Here’s the Book on Shaq: Definitely Hard (to) Cover

See if you can stay with me on this one: Shaquille O’Neal returns better than ever, shows dramatic improvement shooting free throws and single-handedly turns the Lakers into an elite Western team.

Meanwhile, Dennis Rodman and Wilt Chamberlain rip him in their latest books and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar zings him in a magazine piece.

It’s obviously a trend. Shaq bashing is such a staple of the publishing biz, famous authors may start picking it up next.

Here’s what the bestseller list could look like by next season:

1. SHAQ PARK, Michael Crichton. Foolhardy general manager clones the mightiest force in basketball, only to see his creations chasing the customers up the aisles.

2. A TIME TO RAP, John Grisham. Crusading attorney in tiny Mississippi town defends visiting Los Angeles multimedia star charged with violating local noise pollution ordinance.

3. THE LAST COACH, Mario Puzo. O’Neal crime family is suspected when vest belonging to missing coach Brian Hill is found with a fish wrapped in it.

4. SHAQ PALISADES, Jackie Collins. Novelization of risque sitcom (on Fox, where else?) chronicles amorous adventures of large home-wrecker in affluent California community.

5. BONFIRE OF THE INANITIES, Tom Wolfe. Famed satirist casts jaundiced eye at commercialism, manifest in autobiography of basketball star, published when he is 21.

By now, you wouldn’t think it was necessary to note O’Neal is getting a bad deal.

If Shaq cared, which Wilt questions, he couldn’t play much better than he is in this series against the Portland Trail Blazers, in which he’s averaging 35 points.

If O’Neal doesn’t have a rolling hook, like the one Abdul-Jabbar says he’s willing to teach him, he does all right with that jump hook he refined under Pete Newell.

Rodman’s complaint is, of course, absurd on its face. Imagine being called a “whore” by a man who wears wedding dresses to book signings and has a World Wrestling Federation hookup.

For the Lakers, it would be better if everyone was as star struck and uncoachable as O’Neal is supposed to be.

At the moment, they look more like the team of some unspecified future than a champion. Their guards are psychologically fragile. We have yet to see the old Robert Horry in purple and gold. The new, improved Elden Campbell still mails it in some nights.

Meanwhile, there’s O’Neal, playing his heart out as the Trail Blazers roll up a 31-point lead in Game 3.

Suggestion for the other 11 Lakers: Whatever O’Neal is doing wrong, you do it too.

OOPS: PARLOR TRICK RUINS SUPERSONICS’ WEEK

What can I say about the Phoenix Suns and Orlando Magic, except I’m sorry for sneering at you, which was only a warmup for what I had planned next.

After their first-round eliminations, I was going to call the Suns’ three-and-four-guard lineups “Danny Ainge’s parlor trick,” and speculate upon the Magic’s breakup.

Instead, the seventh-seeded teams forced the heavily favored Miami Heat and Seattle SuperSonics to Game 5s, playing thrilling, open-court, up-and-down basketball of a kind we had forgotten existed.

The key matchup in the Sun-SuperSonic series pitted 6-foot-10 Detlef Schrempf against 6-3 Rex Chapman, a shooting guard who never used to shoot well enough, playing for his fourth team in six seasons, on a minimum $247,500 contract.

As expected, it was no contest, except the other way around. After four games, it was Chapman 105, Schrempf 64.

Included was Chapman’s 42-point explosion in Game 1 and his three-point running throw while flying out of bounds in the final seconds of regulation that tied Game 4.

“When that went in,” said Seattle’s George Karl, “I thought the basketball gods were against us. I couldn’t believe it.”

Who could?

OOPS II: ANGRY SMURFS MESS UP RILEY’S SCHEDULE

Try this for a turnaround: The Heat rolls up a 37-point lead in Game 1 and wins by 35. It rolls up a 32-point lead in Game 2 and wins by 17.

The series moves to Orlando for Game 3 amid ominous signs. Injured Horace Grant rips the Magic medical staff for misdiagnosing his knee injury.

Penny Hardaway does another chorus of how the Orlando press mistreats him [“There’ve been a few good articles, but the bad have been far more harmful than the good articles. . . . A lot of the media don’t give me the respect I deserve”] and suggests he may leave too, when he’s a free agent in 1999.

