A Split End?

The Band had “The Last Waltz,” Marlon Brando had “Last Tango in Paris,” and when Phil Jackson knew his time with the Bulls was ending, he designated the dynasty’s final season as its “last dance in Chicago.”

Now, “Last Boogie in Lakerdom”?

Hoping to prolong the run, Jackson doesn’t joke about the end of this era. Nor is it a laughing matter in the Laker organization, poised at the precipice of this one.

Of course, this being the season when anything that could blow up did blow up, the organization is dangling Jackson too. It not only broke off contract talks with the man who’d held their three-ring circus together but announced it in a curious decision that suggested owner Jerry Buss’ impatience.

The regular season was a disappointment for the so-called greatest collection of talent ever assembled, which the Lakers blamed on injuries.

That was wishful thinking. Injuries heal.

The reality was a team split on the issue of Kobe Bryant’s free agency and his teammates’ belief that he would leave. Despite Jackson’s pleas to live in the present, teammates began disinvesting in Bryant, and vice versa, from day one.

The situation became a cannon pointed at Bryant, who was closely scrutinized. Meanwhile, Shaquille O’Neal got the usual benefit of the doubt, because he was staying.

The media, which tends to reflect the collective attitudes of players, coaches and fans, focused on Bryant, according to his value to the team. If he was staying, that was good. If he was leaving, he was an ingrate.

Once, Bryant might have been able to handle it. Even if he was always testing his limits, embarking on adventures, like his season-long feud with O’Neal in 2000-01, he always found his way back in time. Not this time.

Now his career was the least of his problems. He was under immense pressure, going through changes from one end of his life to the other and prone to lashing out, anything but the poised golden child he’d been.

Even the Lakers’ best times were wild. Their 11-0 run started with a string of listless performances, including an overtime win over out-manned Milwaukee, after which Jackson asked them why they thought they weren’t playing better.

Answered Bryant, “Your ... rotations.”

No, Jackson responded, taken aback, that wasn’t it.

O’Neal then complained to the media about Jackson’s eccentric substitutions too.

Amazingly, they then blew out the Sacramento Kings and ran over the Minnesota Timberwolves, going to a new level with such devastating ease, all who saw them threw up their hands, once more.

But the Lakers were still distracted and none more than Bryant, who suddenly turned from brilliant, teammate-involving, game-dominating star to the self-involved player who took 49 shots and missed 35 in losses to the San Antonio Spurs and Portland Trail Blazers.

This led to the pratfall de resistance, last week’s rollover in Sacramento, an effort so lame, it seemed to herald the end of the Shaq-Kobe era.

Bryant was pilloried for taking one shot in the first half while the Kings ran up a 19-point lead. The media suggested that he’d been making a point, tanking or even staking out a bargaining position with Buss.

As far as Bryant was concerned, he proved long ago what a gamer he was and was now just giving the ball up to make teammates better, as everyone was urging him to.

Of course, even people close to Bryant use words like “stubborn” and “dogmatic” to describe him, so even if the plan wasn’t working, it wasn’t surprising he stuck with it. A friend concedes the word “pout” may also have applied.

Making a point, or pouting, would be one thing, hardly commendable but not unheard of among great stars. In similar circumstances, Michael Jordan once took eight shots -- to Bryant’s 13 at Sacramento -- in a Chicago Bull playoff loss to the Detroit Pistons.

Tanking -- deliberately losing -- or giving a game away to make a negotiating point would be much worse, but at this point, Bryant gets the traitor treatment.

For all his gifts, Bryant has blind spots. He’s capable of great miscalculations. His self-belief is so total, he can’t imagine that someone might not be following along.

He’s so oblivious to the people around him, he was blindsided by the post-Sacramento furor and went wild when a teammate, who didn’t want his name used, told The Times’ Tim Brown, “I don’t know how we can forgive him.”

The aftermath shook even the turmoil-hardened Lakers.

Bryant polled teammates Tuesday morning in a raging, cursing performance, described by a Laker official as “a meltdown.”

