THIS IS BAD START TO SHORT SEASON.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

Five Lakers showed up for the first unofficial practice of the truncated 1998-1999 campaign, proving that it's easier to breathe new life into a dying NBA season than resuscitate a team's weakly beating heart.

When you consider that 10 Indiana Pacers found their way to the gym on Monday (circumventing snow drifts, no less), it seems pretty obvious that Lakers coach Del Harris doesn't need a veteran point guard or a power forward as much as he does a defibrillator.

You'd think being swept by Utah in the Western Conference finals in May would have been just the shock to their faint hearts that the Lakers needed. And for Derek Fisher and Shaquille O'Neal, it was.

Between them, the uncelebrated point guard and the superstar center contacted the other 10 players with ties to the Lakers at the beginning of the lockout in July and after its merciful end last week, both times in an effort to drum up interest in an organized practice group.

Based on the response they got, you would have thought they were dinner-time solicitors hawking newspaper subscriptions rather than teammates trying to sell the concept of chemistry and commitment.

It's pretty sad when the baseball team in town holds its first optional workout the same day as the Lakers, a full month before the first players are due to report for spring training, and Kevin Brown drops in from Macon and Todd Hundley gets to Chavez Ravine from New York and Gary Sheffield (Elden Campbell, are you taking notes?) flies in from Florida. While across town a practice being held three weeks before the start of the NBA season can't even lure Kobe Bryant from Pacific Palisades.

``A few were interested, a few were out of town, a few I never heard back from,'' Fisher said, shrugging his shoulders. When he resumed speaking, his tone left no doubt that he didn't suffer gladly the players who didn't have the courtesy to call him back, much less show up.

Who can blame him for being upset? If the communication between the starting point guard and his teammates breaks down that easily, it doesn't bode well for a season, especially one of only 50 games.

``I know I don't command as much respect as Shaq does,'' Fisher said. ``But if a teammate calls you, you should have enough respect to call him back.''

And if your team captain is the one on the other end of the line and he's throwing his weight, all 315 pounds of it, behind his words, why would you dare turn a deaf ear to him?

Is it jealousy that made some of O'Neal's teammates do it? Or just a blatant lack of respect? Regardless of the underlying reason, O'Neal's the last person (along with Harris) who should be made the fall guy should the Lakers drown in their own talent again this year.

We'd love it if Harris borrowed a statement from UCLA coach Steve Lavin and started the five who made the effort to show up for trainer Gary Vitti's improvised practice in the season opener next month. Lakers fans, introducing your starting lineup for the first game of 1999: O'Neal, Fisher, rookie Tyronn Lue, Eddie Jones and Sean Rooks.

Rooks almost didn't make it. He got an earful from O'Neal when he arrived at L.A. Southwest College well past 11 o'clock for a 10 o'clock practice, just in time to lift weights.

``Where were you at?'' O'Neal said in the closest thing we've ever heard to a shriek from The Softspoken One. ``Do you know what time 10 o'clock is?''

O'Neal should have saved his breath for the guys who didn't show at all. The only absent player who had an acceptable excuse was forward Robert Horry, who stayed back in Houston to tend to his ailing 3-year-old daughter, who requires 24-hour medical care.

Fisher and O'Neal tried gamely to give the rest of their AWOL teammates the benefit of the doubt, suggesting that maybe the lockout's end had caught them flatfooted.

But then you ask Fisher how it was he managed to get to the gym on time and he talks about telephoning Lakers executive vice president Jerry West the day after the deal was struck because he figured that where there was an end to the lockout, the beginning of practices couldn't be far behind. Imagine that, a player taking the initiative instead of waiting for an invitation and a chauffeured limousine.

Then there was Lue, who went to great lengths to show he was a gamer. He attended the practice at considerable personal risk, having not yet been signed to a contract by the team. He explained that he wouldn't have missed Monday's workout for anything. Not after waiting practically his whole life for this day to arrive.

``I'm so happy to have been drafted by the Lakers, I just wanted to show the guys I'm willing to do whatever it takes to win,'' said Lue, who looked down, wide-eyed, from his perch halfway up a staircase as Fisher emerged from the L.A. Southwest gymnasium into a spacious hallway and was promptly swallowed by a wave of reporters. With apologies to Jones, who guarded him during a game of 2-on-2, it was the most suffocating spot from which Fisher had to escape all morning.

``The guys who were here, we do feel a little letdown,'' Fisher said. ``There were a couple of older guys who knew about the practice and should have been here. Once the guys learned the deal had been done, you feel like maybe they should have gotten back as fast as they could. It'll be talked about and discussed when we all get together.''

Even if that air-clearing conversation comes as soon as today, the damage already has been done. After all, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

``The first day is always the important day,'' Fisher conceded. ``You want to be ready to go.''

After cooling their heels for 193 days, you wouldn't have thought that would have been a problem.