los Angeles team in any sport to complete a three-peat. Yet the evolution of the dynasty was fueled as much by chance and circumstance as by shrewd planning.

At the core are five key players, only one of whom was a star when he arrived. That the Fab Five are here at all is a wonder, looking back.

Where would the Lakers be without the thrown towel in Phoenix?

Or the ill feelings in Boston?

Where would they be without Charlotte's lack of foresight, and New Jersey's lack of confidence?

To say nothing of the mistrust in Orlando.

Twenty-four players have been party to this three-year odyssey. Seven players have rings from all three championships. But their heart, soul and conscience reside in five men, brought together, remarkably, in a span of 14 months:

--Derek Fisher, drafted 24th overall on June 26, 1996.

--Shaquille O'Neal, signed as a free agent from Orlando on July 8, 1996.

--Kobe Bryant, acquired in a trade with Charlotte on July 11, 1996.

--Robert Horry, acquired in a trade with Phoenix on Jan. 10, 1997.

--Rick Fox, signed as a free agent from Boston on Aug. 28, 1997.

One superstar, one promising teen and three guys known more for being solid citizens than championship material. An unheralded point guard with limited skills, a versatile big man who publicly battled his coach and a pretty boy who toiled for a last-place team.

Now they are the starting lineup for a team that just claimed a third consecutive title.

But then? Just an intriguing collection. Bryant wouldn't be a starter for three more years. Fisher was projected as a career backup. Horry and Fox each would slip into starting roles, only to lose them.

The key pieces to a dynasty? Are you kidding?

``I don't think,'' Fisher says, ``we had any idea at that time how special things would become.''

They came together over the course of those 429 days from 1996 to 1997, based on the hunches and foresight of executive Jerry West and general manager Mitch Kupchak. The rest was left up to evolution.

In fact, although all of them started at times in the past six years, the Fab Five didn't become the permanent starting five until last month, when Horry replaced Samaki Walker in Game 3 of the conference semifinals.

Fisher almost wasn't a Laker at all.

Scouts Gene Tormohlen and Ronnie Lester liked him. But others in the front office were pushing to take power forward Jerome Williams that June night in 1996. The clock was running down, and as coach Del Harris later would recall, the decision literally came down to the last three seconds.

They drafted Fisher to back up Nick Van Exel. But no one in the organization believed he had the physical tools to be a starting point guard on a team with championship aspirations.

Yet that was Fisher, a starter, making 15 of 20 tries from 3-point range in last year's conference finals. And Fisher, dogging Allen Iverson last June and Jason Kidd these past two weeks, making clutch shots when needed.

O'Neal already was a major force when the Lakers lured him from Orlando with a $120 million contract. But he had been swept in the Finals, butted heads with his co-star, Penny Hardaway, and was derided as an underpar performer more interesting in making rap albums and bad movies.

Injuries sabotaged O'Neal his first two seasons in L.A. Dennis Rodman sabotaged the third. But O'Neal, the most imposing center of this era, always was the linchpin of West's vision, the reason they would contend annually for the title.

``At the time, with the acquisition of Shaq, we knew that kind of put us in a different echelon of play,'' Fisher said.

The New Jersey Nets, whom the Lakers just swept in the Finals, seriously considered drafting Bryant with the No. 8 pick in 1996. But they were scared off by Bryant's agent, Arn Tellem, and convinced he wouldn't sign with them. Charlotte took Bryant at No. 13, and swapped him for Vlade Divac.

Bryant toiled as a sixth man his first two seasons but made the All-Star team as a 19-year-old. When Harris wouldn't make him a starter, fate stepped in. At the start of Bryant's third season, Horry left to see his newborn son, and Fox fell to a foot injury. Harris was forced to start Bryant, who responded with a double-double game against Houston's Scottie Pippen on opening night.

``Ideally, when Kobe Bryant obviously establishes himself as a guy that you just can't keep out of the starting lineup, you put him there, and he'll stay in there for the next 10 or 12 years,'' Harris said at the time.

He had no idea it had just happened.

Had Cedric Ceballos not taken off in midseason to cruise on Lake Havasou, who knows where the Lakers would be now? But Ceballos, a gifted if one-dimensional scorer, took that unscheduled vacation in 1996-97. Meanwhile in Phoenix, a disgruntled Horry tossed a towel in coach Danny Ainge's face. A short time later, the two were traded for one another.

Horry, too, has struggled here. In the 1999 lockout season, he was displaced by Travis Knight and J.R. Reid and Rodman.

Horry only has become the Lakers' best clutch shooter, the man who singlehandedly saved the Lakers from an untimely exit in the Western Conference finals. His buzzer-beating 3-pointer in Game 4 wasn't his first big shot, just his most important.

``Rob salvaged the game for us,'' Fox said.

And the season.

The last to join the mix was Fox. Drafted by Boston, he spent his first six seasons with the Celtics. They were miserable seasons, beginning with the end of the Larry Bird era. Then coach Rick Pitino decided to renounce the rights to Fox, who nearly signed with the New York Knicks before choosing the Lakers.

He's become the team's most vocal spokesman and its conscience, an embodiment of the Lakers' toughness and selflessness.

``This group of guys that we have now, we just enjoy being with one another and we trust each other so much,'' Fisher said. ``It's taken years to develop that, and I think we appreciate the journey that we've been on.''

WELCOME ABOARD

How the Lakers acquired their starting five:

Kobe Bryant: Acquired from Charlotte for Vlade Divac (July 11, 1996).

Shaquille O'Neal: Signed as free agent (July 18, 1996).

Derek Fisher: Selected by Lakers in the first round of the 1996 draft (signed July 19, 1996).

Robert Horry: Acquired from Phoenix with Joe Kleine for Cedric Ceballos and Rumeal Robinson (Jan. 10, 1997).

Rick Fox: Signed as free agent (Aug. 28, 1997).

CAPTION(S):

photos, box, drawing

Photo:

With Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Rick Fox and Derek Fisher (along with Robert Horry, not pictured), who knows how far the Lakers can go?

Rusty Kennedy/Associated Press

Box:

WELCOME ABOARD (see text)

Drawing:

(cover -- color) TRIUMPHANT!

Combine two superstars, the most successful coach and key role players and you get a dynasty.

Jon Gerung/Staff Artist