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I don't envy Mitch Kupchak's job in the slightest. The Lakers have slipped a notch below the league's most elite teams, and don't have many assets -- whether in draft picks, young trade prospects, or salary flexibility -- with which to improve the team, and are working against a very punitive CBA.

Meanwhile, the Kobe Klock is ticking.

No offseason in L.A. is an easy one, but an argument can easily be made this one provides Kupchak his stiffest test as Lakers general manager. I don't know how he gets it done, but fortunately he's better at his job than I am, so there's hope for fans.

Wednesday in El Segundo, Kupchak met with the media and relative to his normal "You'll never get the launch codes from me, reporter! Never!" standards, was frank about the need for improvements, and that the Lakers would explore just about every option available in order to facilitate them.

Here are a few choice quotes. Click below the jump for full video coverage of his press conference.

On Pau Gasol: "I don’t suspect that he’ll ever be the same based on what took place this year. I thought personally that he did the best anybody can do, being professional and saying the right things, being a good teammate and having a really good season up until I met with him a couple hours ago. He’s the consummate teammate, consummate professional. But what took place is hard for a player to deal with and I’m sure there’s a little bit of trust that’s not quite the same. But, like you said, he understands and our exit meeting with him was really good. I think he and I are on the same page. I have not met with ownership. I do not know what direction the team is going to go, what the parameters are going to be going forward so there wasn’t really anything additional to share with Pau or to share with you people about what may take place between now and the draft, or now and July 1st or post July 1st."

(Note: Asked what he meant by "I don't suspect he'll ever be the same," Kupchak said he was talking only about the trust issue between Gasol and the organization, not his on court performance.)

On whether the Lakers would be active in the trade market: "Why not? Sure. When you lose, and we went through it last year and we didn’t make really, other than at the trade deadline, we didn’t do anything last year, but when you lose before you think you should have lost, you have to open up all opportunities."

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For most of the season, Kobe Bryant made a point of noting the Lakers were a championship caliber team, but working with very little margin for error.

In the playoffs, an important chunk of it went away with the disappearance of Matt Barnes. The team's most consistent bench presence throughout the season, Barnes was playing some of the best basketball of his career down the stretch, averaging 8.8 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 3.2 assists over 26.8 minutes in 13 April games before suffering a sprained ankle against Oklahoma City in the second-to-last regular season game.

He never recovered. Barnes' playoff averages plummeted to 3.5 points on a terrifying 27.1 percent mark from the floor, including only 16.1 percent from downtown. Things were so bad, Mike Brown sat him entirely in Monday's Game 5 loss. Wednesday in El Segundo, Barnes admitted he wasn't fully healthy in either playoff series, and it wasn't just the bum ankle.

"What I tell you now isn’t going to be used as an excuse by any means, because I’m not like that, but the ankle didn’t heal and then I did something to my neck where I had to take some shots to even move my neck," Barnes said. "It’s still sore, but the way I look at it is you’re hard pressed to find anybody at this point in the season that’s healthy. So you can never use that [as an excuse]."

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MORE EXIT INTERVIEWS:

• Ramon Sessions
• Jordan Hill
• Metta World Peace

Second year forward Devin Ebanks began the year as the starting small forward, playing 81 minutes in the first four games before Mike Brown replaced him in the first five with Matt Barnes.

Over the next 52 games, Ebanks logged a total of 73 minutes before a shin injury to Kobe Bryant and Metta World Peace's suspension put him back in the starting lineup for the last 10 regular season games and the first six against Denver in the opening round of the playoffs. In the first five games after World Peace's return, Ebanks played a total of four minutes. Monday night in Game 5, Ebanks served as the backup 3 over a slumping Barnes, playing 16 minutes.

Fair to say Ebanks rode the playing time roller coaster this year, a difficult thing for young players.

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If you haven't yet read this piece from ESPNLA's Ramona Shelburne on Kobe Bryant, do so.

