Michael Ventre

It is accepted wisdom that championship teams looking to repeat will slog, crawl and slink through the 82-game regular season before suddenly awakening like miracle coma victims when the postseason begins. It happens so often that it almost is looked upon as an entitlement. It is as common in professional sports as ink on skin.

But there are varying degrees of it. There are accepted limits of apathy, understandable amounts of ennui. And in this regard, the Los Angeles Lakers are blazing new frontiers. They are mailing it in at a bulk rate.

The Lakers have lost three of their past four games and four of their past six. Their record isn’t cringe-inducing; at 55-22, they’ll surely wind up with the No. 1 seed in the West, and although there are clubs in the conference who could give them a series — remember, it took them seven games to dismiss the Rockets in the Western semis last year — it appears likely they’ll advance to the NBA Finals again.

But this is about repeating as champions. Right now, the Lakers seem to be using the paragraph before this one as a rationale for playing poorly. They appear to believe the old saw that they can “flip the switch,” but recent performances suggest they’re too lazy to even do that and would rather just use the Clapper.

This doesn’t bode well for a repeat, no matter how talented and experienced they are. They have a bad case of fatcat-itis, and they don’t seem to have a remedy handy as they prepare to play the Nuggets Thursday in Denver.

Some of the current problem has to do with Andrew Bynum’s injury. He has a strained Achilles’ tendon, has missed the past eight games, and there is no timetable for his return, although he should be back for the start of the playoffs. In his absence, Lamar Odom has joined the starting five, which means he isn’t coming off the bench, which means the second unit no longer has a leader and catalyst. As a result, the reserves have been disoriented and woeful.

Although Bynum’s absence has hurt, he often had trouble coexisting with Pau Gasol on the front line when they were on the same floor together. Bynum is a mixed bag: When he’s active, he’s a valuable shot-blocker and rebounder, and he has a deft shooting touch around the hoop. When he’s confused — which is half the time, it seems — he’s not much help.

Yet the sluggish nature of their drive to a repeat can’t be explained away with one missing player. There is something deeper going on.

Slideshow   Main attraction A look at the highs and lows of Lakers guard Kobe Bryant's career.

It could be that Phil Jackson just isn’t reaching the boys anymore. Just about every coach has a lifespan with one team, and when players begin to hear him more as background noise than a voice summoning them to action, it might signal the end of the reign.

Jackson probably knows that as well as anyone. He’s dropped a few hints about his future with the Lakers by suggesting that it will hinge on how this team performs the rest of the way. That might be his last-gasp effort to spark a flame in this desultory group. So far, not so good. Against San Antonio on Sunday, they looked like they were trying to put basketballs through Eva Longoria’s hoop earrings.

The other problem is Kobe Bryant. He just signed a three-year contract extension, so the love is there. And so is the will to win. And so is the sore index finger on his shooting hand.

Bryant’s numbers are, for the most part, comparable to previous seasons. He is averaging 27 points a game. Yet his 3-point shooting percentage (.325) is the worst since 2002, and his free-throw shooting percentage (.814), while still the envy of many of the league’s charity cases, is the worst of his career. That suggests his marksmanship from both the arc and the stripe are off just enough to make a difference.

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He still achieves amazing feats, just not as often. If you combine a Kobe Bryant who is a little askew with a team that depends on him for leadership, you have a slight problem, especially when no one Laker — Gasol, Odom, Derek Fisher, the inimitable Ron Artest — has stepped up consistently to declare himself second-in-command.