“If I look at the situation,” Hardaway says, “and we still have the same team, with the same players and we’re still doing the same thing, then of course, the thought in my head will be, ‘Man, do you really want to be here, to continue to go through with this?’ ”

That’s the polite version. As far back as last summer, Hardaway was telling friends if O’Neal left, he was next.

Even Heat Coach Pat Riley, who thinks his team can challenge the Chicago Bulls, gets carried away, noting the problem in Game 3 will be “human nature.”

The Heat storms to a 39-19 lead while Magic fans boo--and starting center Rony Seikaly leaves because of a broken bone in his foot.

The Magic, with only Danny Schayes and Derek Strong for big men, has to go small. Little-known water bug Darrell Armstrong takes over at the point and Hardaway, moving to shooting guard, goes for 42 as the Magic storms back to win.

In Game 4, Hardaway gets 41 and the little Magicians win again.

Game 5 is today. The Heat, still favored, is no longer talking about “human nature.”

There’s one more thing to say to the Suns and Magic: Thanks, we needed that.

NAMES AND NUMBERS

The Rick Pitino-Larry Brown-Larry Bird sweepstakes is getting weird. Pitino is back talking to the Boston Celtics, where M.L. Carr just stepped down as coach. Pitino is also talking to the Philadelphia 76ers and Magic. Brown, having just resigned from the Indiana Pacers, is talking to the Celtics and 76ers. Bird is talking to the Pacers. At this point, anyone could wind up anywhere. . . . Adversity, it shows who you really are: Christian Laettner, thought to have grown up at last, railed at the press demands of the postseason, adding, “Dikembe [Mutombo] feels the same way.” Mutombo continued discharging his obligations graciously as ever, while Laettner ducked out after games. . . . More unlikely heroes: Washington’s roly-poly Tracy Murray, who had his greatest moment as a pro, averaging 18.3 points off the bench; Detroit’s Lindsey Hunter, who outscored Atlanta Hawk star Mookie Blaylock, 48-36; Phoenix’s Wesley Person, who averaged 13 points off the bench and had back-to-back 10-rebound games. . . . Golden State Warrior Coach Rick Adelman, a nice guy in an impossible job, was fired after two seasons of trying to reassemble what blew up under Don Nelson, while everyone ran for cover. “The only thing I haven’t been accused of the last six weeks in the Bay Area is starting the plague,” Adelman said. “I couldn’t mend the fence with Rony [Seikaly, who forced a trade to Orlando]. He didn’t like the players, he was uncomfortable here, he didn’t want to come back. I’m tired of hearing the [Tim] Hardaway thing. He was coming back off of a season in which he had knee surgery and he was 20 pounds overweight. He wasn’t getting along with a lot of people and didn’t want to be here. Pat Riley has done a great job with him, but I don’t think anybody was too sold on him when we traded him.”

First on the Warriors’ list: Chicago’s Phil Jackson. They have asked for permission to speak to him. . . . The Bulls swept the Washington Bullets, but it wasn’t the usual light-hearted first-round romp. Michael Jordan had to put his teammates on his shoulders early, scoring 30 of their 49 points in the fourth quarters of Games 2 and 3. “What’s so frustrating is not only does he go by three defenders, but he seems to be the only one doing anything,” Chris Webber said. “Not only does he get the points but he seems to be the sole reason they won.” Comment: No kidding.

Rodman, playing with a brace on his injured knee, averaged 9.7 rebounds in 40 minutes a game, two-thirds his normal average. Said Rodman, arriving 45 minutes late for Game 1: “I’m about 70%. They’re making me play.” . . . Counting down to the end of his Bull career, or go, clock, go: Rodman got two technicals and was ejected in Game 1. In Game 2, he ripped off his knee brace just before halftime as he went to the bench and slammed it into the row of--yes!--photographers on the baseline. It hit Phil Velasquez of the Chicago Sun-Times, prompting his colleagues to chant, “Sue him! Sue him!” In Game 3, Rodman hit Gheorghe Muresan behind the head with an elbow but got away with a technical foul. . . . Commissioner David Stern, after attending rare playoff games in Minnesota, Washington and the Sports Arena, all losses by the home team: “I keep coming to say hello and end up saying goodbye, instead.”