Before the NBA playoffs begin, a little pop quiz:

Q: What do Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and LeBron James have in common with Michael Jordan, Karl Malone and Phil Jackson?

A: The closest they’ll get to this year’s postseason is watching on TV.

After a season of chaos and change, the NBA playoffs will begin this weekend without a target team for everyone to take aim at.

Remember not so long ago when this time of year revolved around the Los Angeles Lakers? They’re as gone as the two-handed set shot.

Shaquille O’Neal is still around, the massive centerpiece of another top team. But he’s wearing red and black these days, playing for the Miami Heat and taking every available opportunity to remind people what fools the Lakers were for trading him away.

Gary Payton is still kicking, too, with the Boston Celtics, one year removed from the failed project of pairing himself with Shaq, Kobe and Malone on a dysfunctional Lakers team that was stunned by Detroit in the championship round.

The Pistons are still here, too, by the way. And yes, there’s speculation swirling around coach Larry Brown’s future in Detroit. Some things never change.

But with the postseason beginning Saturday, and with the casual fan not all that cognizant of the fact that the Phoenix Suns finished with the league’s best record, the 2005 playoffs will unfold with several of the NBA’s superstars sitting on the sidelines wondering how they missed out on one of the most wide-open chances for a championship in decades.

Yes, decades. Because for the first time since the late 1970s, there is no clear-cut gigantic obstacle needing to be overcome.

Recent playoffs always began with challengers knowing they might face the daunting prospect of facing O’Neal and Bryant — Lakers teammates since 1997 — and trying to outwit their coach, Jackson, who accumulated nine titles over 12 years.

Anyone wanting a championship in the years prior to that had to go against Jordan, Larry Bird, or Magic Johnson — superstars of their eras who went to the playoffs year after year as heavy favorites.

This season, there’s no marquee team and no superstar tandem to be toppled, creating a much greater sense that it’s a wide-open race for the title.

“It is clear that the Lakers are the team to love or hate, and a playoffs without the Lakers are going to draw lower (ratings) than one with them,” commissioner David Stern said. “But aside from that, there are some interesting and exciting teams that are generating coverage, and a lot of young players and player combinations that people are talking about.

“So we anticipate a very lively playoffs with fans very much interested and engaged,” Stern said.

The playoffs begin Saturday with four first-round games: Philadelphia-Detroit, Houston-Dallas, Indiana-Boston and Sacramento-Seattle.

Sunday’s games are New Jersey-Miami, Washington-Chicago, Denver-San Antonio and Memphis-Phoenix, and the first round will continue over 16 days — a reduction from the 18-day span from recent years.

Among the story lines for the first-round pairings:

• The defending champion Pistons going against Philadelphia, with Brown trying to figure out a strategy to stop the league’s leading scorer and his old nemesis, Allen Iverson.
• Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs, who won titles in 1999 and 2003 and are considered by many the favorites to emerge from the West, facing George Karl’s rejuvenated Denver Nuggets, who ended the regular season with 25 victories in their final 29 games.
• The Suns facing the defensive-minded Memphis Grizzlies, insistent that their wide-open style of play can succeed in the playoffs.