Jack Nicholson's Diary

I'm tellin' you, I haven't seen ball this bad since we shot the hoops scene in Cuckoo's Nest.

And if you think I'm bad, you ought to see the owner, Jerry Buss. He used to be all tan and teeth. But ever since he fired a coach with nine rings and traded a center with three, he looks like a guy whose Viagra just ran out. He used to always have hot-and-cold-running starlets on each arm. Now you see him with two 53-year-old housewives from Oxnard. You'd think they'd at least take their curlers out.

Turns out Buss never meant to make the Shaq trade. He says he was floating on his yacht off Italy the week it went down. He called Mitch Kupchak, his G.M., and said, "I really want to go younger this year." Mitch thought he meant players. Jerry was talking about dates.

Now he can't get a coach to stay at any price. Rudy Tomjanovich took one look at his starting lineup—featuring Kareem Rush and Luke Walton—and ran like Roman Polanski's nanny. We're on our fourth coach this season: the little-known third Van Gundy brother, Vern.

The only one more depressed than me is Jeannie Buss, Jerry's daughter. Not only did Daddy cut loose her sweetie, Phil Jackson, but now she has to market this cadaver. This is a team that's had two losing seasons since 1977 They've never had to sell tickets before. She has no clue.

Check out the team's marketing slogans so far:

That was Zen, this is now!

Hey, you can still come see the banners!

Park where celebs used to park!

Halftimes blow now too. I mean, I can understand budget cutbacks, but I can't get into these damn Laker Boys. I used to always sneak back to that "private room" at halftime, too, and hang with McEnroe and Springsteen and whoever the coolest people were in the building that night. No more. I checked in there last night and it was just Ryan Seacrest playing solitaire.