Michael Ventre

LOS ANGELES - Norm Chow is not good for 20 points and 10 rebounds a night. He is not over seven feet tall and does not weight more than 300 pounds. Yet he could just be Shaquille O’Neal.

Pete Carroll did not give his wife a $4 million ring. He is not battling a civil suit over an alleged sexual assault. And by all accounts he is only an average basketball player. Yet he could just be Kobe Bryant.

What the USC football team, and the city of Los Angeles, could have on their hands right now is another Kobe-Shaq situation.

If you have been hiding in an Iraqi spider hole for the past several months, I’ll refresh your memory: The Lakers broke up their team, sending Shaq to Miami, and Kobe was held largely responsible. Whether directly or indirectly, Kobe was perceived as exercising his ego and power to turn the Lakers’ organization into his own fiefdom.

Check out the standings, and the Lakers’ recent box scores, and you’ll get an idea of how that transition is turning out.

By the looks of things, Carroll may be pulling the same stunt at USC, although this divorce has been shrewdly camouflaged by both sides. Perhaps both Carroll and Chow saw the aftermath of the Kobe-Shaq acrimony and realized it would behoove both sides to put a happy face on the dissolution of their relationship.

Also, Carroll has a huge advantage over Kobe: He made sure his roster was packed with talent for the post-Chow era. Kobe left himself with leftovers. Cold leftovers.

But Carroll has created a perception problem similar to the one generated by Kobe. Chow, who left Wednesday to take the job of offensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans at almost double his salary, is widely regarded as an offensive Einstein. Give him enough time to prepare, and he will leave an opposing defense sobbing. He has coached three Heisman Trophy quarterbacks, two — Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart — during his four years at USC.

Carroll should have figured out a way to keep him.

Apparently, he didn’t want to.

The persistent word around USC is that Carroll and Chow have grown irritated with each other, for the usual reasons: jealousy, power, credit, ego. Both men are too savvy and respectful of their profession to air their grievances publicly, hence the denials all around about a rift. Yet the whispers have turned into a cacophony in recent days, especially after it was reported that Carroll was mulling some changes to his coaching staff that would diminish Chow’s influence. Despite their public stances on the issue, the chatter is impossible to ignore.

So what’s next for college football’s Kobe and Shaq?

First, Shaq.

Chow probably will have success in the NFL. This isn’t Paul Hackett, a nutty professor with no people skills. The Titans will love him, and he will do everything necessary to adapt his philosophies to the professional ranks.

Carroll is the Kobe in this equation, and thus will have a much more difficult time. He will have no problem making USC fans forget Norm Chow — as long as he leads the Trojans to another perfect season and an unprecedented third straight national title. Anything short of that will invite catcalls and chants of “We Want Norm!”

Make no mistake, Carroll is a genius in his own right. He is the best coach in college football. He is the primary reason the USC program has returned to its former glory. But his first major miscalculation is allowing his partnership with Chow to disintegrate.

It would have been fine if the two were lovey-dovey — like Bill Belichick and Charlie Weis — but a better situation came along that was impossible for Chow to turn down. That wasn’t the case here. Although Chow had been looking, he wanted a head-coaching position in the college ranks. He did not want to leave L.A., where his family was happy, to take an assistant’s job in Tennessee in order to avoid an unpleasant reduction of duties at USC.

What’s done is done, as they say, so now Carroll turns the Trojans’ high-octane offense over to one or both of these men: Lane Kiffin, USC’s 29-year-old receivers’ coach and passing game coordinator, and Steve Sarkisian, 30, a former Chow protégé who served as USC’s quarterbacks coach before leaving to spend last season with the Oakland Raiders in a similar capacity.