PORTLAND, Ore. -- We have seen the future, and it is the past.

	Would you pay to see Shaq drive around the ever-expanding Shawn Kemp?

This Shawn Kemp, the one the Portland Trail Blazers have in 2000? Forget it. Too much ground to make up. Or too much ground round.

Shaquille O'Neal rolled through Kemp, and Dale Davis and Will Perdue, Tuesday night at the Rose Garden, needing 48 minutes to lay waste to five months of Trail Blazer planning on how to counter him. Actually Shaq needed about 24 minutes, by which time he had 24 points and Kemp had three fouls in four minutes, Davis had three fouls in 14 minutes, Perdue lasted two minutes and Antonio Harvey had three fouls in four minutes. Hugh Evans almost slapped a couple on Arvydas Sabonis just on principle, and Sabonis was in street clothes.

There was no answer for O'Neal, except for the obvious:

That there is no answer for O'Neal.

This normally doesn't rate much in the news department, except that the Trail Blazers had supposedly come loaded for bear. They signed big men in the summer. They traded for big men. They even traded for a very big man. And still nothing.

"It's just their organization paying homage to my game," O'Neal proudly announced.

It hurt that Sabonis was out, recuperating from knee surgery, for he is 7-3 and would also have made O'Neal expend more energy on defense, drawing Shaq out to the 3-point line and hurting the Lakers with his passing. It hurt that Scottie Pippen was out, lasting only the first seven minutes before spraining an ankle, because he would have been a great help on the double teams. But nothing hurt as much as the sight of Kemp.

Every center has had their butt kicked by O'Neal. It's just that Kemp may be the first to get both kicked the same night. Rim shot, please. The guy has heard them all by now, every comment about how the Trail Blazers will weight and see how this trade works out. About how some now refer to him as Puff Daddy, because of the two off-the-court activities that have brought him bad publicity. How he's now Shawn Klump, after the hefty Eddie Murphy movie character. We're here all week! Don't forget to tip your waitress!

Old stuff. What's changed is that it is critical now because Kemp is the X-factor for the Trail Blazers. They know what they're going to get from Sabonis, health problems and all. Same with Davis, a hard hat and an All-Star last season in Indiana. Perdue, too.

But Kemp is different. Rather, Kemp could be the difference. That's why he gets extra scrutiny -- that and the little matter of drawing $70 million the next four seasons. Good thing Paul Allen owns all four railroads and just put another hotel on Marvin Gardens.

Portland needs him to have a positive impact. In other words, not like opening night. Twelve minutes in relief, two rebounds, seven misses in nine shots, and as many fouls (four) as points. (Forget what Kemp did to a Phoenix team without a center in Game 2, Thursday night. Chris Dudley is no Shaq. And note that despite Kemp's 21 points in 30 minutes, his team still lost by 26.)

To anyone inside the Rose Garden, getting a playoff flashback as the Lakers again outplayed their beloved Blazers in the fourth quarter, there was no sign that would happen. Barring some unexpected development, like considerable weight loss, it won't. They needed help inside; they got a project.

Obviously, all the blame doesn't go on Kemp's, uh, plate. The defense from most everyone was soft. The double teams were late. The injuries were costly. But that doesn't change the fact. As early-season barometers go, a summer of raiding the Big & Tall shops of the nation had offered no reason for Blazermaniacs to think an antidote has been discovered.

That it's unfolding in Portland also sets Kemp apart. The Pacific Northwest, that's where he burst onto the scene as a man-child in the fall of '89, an awesome talent running the court to throw down halfcourt lobs from Gary Payton and terrorizing opponents inside, all the worse that it came with the promise of another dozen or so years of that. The 1996 Finals seemed like only the start of something big. We mean his career.

He's still young, a few weeks away from turning 31. This could have been a much-needed new start, as much as he says he liked Cleveland. His attitude has been great. He has been very coachable. He has worked hard -- Mike Dunleavy said Kemp has already dropped 15 pounds since being acquired Aug. 30 as part of the three-team trade that also included Brian Grant going to the Heat and Clarence Weatherspoon and Chris Gatling going to the Cavaliers. (But what deal anymore doesn't include Gatling?)

Problem is, the Blazers got the recent past, instead of the Rain Man. In Cleveland, he led the league in disqualifications his first season and in total fouls his third, and last. So it wasn't just O'Neal in the opener -- Kemp has little mobility in the heavy legs, so he must reach and lean instead of move, just as he can't explode to the rim when he has the ball. Sadly, these are not one-liners.

They can at least hope to have gotten the other part of Kemp's Cleveland days. For all the talk, deservedly, about conditioning, he rarely missed games, missing only 10 of a possible 214 outings in the three seasons, including the lockout shortened 1998-99. Give him that much.

What that's worth in this setting, with championships and slowing the superstar centers and power forwards of the West requiring peak performance, is another matter. He showed the Trail Blazers can't expect much from him right away. How about by the All-Star break? By the playoffs?

Ever?

Scott Howard-Cooper covers the NBA for the Sacramento Bee and is a new regular contributor to ESPN.com.