Welcome to The Now

Well, the possible reasons include : Kobe doesn't want Phil Jackson to coach again. Jackson made too many demands for the Lakers' Top Brass. Mike D'Antoni's style is more fast-paced, which Kobe seems to prefer. While Jackson did deal with the egos, the plays were more or less designed by Tex Winter, who is no longer around.  D'Antoni has more to prove than Jackson. D'Antoni is cheaper than Jackson. The Lakers may have had to undergo a bigger roster change with Jackson, aka, Reason #6. Jackson only likes coming in when a team is on the brink of winning a championship, and the Lakers aren't close.

It might not happen , but the fact they're trying? Good on 'em.

Sure, Antawn Jamison was never a defensive expert, but his unique scoring ability and rebounding skills will certainly make the Lakers a force to be reckoned with .

When your injury-plagued, ego-driven center starts chucking threes, get pulls and hints that he'll still chuck threes , you've lost your team.

He's lost a step offensively (no biggie) and defensively (his calling card) and now after 13 seasons his role is changing... but he's not ready to accept it .

They were involved in a big trade announced a few hours ago . Giving up two talented big men for an awesome point guard is risky, but if they get Dwight Howard before the season starts, it will be worth it. UPDATE: Looks like the commissioner has nixed the deal .

Apparently nothing . Ever since they went to the Best of Seven Setup (aka, the "Get More Money Plan") I believed that this was the end of upsets. And while the Eastern Conference is proving me right, the Western Conference is another story. Of course, it would be an excuse to drag out the "Western Conference is tougher" argument. But if that were the case, wouldn't the implied parity of the Eastern Conference indicate that they would be the ones struggling to win this best of 7? Dallas was supposed to be re-tooled; Denver was supposed to have a chip on their shoulder. If both of these two get bumped, the Lakers (who are not losing to the Thunder) will squash Utah while the Spurs will have to chase the Suns or the Trailblazers around for at least six games, making San Antonio easy pickings should they survive. As for the East...at least we have Orlando's mini-drama .

Sure, they haven't played great as of late , and they seem to be in " we can turn it on when we want to " mode but until they are one loss from losing a playoff round I'm not writing these guys off. They still have the best player and best motivator in the NBA, as well as the most talented-yet-passive players to be the second and third banana. Of course, no one seems to care about MechaShaq .

I'll save time and answer that question first: because there's no garauntee that LeBron James will stay when his contract's up, and none of the prized free agents want to be stuck in Cleveland while James signs a big deal in a major market like New York . Let's look at the recent list of free agent transactions (I don't count trades because only a few players have a say in the deal): Ron Artest goes with Lakers (making one of Kobe Bryant's most tenacious opponents a teammate); Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva sign with Detriot (GM Joe Dumars' attempt to justify seasons worth of questionable moves); After flirting with the Trailblazers, Hedo Tukoglu leans toward Toronto (adding some shooting to a team that has big man Chris Bosh and swing man Shawn Marion); Trevor Ariza looks toward the Rockets (making up for even thinking he had leverage against the Lakers); and Rasheed Wallace says he's headed to Boston ('nuff said). Of all of these moves, Charle...

And it's not Kobe, Phil Jackson, Gasol, Odom or Bynum. It's not the bench or the defense. It's Tex Winter . The man who made the Triangle Offense a household name. For the Shaq/Kobe Lakers (and the Jordan/Pippen Bulls before them) Winter not only made sure that the offense was run, but run effectively (see: Tim Floyd ). After the 2004 Finals, when the Detroit Pistons beat on the Lakers to win in what is now known as the first "Five-Game Sweep," the were grumbles that the Triangle was to blame: it was too hard for Karl Malone to learn; Jackson should have had Kobe and Gary Payton run up and down the court more; Shaq was too old and big to be effective in it. What the critics forgot is that the TO is one of those sets that (again, used properly) can get you a basket in a crucial juncture of the game. Sure, MJ, Pippen, Shaq and Kobe were great players and closers in their own right, but having an offensive set that gets you a high-percentage shot made them even bett...

Duncan out again ? Ruh-row.

Whoa . Just whoa.

There are blowouts, where you just have to acknowledge that the opposition is better than you...by a light year. There are buzzer-beaters, which can come down to a missed defensive assignment, a superior one-on-one opponent, or just plain luck. Then there games like last night , where you're watching and hoping that your team can deliver the knock-out punch...but it just doesn't happen. Your team's punch aren't hard enough, and the opposition doesn't have a glass jaw. While everyone else was falling in love with the New Look Lakers, I was trying to figure out why people were swooning over a jump-shooting team that just happens to have Kobe Bryant. I mean, these guys run the Triangle Offense about half as often as they did during the Kobe & Shaq Era, and that's saying something considering one year they had Karl Malone and Gary Payton on the roster. The difference, of course, is that these guys don't have a glass jaw, meaning that the typical reasons a g...

What NBA news would scare Cavs Fans (who want to hold on to LeBron James for dear life) yet excite Knick Fans (who'd sell their grandma for a marque player right about now)? Answer One would be: "James traded to New York." Answer Two would be: " Kobe says: 'Trade me .'" Cleveland better get on the ball an insure that LeBron has a sturdy, championship-caliber team around him or they'll see this same story in five years. UPDATE: Guess I spoke too soon on Kobe. Looks like we won't know his real intentions until for the next season starts (by then, we'll know what the 2007-2008 roster will look like).

Let me be honest here: I'm not as much a fan of the Lakers as an organisation as I am of certain players (like Magic and Shaq) and their Yankees-like determination to remain not only relevant in the NBA, but dominant. So when I wrote my little old assessment on them , I thought what I said was obvious to everyone who follows the NBA regularly. I mean, Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson aren't winning with a young team. My suggestion that they trade rosters with the Heat was a half-joke, but half-serious. So imagine my surprise to see Marc Stein talk as if nobody could have foreseen the Lakers losing as they did to the Suns, and then making some suggestions to help them out . Key quotes: ...The concern, if you want to fret, is Bryant's patience. He will be forever blamed for running Shaq off, even though Lakers owner Jerry Buss wanted to trade Shaq more than Kobe and had the biggest say in it, but arguing about that now only distracts from the pressing issue: How much longer can B...