Lakers actually getting along

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EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- The Los Angeles Lakers are back among the NBA's elite, competing in a Western Conference final just like the old days, and the old days before that, and the old days before that.But it feels like something is missing. Hmm, what could it be?Let's see, do they have an MVP in their midst? Check.Is there another complementary all-star or two on the team? Check.Do they have an iconic self-assured, lesson-spinning coach leading them? Check.Are they playing an entertaining style that tickles the fancy of its Hollywood audience? Check.Do they have a soap opera-back story of feuds, jealousy and rebellion? Uh ... well, no. That's it!The Lakers are not only playing at a championship caliber level, and raising the expectations of their enormous Southern California fan base, they actually get along with each other.Playing time isn't an issue, nor is anyone's contract. The team doesn't need two or three balls to feed large egos. Everyone seems happy in his role. The coach isn't at odds with a star player. No one is demanding a trade or threatening to leave first chance he gets.So who absconded with the drama kings of the NBA? These aren't the Lakers, they're the "Teletubbies.'' You expect them to finish off practice blurting, "Big hug!"The last time the Lakers made it this far in 2004, one guy wanted the ball more, one guy wanted his contract extended, one guy complained the offense didn't fit his game, the coach was secretly meeting before the biggest game of the year in a closet-sized room with selected players, and you felt sorry for the guy who assigned the seats on the charter plane.Monday night the current group of best buddies planned another dinner gathering at a restaurant -- for the third time in the past couple of weeks -- to see San Antonio defeat New Orleans and earn a date with the Lakers on Wednesday night in the opener of the West finals."We're a close group anyway," said forward Lamar Odom, suggesting after Monday's practice that watching the Spurs-Hornets was just a good excuse for them all to spend more time together. "It'll be good to be amongst each other, enjoying each other's company, and scout the other teams."It's different, for sure.Surely no one would have believed it could be like this a year ago. That's when the theater company's leading man, Kobe Bryant, began ripping the organization, dismissing teammates, criticizing the bosses, and seeking the trade that never came.When the team reconvened in October, even with the same old cast of characters, Bryant still seemed like a 50-50 Laker, but at least he had the good sense to shoo the storm clouds away.Then it got better. And better. And pretty soon it was darn near perfect. Not only was the team winning, but it also was doing it without the Issues -- the personality clashes and ego fender-benders that have been part of the landscape here dating to Wilt Chamberlain's days with Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, through Magic Johnson's displeasure with Paul Westhead, through the golden griping years of the Shaquille O'Neal-Kobe Bryant era, which seemed like one great big, endless crisis -- with three timeouts to win titles, of course.Last week in Utah, veteran point guard Derek Fisher reflected on this happy-go-lucky season, the lack of friction, and the contrast with some of those previous incendiary Lakers teams he played on from 1996-2004."We're just a group of guys continuing to learn and get better, and to know each other," he said. "All teams have their moments -- guys who want to play more, guys who want the ball more. But we don't have all those heavy things going on here, like whether guys really want to be here or not. Whether guys are in their free-agent years and are feeling that kind of pressure to perform for themselves. It's just not like that."It may be hard to imagine such harmony in LakerLand, where squabbles, grumbling and insults have been as much of a Lakers art form as the high level of basketball usually played by the teams here.Someone half-jokingly asked Fisher if he thought the Lakers' new family atmosphere was almost "weird," that perhaps the team needed some of that extra-curricular edginess.He replied with the half-smile of a guy who has seen enough of the drama to last more than a basketball lifetime."No," he said. "It gives me confidence. It makes me think we can win it."But who'd ever have thought it might end "happily ever after" -- and be true.(Contact Gregg Patton at gpatton@PE.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)