The truth is, any player might have said it, since they’re all skeptical of Bryant’s motives. Off-the-record criticism of Bryant has been a constant theme, which was under-reported rather than over-reported, because no one would go on the record.

This was a problem for the press corps, which was caught in the middle and erred, responsibly enough, on the conservative side.

It only looked like a basketball season. In real life, it was your basic nightmare, all around. At the All-Star game, a colleague said the usual thing to the buttoned-down Laker general manager, Mitch Kupchak -- he was sure Mitch would be happy when the busy weekend was over.

Said Kupchak glumly, “I’ll be glad when this season is over.”

Not that the Lakers’ future may ever seem as bright and as sure again as it had since the dawn of the Shaq-Kobe era in 1996.

The Lakers are now faced with the possibility, or likelihood, that Bryant will leave ... with O’Neal a year away from being able to opt out too.

They’ll offer O’Neal a three-year extension for about $75 million through 2009, when he’ll be 37 ... with no assurance he’ll play all of those seasons.

In any event, he won’t be the same then as he is now ... and Laker officials concede that he isn’t the same now as he was in 2000, when their title run started and he missed being the first unanimous MVP by one vote.

If he’s still the NBA’s most dominating player -- that’s how far ahead of the pack he was in 2000 -- he hasn’t been in the MVP running in the four seasons since.

Instead, there was a downward spiral with O’Neal’s weight leading to injuries, which made it hard to work out enough to control his weight, leading to more injuries.

Now in the best shape he’s been in since 2000, O’Neal still isn’t that Shaq, occasionally even resorting to finesse shots and rolling hooks because he doesn’t have the old explosiveness.

If his play took off in that 11-game winning streak, O’Neal’s performance in the losses to the Kings, Spurs and Trail Blazers, in which he averaged 15 points and nine rebounds, was uninspired too, to say the least.

Insiders said he was moping because he wasn’t getting the ball (which, of course, went back to Bryant), or because he’d picked up two quick fouls on Vlade Divac flops.

Of course, O’Neal came back in the second quarter and began reaching in on every driving King. He got away with knocking the ball out of Chris Webber’s hands but was then called for a swipe against Anthony Peeler, putting him back in foul trouble.

According to the new dynamic -- He’s still our guy! -- O’Neal’s struggles were perfunctorily reported and little commented upon.

In real life, for better or worse, this actually is Bryant’s team now.

Everyone else is just along for the ride, as suggested in last week’s win over Memphis when Bryant threw a pass off the backboard to himself and laid it in. Gary Payton was so excited, going in alone moments later, he lobbed the ball off the board so Bryant, coming up behind him, could jam it.

Since they were behind by 13 when this started, it might have been a little early for showtime.

The Lakers have known dysfunction but nothing like this, in which everyone defers to Bryant and then complains about him, but only behind his back.

Sometimes, as in Sacramento, he deserves it, or some part of it. Sometimes, like Tuesday’s victory over the Golden State Warriors, in which he had 45 points but also seven rebounds and eight assists, they could cut him some slack.

Of course, that would assume they have any slack left in them, or any hope of winning a title.

Instead, teammates did another one of their group eye rolls after the Golden State game, which suggested that rather than pulling together, a wide, new rift had reopened just in time for the playoffs!

O’Neal, playful but pointed in his comments or the lack of them, was asked if he could live with this version of Bryant.

“I don’t speak Spanish,” he replied, “I’m sorry.”

Someone else asked something in the same vein.

“Two plus two equals four,” said O’Neal. “That’s correct.”

The next night, Bryant pulled off his season-ending double miracle at Portland, the duck-under-Ruben-Patterson-the-Kobe-killer three-pointer that tied it at the end of regulation and the moonball three over Theo Ratliff that won it at the end of the second overtime.

Even his teammates were impressed. O’Neal, speaking English, called him “a courageous little brother.”

Winning cures all ills, even among the Lakers.

Nevertheless, there’s another fundamental, like two plus two, they may be reminded of, win, lose or draw:

Nothing is forever.