In it, she details the new world in which he and the Lakers live, as the team tries to move past the Phil Jackson era and change shrinks Kobe's proverbial circle of trust. Throughout his career, Bryant has exerted as much control as possible on an occupation generally mocking that sort of thing. He's worked harder on his body and his game, searched for every edge, cribbed every move and absorbed any and every bit of information he can mine from anywhere, in or out of basketball. All in the interests of wining. Shelburne notes how this season, the second straight in which the Lakers fell well short, illustrated how little control Kobe might ultimately have in his chase for a sixth ring.

"There is no way to know when the end will finally come for Bryant. Only that he's closer to it with each passing year. He'll be 34 before next season, his 17th in the NBA. His legs are still strong, even if they aren't as spry. He can still dunk to prove a point. (He dunked four times in Game 5, so don't tell me he wasn't thinking about it.)

"It's different from being 21 and you think there's endless amount of opportunities," Bryant said Monday. "At 33, the ending is much, much closer."

He's hungry still. He's got time left. But you get the sense he only wants it if there's a chance to do something good with it. To win.

That's less certain now. He can shoot all night in the gym, it might not matter."

It's a great look at a chaotic season, and also sets the table for what could be a dominant theme in any discussion about Bryant in the next few years: What happens if or when it becomes clear the Lakers can't assemble a championship caliber team fast enough to capture Bryant's last best seasons?

When Jordan Hill arrived in L.A. as part of the Derek Fisher trade, his role was pretty clear, in the sense it didn't exist. Beyond a knee injury suffered shortly after getting his new uni, Mike Brown was committed to Josh McRoberts as the primary reserve big, with Troy Murphy getting occasional minutes as a situational lefty spreading the floor. Hill is undoubtedly more athletic than either guys and his credentials as a rebounder had been established. However, he's also young, fairly raw, and carries a reputation for mistakes on the court. And such players often don't crack the rotation as a late-addition to a team seeking a title.

But there are always exceptions to the rule. Phil Jackson, for example, threw Shannon Brown unexpectedly into the fire right before the 2009 championship run. And after an April 20 blowout loss in San Antonio, Brown decided a change was needed. Thu, he called Hill at 2 am to inform the kid he'd finally be getting some run. That PT resulted in a 14 point, 15 rebound double-double against OKC, along with a job for Hill. His playoff showing was the roller coaster one might expect from a role player with no postseason experience and still honing his craft. In a nutshell, Hill was all over the map. But he averaged 6.4 rebounds per contest in less than 20 minutes, and save starter-in-6th man's-clothing Lamar Odom, Hill's the best 4/5 off the Laker bench since Ronny Turiaf.

I wouldn't be surprised if the team was interested in retaining the impending free agent's services, and if that's the case, the feeling is mutual.

"Yeah, it's definitely one of, if not the best organizations in the league and I had great time here, with the short time I was here," said Hill during his exit interview. "The staff, players, everybody. I just enjoyed it.

"I just never thought I would be in this position, with the Lakers. All-Stars. Champions. Back-to-back championships. Different championships. I just wanted to go out there and if I get my opportunity, just take advantage of it. Just being around those guys, it was definitely a great feeling. Just having fun. Jokes. Hanging out. You feel like you can be a kid again, off the court. It was definitely a great feeling. I'm definitely forward to, if possible, more to come."

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Speaking to the media less than 24 hours after what might gently be described as a disastrous performance in L.A.'s Game 5 loss Monday night in Oklahoma City, Ramon Sessions made it clear he wants to stay with the Lakers.

“[I] definitely hope to be here," he said. "Hopefully, everything works out. It's not secret I have a player option that I have coming up, so we’ll just see what happens. It’s nothing I’ve thought about yet. The season’s just [ended], so I’ll just take some time off, reflect and go from there."

As for the organization, Sessions said their message to him was unambiguous. "It was definitely clear leaving the meeting they want me back. It was definitely 100 percent clear."

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For the second straight season, the Los Angeles Lakers have been bounced in the second round of the NBA playoffs. Not cause for panic in many markets, but in Los Angeles, where expectations are always stratospheric and Kobe Bryant is far closer to the end than the beginning of his career, it's enough to sound the doomsday horn. The end of a season is (almost) always a disappointing time, but usually comes with a tinge of wait-'til-next-year optimism. To that end, while the goal is not to add insult to Thunder-induced injury, people deserve candor:

I have no idea how the Lakers quickly return to a championship level.

