The Los Angeles Lakers announced that head coach Rudy Tomjanovich is considering stepping down due to ill health after less than seven months at the helm.

Lakers spokesman John Black said, however, that there would be no official statement on Tuesday.

Tomjanovich, who has recently been suffering from a stomach virus, would not attend the game against the Portland Trail Blazers in Los Angeles later in the day, he added.

Black said it would not be appropriate for the team to discuss Tomjanovich's health problems although they were unrelated to the bladder cancer which forced him to step down as coach of the Houston Rockets in 2003.

The team, which won three NBA championships under Tomjanovich's predecessor Phil Jackson, has been struggling this season with a 23-19 record.

The Lakers traded Shaquille O'Neal to the Miami [Images] Heat just a few days after Tomjanovich took over as coach and has found life difficult without the giant All-Star center.

Meanwhile, the Heat has the best record in the NBA's Eastern Conference.

Tomjanovich coached the Houston Rockets for more than 11 years and won back-to-back NBA titles in 1994 and 1995.

He also coached the US Men's basketball team to a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics [Images] in 2000 and took over at the Lakers after Jackson departed following Los Angeles's shock defeat to the Detroit Pistons in last year's NBA finals.

Tomjanovich's previous experience of the Lakers includes one of the most notorious incidents in the sport's history.

As a Rockets player in December 1977, he was hit in the face by Laker Kermit Washington.

His nose was broken, he suffered a separated upper jaw, a concussion, cuts around the mouth and spinal fluid leaked from his brain for days.

Tomjanovich returned to action the following season and made the NBA All-Star team for the fifth time.