<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">G-o-o-o-d morning, Lakerdom! In the news, you can take the spring off. And now for the weather report: Looks like a long cold spell with no prospect of the sun's breaking through in the immediate future, or, for that matter, the intermediate future. In our show business report, the Lakers' great 1985 champions are coming back for Monday's game. Despite many requests, I don't think any of them are suiting up. By now, I hope there's one thing we can agree on: The good times are so over. We shouldn't have to waste more time talking about All Their Injuries or "trade scenarios" such as Caron Butler, Vlade Divac and Devean George for Carlos Boozer, which was reported by one prominent outlet as a done deal. Unfortunately, this is the way it had to be. Jerry Buss may be second-guessed until the end of time for trading Shaquille O'Neal, but under the circumstances ? Shaq demanding a $90-million extension, Kobe Bryant poised to leave if he got it ? Buss had a choice between bad and worse. The mistake was everything afterward, starting with the assumption that the Lakers could transition seamlessly into a bright tomorrow. There are no seamless transitions, not even for the greatest dynasties. The Celtics won the last of their 11 titles with Bill Russell in 1969 and their first with Dave Cowens in 1974. But they sat out the 1970 and 1971 playoffs. Five years after the Lakers lost in the 1991 Finals and Magic Johnson retired, Jerry West landed O'Neal and Bryant. But they spent the first three of those five seasons going south, all the way to 33-49 in 1993-94. That was the greatest turnaround in the NBA's salary-cap era, from the five Showtime titles in the '80s to the three with Shaq and Kobe from 2000 to 2002. Of course, as West could tell you if he talked about this stuff, 1,000 things had to go just right. It's possible no one could duplicate that trick, including West. A No. 37 pick named Nick Van Exel had to prove he wasn't too much of a head case to play in this league. It was close sometimes, but he wasn't. They had to steal a 20-point-a-game scorer named Cedric Ceballos off the bench of division rival Phoenix and get all they could out of him before he jumped ship, literally, leaving the team to go boating in Lake Havasu. They needed a coach who could get them organized. That was Del Harris, who took them from 33 wins to 53 in two seasons. They needed lightning to strike, and it did, hitting Orlando, when a new bargaining agreement that did away with restricted free agency went into effect just as O'Neal became a free agent, taking away the Magic's right of first refusal. (In the next bargaining agreement, restricted free agency was restored.) It helped that West's friend, agent Arn Tellem, asked him to work out Bryant as a favor. Off their scouting reports, the Lakers weren't thinking about Kobe. Then West, who had the No. 24 pick, had to beat everyone ahead of him to Bryant. The New Jersey Nets wanted to take him at No. 9, but Tellem scared them off, saying Bryant didn't want to go there because it was too close to his home in Philadelphia.</div> Source I admit it, the Lakers have problems. Now what?
Haha, I agree..now what? We get a PG and a PF this offseason..hopefully a better C...then what? Who do we hire for coach? Paul Silas?