Not to say I don't know what they need -- the needs are pretty apparent, and not a whole lot different than the ones from last offseason -- just that I don't know how they get it. Change, likely significant, must come, but unfortunately while the Lakers may be rich in the literal sense, as it relates to assets available to reconstruct a team, they're relative paupers:

• The Lakers lack young prospects not already integral to the team's success, have no quality draft picks, or easily moved talent bringing comparable talent in return.
• Well over the salary-cap and luxury-tax thresholds, the Lakers have limited tools -- a mini mid-level exemption worth a little more than $3 million, basically -- available in a market thin on quality unrestricted free agents. (Most restricted FA's won't be an option, because L.A. can't offer a contract large enough to dissuade a rights-holding team from matching.)
• After next season, the CBA's new SuperTax! kicks in, which at current levels could cost the Lakers tens of millions of dollars.

Good players cost money. The Lakers need more of them at a time when the prevailing pressure is to bring payroll down not up, or at the very least have a rock-solid plan to do so in the very near future.

Enjoy the summer, Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss!

Having spent years kicking the can down the road in an effort to build a winner, for which management should be applauded, the box in which the Lakers placed themselves in the process has grown incredibly tight. They're still a good team, but one that just lost to a better team. No shame in that, except the standards in L.A. don't tolerate this sort of thing for very long. Moreover, the Lakers are on the way down, while the competition around them is rising. Oklahoma City is a juggernaut. Memphis, despite the early exit from the postseason, is a team with upside, as are the Clippers. A healthy Denver team is a threat. They're feeling good about the future in Utah, too, and is there any reason to believe San Antonio won't again be awesome next year?

This is the context of what could very well be a transformative, challenging and potentially fascinating offseason.

Here are eight questions facing the Lakers' front office as the summer rolls on ...

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The end is never fun. Monday, the Lakers (most of them, at least) played hard but ultimately were overwhelmed by a better team.

Final score, 106-90. Oklahoma City wins the series 4-1, and the Lakers enter an offseason with approximately eleventybillion questions in front of them. On tonight's season ending edition of Lakers Late Night, we touch on ...

• Game 5 proving for those still harboring doubts the Thunder are a far superior team.
• The ways in which Game 5 was a microcosm of the 2011-12 season. Bad shooting, no bench support, poor point guard play, just to name a few.
• A fairly redemptive night for Pau Gasol, but another very questionable effort from Andrew Bynum. What do the Lakers do with them going forward?
• A look back at the season, including an evaluation of Mike Brown.
• A brief look ahead at what will be a very, very busy offseason.

Finally, we want to thank everyone for supporting the show throughout the season. We've enjoyed doing it (technological snafus aside) and hope it has provided some value for you as a Lakers fan. Keep an eye out for more video chats throughout the offseason.

The fourth quarter of Saturday's Game 4 loss to the Thunder was filled with mistakes by multiple Lakers, but one play in particular -- the shot opportunity passed on by Pau Gasol for the pass he made instead, picked off by Kevin Durant -- became almost instantly infamous. Durant turned the turnover, coming with 33 seconds remaining and the score tied at 98, into a triple. Oklahoma City held on for the win, and now has a chance to close things out Monday night on their floor.

Gasol should have taken the shot, and said so after the game.

The giveaway, along with an underwhelming stat line (10 points, five rebounds, two assists, three blocks), landed Gasol directly in the next-day crosshairs, and appropriately so. In many ways, too, Gasol's mistake almost perfectly reflected a season shifting under his feet from the moment it started, when he was shipped off to Houston in the Chris Paul trade, then shipped right back after the NBA nixed the deal.

Mike Brown has spoken frequently about Gasol's versatility, and his belief Pau's expansive skill set allows him to be used in a variety of ways around the floor. In reality, only selected areas of Gasol's game have been effectively mined, reflecting shortcomings in the roster and an evolution in personnel. A lack of perimeter playmakers and reliable shooting pulled him away from the basket to facilitate and also spread the floor. This while ceding to a rising Andrew Bynum post touches he once had himself in an offense where he's often marginalized. (And in a nifty bit of irony, Pau is often the one making the feed to Bynum on the block.) Meanwhile, his chemistry with Kobe Bryant isn't as good, either.

