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So even in the lazy summer of a sleepy July, Laker fans ask me: Why didn’t the team re-sign Ronny Turiaf?

He’s French.  He’s fun.  He’s got a big heart, a great smile, real cool hair.  And he plays with such flair and passion, which is how you say it en Francais ou Anglais. But it always sounds better in French:

Passion.

The official answers:

1) $17 million was a luxury item for deep bench backup on a long and crowded front line.

2) At 25, feeling restricted in more ways than one, Ronny himself wanted to go where he could play extended minutes. So he ended up at Golden State, where the frontcourt was lighter than Richard Simmons.

I totally buy #2. Ronny is young and he wants to run. Like a thoroughbred, he needed to get out of the barn.

It’s #1 that I would now like to address:
First, trust me, whether they exceed the salary cap and pay the luxury tax or not, $17 million should be nickels and dimes to the Lakers. More important, Ronny wasn’t just a luxury coming off the bench. He infused energy and life and laughter and a joie de vivre that is more of an intangible to successful team chemistry than most people realize. Plus, are the Lakers so cocksure that Andrew Bynum is coming back 100% physically sound?

Wasn’t $17 million a reasonably conservative price to pay for a quality frontcourt insurance policy in the person of a player his teammates just loved? Didn’t Turiaf seem like exactly the kind of kid you want on a championship team?

Which brings me to the real money point in the column, the luxury tax.

Now I’ll admit, I don’t know any more about the Lakers’ actual finances than you do. Which is to say, all of us know nothing at all.

Ahh, but I was there in 1978 when Jerry Buss bought the whole shooting match from Jack Kent Cooke–that’s the Lakers, hockey Kings and the Fabulous Forum for $38 million, chump change by today’s standards. The Steal of the Century.

Today, Forbes estimates the Lakers are worth about $600 million. If Hollywood’s team ever went up for sale on the open market, I bet they’d fetch even more.

So, if “Doctor J” Jerry Buss bought the team for $38 mil, and it’s now worth $600, AND the team is currently profitable, AND the other Laker owner, Phillip Anschutz, is said to be worth $7.8 billion (yes, the “B” word). Why in the name of Jack Benny would the Lakers ever, and I mean ever, use the luxury tax as an excuse, much less cry about it in the papers?

Luxury tax? For the Lakers?

Luxury tax for a team whose sushi roll at Staples Center costs the same as a four door KIA with leather seats?

In the big financial Laker picture, the luxury tax for Ronny Turiaf would have amounted to the equivalent of the cost of a French Vanilla Latte and one butter croissant. A few Euros.

Fair to ask, has George Steinbrenner ever once chosen the cheapskate route for the Yankees, baseball’s gold standard?

So why would the Lakers’ front office ever cry poor, especially when Buss has Daddy Warbucks Anschutz as a partner?

I’m not trying to fritter away John, Jim and Jeanie’s family fortune, nor am I telling the Lakers how to spend it; Me, I would have re-signed Turiaf. I’m not sold on Bynum’s comeback until I see him play the first 40 games healthy. The Lakers felt otherwise. It’s their money.

That said, I’m pretty sure the words “Lakers” and “luxury tax” should never be used in the same sentence.

Memo: You are the freaking Lakers, not the Atlanta Hawks.

If Donald Sterling is throwing many tens of millions at Baron Davis, Marcus Camby and somebody named Kelenna Azubuike, should the Lakers, waaah, waaah, stoop to play the “luxury tax” card?

Luxury tax and Lakers?

Reminds me of other famous oxymorons, like “Iraq” and “Mission Accomplished.”

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Wasn’t it great to see Greg Norman score one for both the PGA and the AARP?

For anyone 53 to almost win the British Open under those crazy conditions, that’s a special feat.

It either shows what a physical specimen he still is at 53. Or it proves that golf without Tiger blows as hard as the wind at Royal Birkdale. Maybe both.

It was still neat to see a 50-something newlywed nearly become the oldest man to win a golf major, just like Larry King is the oldest man to host a talk show.

One more backstory to Norman stormin’ over in England: That Sunday fade. Man, that guy can fade better than a Lee Trevino 3-iron.

Once again, whether he’s 33 or 53, the old Shark knew only one way to play: Pull out the big-boy driver, grip it and rip it, let it fly. Neanderthal golf.

Norman must hit driver on the windmill hole at miniature golf.

Let’s see: The fairway’s only six inches wide and there are pot bunkers the size of Death Valley all over the place? I know, mate. Crikey, I’ll hit driver!

Can you imagine how many more majors Norman might have won if he had the steely resolve, the belief in self, the focused and confident athletic mind of his new bride, Chris Evert? Heck, he’d have won two more if he just played smart.

Instead, someone said the word “Sunday” and he was probably choking on his cornflakes before he got to the first tee. Cereal, he was eating, by the way, with his driver.

This time, though, he gets a free pass for being old, just like that suspenders guy on CNN.

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During baseball season, most local TV stations lead with the Dodgers. The Times, by and large, tends to be a little more evenhanded about it, especially when the Angels are good and the Dodgers aren’t, which has mostly been the case since Mike Piazza left town, or since Tommy Lasorda could see his belt buckle. At this point, I can’t remember which came first.

I believe the thinking goes, the Dodgers are L.A., the Angels are the OC, the Dodgers have the richer, more chronicled and mainstream history, and so the Dodgers deserve top billing.

I mean, they’re the team of Jackie Robinson. The Dodgers had Sandy Koufax, the Angels answered with Bo Belinksy. Make mine a double.

But with the best record in baseball, having just swept away the world champion Red Sox like they were an annoying gnat, you must say this for the Halos:

They’re the best second banana since Ed McMahon.

Ho-ohhhhhhhhh!

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I’m proud to have written most of a column without mentioning Andruw Jones’ batting average.

Hey, speaking of a buck-60, did you know Americans were paying an average of $1.60 per gallon of gas as recently as just five years ago, in 2003?

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I call it “The List of People You Wish Would Just Go Away.” The ones whose 15 minutes are up. Way up. The people whose very faces make you cringe every awful time their mugs pop up on TV. Jesse Jackson. Gloria Allred. O.J. Simpson. Barry Bonds. Roger Clemens. Britney Spears.

The ones where their faces appear and you pray to God that a lightning storm takes out the cable in your whole neighborhood?

Tell me, is Brett Favre making a play for The List?

Or would it be cool if the geezer stuck it to the ‘Pack and starred for some other NFL team in 2008?

I think this is one of those times when both answers are correct.

Ted Green is Senior Sports Producer for KTLA Prime News and a former sportswriter for the L.A. Times and National Sports Daily

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