1 Los Angeles Lakers

About a week into training camp, Samaki Walker had to sit down and extract his sneaker from his mouth. "I take back my words on the triangle's being easy to learn," he said, wearing a rueful smile. Walker had spent the first few days playing center as Shaquille O'Neal recovered from off-season surgery on his left pinkie toe, but as soon as Walker moved to forward—where he will likely spend most of this season—the intricacies of the offense invented by Lakers assistant Tex Winter (and validated over the years by head coach Phil Jackson) became evident. Then again, Walker isn't used to playing with the Big Bailout, who only returned to the lineup last week. "Shot clock running down, things not going well, dump it into Shaq," says Walker. "That's a pretty good play in any offense. And it's going to be a pretty good play for a long time."

So we get to the essence of these Lakers. Yes, they're well coached, and yes, they have an offensive system that has produced the NBA champion in eight of the last 11 seasons. But mostly what they have is the game's most dominant force, and if that's not enough, they also have Kobe Bryant, who appears ready to become the best player in the game under seven feet and 330 pounds. Yes, it's conceivable that by January, Bryant and O'Neal will be feuding again—quietly or on Page One of the Los Angeles Times—about whose team this really is. (It's Shaq's team, except when double-teaming and poor foul-shooting dictate that it become Kobe's team.) Only after that issue was resolved last season did LA. begin kicking butt and taking names. However, Bryant, now 23, seems much more mature, comfortable and poised, not to mention supremely talented in every phase of the game. "When things go wrong, he's one of the guys to speak up," says Walker, who signed a free-agent contract in the off-season, "and guys listen."

Bryant has become such a leader that he even offered tonsorial advice to O'Neal, who had grown a modest Afro and talked about going with braids. "I told him shaved was his look," says Bryant. "Got to get back to being the Diesel." Sure enough, Shaq sheared it all.

Still, there is a big question as Jackson pursues his third three-peat: Even after making their usual batch of perspicacious moves (adding Walker and guards Mitch Richmond and Lindsey Hunter), did the Lakers suffer a net decline when they chose not to re-sign Horace Grant and Ron Harper? There is a school of thought that all championship teams must tweak their roster the following season to juice things up a bit. Losing two valuable veterans, however, is more than tweaking. "We got excellent players to replace Horace and Harp," says Rick Fox, "but we lose nine rings between them. It's not a question of replacing their leadership. It's a question of replacing their knowledge and experience, knowing what to do in May and June when the margin of error gets small."

Considering the injuries to O'Neal and point guard Derek Fisher (who is not expected to return until mid-November after his second surgery on his right foot) and the adjustment problems of working Richmond, Hunter and Walker into the rotation, the Lakers may start slowly. But that's not unfamiliar territory—last Dec. 13 they were 15-9. "Losing early and showing you can recover is not something you adopt as a goal," says Fox, laughing. "We'd like to get our game together by the 50-game mark." The Lakers' 56-26 record last season represented the lowest win total of any of Jackson's previous seven championship seasons. "The ideal way to win a championship is step-by-step," says Jackson. "You're building, always building. Last year we never took any shortcuts, although we got there eventually. We'd like it not to be as tough this year."

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