No question, Gasol has been a pro. The transformation of his role isn't something every NBA player would accept, and as he told ESPNLA's Ramona Shelburne following Game 4, Gasol believes he's done it to the best of his ability even while wishing for more scoring opportunities. Unfortunately, while in the end his numbers this year were solid and at times the results were very positive, ultimately the facilitate-first role also reinforces, even codifies, Gasol's weakest tendencies as a player. Too frequently (though not nearly as much as some suggest), he blends into the wallpaper, his natural unselfishness tilting too far towards passivity.

As Gasol put it after the game, "I am unselfish. Sometimes it plays against me." He was referencing the turnover in the micro, while in the macro understanding how it reflects his wiring as a player.

Critics call him soft, defenders (like me) a multi-faceted, team-first talent with remarkable skill for a 7-footer. Regardless, one thing is clear:

This -- meaning the place he now occupies on the Lakers -- doesn't work. Not for Gasol, not for the Lakers.

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This is going to leave a mark.

Lakers lose, 103-100 and now trail 3-1 heading back to Oklahoma City for Monday's Game 5.

On tonight's show, we review the fourth quarter collapse, from a huge mistake down the stretch from Pau Gasol to a horrible 12 minutes of shooting for Kobe Bryant (2-of-10) to dominant play from Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. From there, we reflect on a season on the edge of extinction, and leaving the locker room tonight with a sense not just that this season is over, but that the era is done, too.

This band won't be touring much longer.



Click below for video of Bryant, Ramon Sessions, Bynum, Gasol, and Metta World Peace.

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The Lakers got off to a great start, but from there Friday's game turned into a slugfest. In the end, though, they came out on top, effectively saving the season and giving them a chance to knot up the series Saturday night.

We broke it all down on Lakers Late Night with special guests Arash Markazi and Dave McMenamin!



Click below for all the postgame moving pictures, from Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, Mike Brown, Andrew Bynum, Ramon Sessions, and Steve Blake.

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Sometimes with a night's rest, the dawn of a new morning, and the opportunity for some fresh perspective, in the rear view mirror a game can look a little different.

Sometimes.





Game 2 Wednesday in Oklahoma City doesn't qualify. As we stepped into the studio about 17 hours after those fateful two minutes in the fourth quarter in which the Lakers blew a seven point lead, the sense of what they gave away was just as strong. I'm not going to lie, those hoping to be uplifted by the newest edition of the Land O'Lakers PodKast aren't going to like what you hear. After noting another critical example of poor execution -- Andy and I unwittingly showed up at the office in nearly identical outfits, among the more mockable things a brother writing/radio tandem can do -- we dive into the the big issues ...

• After briefly touching on L.A.'s final play, we get into why the loss in Game 2 was so significant. Yeah, it's nice the Lakers played OKC tight after the Game 1 blowout, but in a playoff series the lesser team can't afford to lose games they ought to win. In the process, we shoot down just about every moral-victory-encouraging-going-forward argument out there. Again, it's fairly depressing, which is why we make sure to drop a little Double Rainbow Guy in there.
• Is there any hope going forward for the Lakers to pull the upset?
• Ramon Sessions. He hasn't played well in the postseason. Why? What can change, and how does his poor playoff run impact his decision whether to become a free agent, and whether the Lakers should re-sign him?
• A quick look at the Clippers vs. San Antonio. We're no more optimistic about the chances of the red, white, and blue.

We're normally pretty chipper folk, but not today. Listen, but be prepared to shed a tear.

So here's the last play from Wednesday's loss (fast forward to about 56 seconds in):



You'll notice (notice again, I'm sure) it was Steve Blake taking the shot, not Kobe Bryant. Any time something like this happens, there will be discussion. Via ESPN Stats and Information, Blake hadn't attempted a game-tying or go-ahead shot in the final 24 seconds of a postseason games since joining the Lakers, and has only one in his career (with Portland in '09, a miss). At the same time, S and I provides this nugget as well:

While conventional wisdom says Kobe Bryant should've had the ball in his hands for the Lakers' final shot instead of Steve Blake, the stats say it was the right decision. Kobe Bryant is 0-for-7 on game-tying and go-ahead shots in the final 10 seconds of playoff games since 2006-07. Meanwhile, his teammates are 4-for-7, including Blake's miss on Wednesday.

