I have gone over the availability of sports here, on Hong Kong cable TV.

Fifteen-plus sports stations, and nothing to watch.

Unless you love the English menu of sports — led by soccer, soccer and soccer and including rugby, cricket, Formula One and, yes, snooker. And I generally don’t love any of them.

But I have struggled along without a great sense of American-sports-enthusiast loss, since arriving in China back on Oct. 2.

I have struggled along because the baseball playoffs actually were shown here … I can live without the NFL … and because college football is something I feel as if I can get a rope around via the Internet.

I finally am realizing there is one staple of SoCal sports television I do miss.

The Lakers.

I have followed the Lakers since I was in grade school, before the NBA was popular outside a handful of urban centers — New York, Boston and L.A. The club was clever in getting into TV in a big way long before baseball did, and we spent many winter nights in Long Beach listening to Chick Hearn and watching Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, and feeling a part of all those fruitless postseason runs that ended with the Celtics celebrating and a grim West walking into the offseason.

I have been a fan ever since and, since Magic Johnson’s rookie season, a paid analyst.

I saw that franchise. A lot. In person. For about 28 years. From the clinching Game 6 of the 1980 title season, in Philly, to Games 3-4-5 of the Finals against the Celtics last June. (The blown lead in Game 4 still troubles my dreams.)

Now, we have the Lakers off to a 21-3 start, a huge “statement” game with the Celtics coming up, and I have yet to see one minute of live action.

The NBA is quasi-popular over here, but its appearance on any of the cable stations seems to be erratic and infrequent. It’s not like the NFL, which I know will be on, late morning, on Mondays and Tuesdays here.

The NBA seems to appear and disappear, and I can’t seem to puzzle out the TV schedule.

So, I have no idea if Kobe Bryant is coasting a little, trying to save himself for the playoffs because he is in, yes, the back half of his career.

I have no clue if Andrew Bynum looks like a difference-maker in the middle.

I have not seen one second of Lamar Odom’s body language, and I can’t say if his demotion to Sixth Man has fried his brain.

Has Luke Walton started to earn that big salary? Does Pau Gasol still look like (at least) a second-tier superstar? Is Jordan Farmar still progressing? Is Trevor Ariza better than last year? Is Derek Fisher too old?

Can’t tell you. Haven’t seen the team. And reading about it doesn’t quite answer my questions. Not when I have spent a lifetime formulating my own visual opinions. Often from the immediate environs of the press section at Staples Center.

I miss the Lakers. I would like to know if they have a real shot at a championship. (I fear they do not.) Are they the real deal or just taking advantage of a Western Conference suddenly gone soft?

I would like to see that Christmas Day game with the Celtics — the one that ought to go down at about 2 a.m. here, on Dec. 26.

I may even make sure I’m up late, the night of Christmas, and be in front of the TV until tipoff — to see if the game pops up on one of my 15 sports stations that, generally, have nothing to see, especially not the one team I’m really interested in seeing.