Honestly, it's not a stat with heaps of meaning, at least in the implication other players are better suited to take late shots than Kobe. Don't focus on the 4-for-7 part. At least two of those (Ron Artest in Game 5 vs. Phoenix, 2010 and Pau Gasol in Game 6 vs. OKC, 2010) came on ORB/putbacks, as opposed to designed plays or kicks from Kobe. Meanwhile, Bryant's percentage is low mostly because he usually takes very difficult shots in those situations, a different (and totally valid) discussion entirely. The issue relative to the final shot Wednesday isn't whether Bryant is clutch or not, or whether someone else is clutch-er. What matters is shot quality, and if Blake's was as good or better than the one Kobe would have taken had Metta World Peace instead inbounded the ball to him.

Here, I see little room for debate. Assuming the ball even made it to him-- MWP would have had to throw a difficult pass to Bryant over the top of OKC's quick, ball-hawking defense -- it appears Kobe would have caught the ball with only five seconds left and a defender in position to contest. Probably Serge Ibaka on a switch, with Thabo Sefolosha closing fast. He didn't appear to me, as Mike Brown suggested after, "wide open on the backside." Maybe Kobe can create a little space, or has enough time to make a pass out of what almost certainly would have been a tough double team.

It's very difficult to see how either scenario would have produced a higher percentage look than an uncontested corner 3. The idea isn't to get Kobe the ball because he's "supposed" to take the shot, but to get the best shot possible. World Peace's job was to make that happen, and he did. It didn't work out the way the Lakers wanted, but they did get as good a shot as could be hoped.

Lots of talk about the debacle in Game 1 (has "The World Naked Gardening Day Pruning" caught on, yet? I didn't think so.), and looking ahead to tonight's Game 2.

And while there is still a lot of hoops left to play against OKC, more than a few fans are looking forward to the offseason. We take a look at what might be coming, as well.

Here's the link to the transcript.

On May 27, 1985, the Celtics destroyed the Lakers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, 148-114, a game quickly declared the "Memorial Day Massacre."

The Lakers, of course, went on to win the series in six games, finally vanquishing the Celtics curse.

Monday, the Lakers went to Oklahoma City and were similarly dominated, finding themselves down 30 points to the Thunder by the end of the third quarter. It was ugly on every level, and equally deserving of a nickname. Unfortunately, May 14 is a little short on signpost holidays or commemorations. The best I could come up with is "The World Naked Gardening Day Pruning."

Not bad, actually, and (with some imagination) maybe even a little apropos, but nonetheless unlikely to catch on.

More bad news: About the only commonalities in those games were the lopsided nature of the defeats. That 1984-85 Lakers team was dominant, winners of 62 games and favored to beat Boston for a title. This Lakers team is good, but not as good as their opponent. OKC outplayed them in about 10 of 12 quarters during the season series, and was superior in just about every measurable when considering the year as a whole.

Via Twitter and such, I've seen it suggested the law of averages will likely change how things play out in Game 2 on Wednesday night. Probably true. OKC was certainly above the mean in more ways than one. No team was more turnover prone than the Thunder in the regular season, but on Monday they gave up the rock only four times. Their starting lineup went 26-of-41 (63 percent), a tough number to reproduce even if L.A.'s defense doesn't improve much, and from 10-15 feet, OKC was a white-hot 60 percent (9-of-15). Put in perspective, Miami led the NBA from that distance this season, at 42.7 percent. The Thunder's offensive efficiency was straight out of NBA Live, at 133, versus 107.1 pre-playoffs. There are probably a few other areas in which the Thunder might naturally regress. Unfortunately for the Lakers, even if OKC suffers some slippage, it has a 30-point gap to chew up in Wednesday's Game 2.

That's more than a few more turnovers and missed jumpers.

Among the items on an extensive laundry list of needed improvements:

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