ESPN

Click below the jump for full video coverage of Bynum's exit interview.

At this point, the concerns about Andrew Bynum are well documented. The NBA, like all professional sports, places a premium on predictability, particularly for superstars.

Bynum, a superstar talent in his ability to change games on both sides of the ball, failed the predictability test in significant ways during the 2011-12. Not necessarily in his statistical output -- the numbers were very strong -- but more often in his effort and engagement. There were too many nights Bynum didn't clock in, or decided to clock out early whether figuratively (allowing his defense to be dictated by his offense) or literally (two silly ejections).

And since on any given day what comes out of his mouth could easily be any combination of insightful, candid, or cartoonish, like you I was very curious to see what Bynum would say to the media after an extended exit interview with Mitch Kupchak and Mike Brown this afternoon in El Segundo.

Which Bynum would we get?

The candid and self-aware one, as it turns out. Bynum's answers weren't the sort of self-flagellation/mea culpa more self-righteous corners of sports media love demanding, but without getting too specific he certainly acknowledged shortcomings and noted skills away from the court requiring development. "I definitely need to mature and get the locker room to follow me," he said. "Have a presence, have an aura that demands my teammates’ respect. That’s something I can definitely work on."

That, and consistent energy and investment during every game, more a mental than physical challenge. "It’s hard for anybody, I think, to focus at all times. That’s what makes people get to that superstar status when they’re able to do that four out of five games. That’s the difference. That’s the next step for me," he said.

Like many, at this point I have taken a "show, don't tell" approach with Drew, and in Mitch Kupchak's shoes certainly would be nervous about giving Bynum the keys to the kingdom. He's a smart guy, and there's time for him to grow out of the immaturity plaguing him this year. Kupchak reiterated today faith he would and the team's plan to pick up Bynum's $16.1 million option for next season.

We'll find out in a few months if today's words translate eventually into change next season.

Among other highlights:

(Read full post)

For the second straight season, a Lakers player has won the NBA's J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award, "given annually to the player, coach or trainer who shows outstanding service and dedication to the community."

Last year, it was Ron Artest (now Metta World Peace, of course). This season, Pau Gasol has earned the honor, the league announced Friday.

Gasol is extremely active in charitable causes, primarily aimed at children, including work as a UNICEF ambassador since 2003, where he established Pau's Project, supporting education and nutrition programs in Africa. In March, he launched an interactive story app "Give a Day," narrated in English, Spanish, and Catalan. Locally, Gasol has built a strong relationship with Children's Hospital Los Angeles, where he's gone well beyond the admirable-but-conventional interaction with sick kids, observing spinal surgery and helping facilitate the donation of sophisticated technological equipment for the hospital pharmacy. He remains involved as well with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis.

Pau is unquestionably as good a person you'll meet in sports, or anywhere for that matter. It's great to see his time and efforts recognized and honored. He's certainly worthy of it.

LOS ANGELES -- Close-out games in a playoff series have a way of turning paupers into princes overnight.

There was the 37-year-old Steve Kerr, playing in his 15th and final season for the San Antonio Spurs when he came off the bench to hit all of his shots in Game 6 of the 2003 Western Conference finals against the Dallas Mavericks, going 4-for-4 on 3-pointers and scoring 12 points, which happened to be the Spurs' margin of victory, 90-78, that night. He didn't even play in Game 5.

There was the 21-year-old Cleveland rookie Daniel Gibson pouring in 31 points, going 7-for-9 from the field and 5-for-5 on 3-pointers, in the Cavs' upset special over the favored Detroit Pistons in Game 6 of the 2007 Eastern Conference finals. He wasn't even drafted in the first round.

Then there was Steve Blake on Saturday, his career arc somewhere in the middle of where Kerr's and Gibson's were when they had their nights as shooting stars, but whose unexpected boost had just as much to do with the outcome of his team's crucial game.

The 32-year-old, in his ninth season, shot the Lakers into the second round, scoring a career-playoff high 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field and 5-for-6 shooting on 3-pointers in Los Angeles' 96-87 Game 7 win over the Denver Nuggets.

(Read full post)

In news shocking nobody at all, LeBron James officially won his third MVP award Saturday afternoon, becoming the eighth NBA player to win at least that many.

Kevin Durant finished second, and Chris Paul third.

Just behind Paul was Kobe Bryant, who earned two first place votes and edged out Tony Parker in the voting.

Whether some Lakers fans see this as a slight, I don't know (ok, I do know). To me a fourth place finish is remarkable accomplishment. We're talking about someone who put up MVP-adjacent numbers at 33 years old, with almost two decades worth of regular and postseason minutes on the odometer. This while playing a position where this sort of production with that level of mileage is exceedingly rare.

It won't end in hardware, but this will go down as one of Kobe's more impressive seasons.

To some degree, there's only so much players can say about a Game 7, given the general lack of nuance to the situation. Win, or the season's over.

For the Lakers, coming off weak efforts in Games 5 and 6, the winning formula isn't a huge mystery. At the very least, it starts with matching Denver's effort and energy. From there, the other considerations come into play. Hitting outside shots. Continuity in pick and roll defense. Finding creases in the paint, despite the flood of bodies Denver sends.

At least Kobe Bryant isn't tossing cookies any longer. His health, he said Friday, has improved. "They’ve been a tough couple days, but I’m feeling a lot better now," he said. Obviously good news, because the stakes in Saturday's game are large. Nervous hours for Lakers fans, maybe, but not for Kobe. "They’re fun," he said of Game 7's. "They’re fun games. Every possession counts even more so. There’s a lot of energy in the building and teams play with a sense of desperation on every single possession. It’s a fun game to be a part of."

Bryant also talked about getting Metta World Peace back in the lineup, and his comments following Thursday's loss that MWP is the only guy he can rely on to compete, play hard, and with urgency "night in and night out," along with the message he's delivering to Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum :



Click below for more video from this afternoon, from Mike Brown, Bynum, and Gasol.

(Read full post)

Inside the Lakers locker room, the lone wall not lined with stalls has in the center a large flatscreen used for watching video flanked by two whiteboards. Before the tip, coaches use the space for notes on the evening's game plan and opponent. After, the one on the right always has the next day's plan. Some days it announces practice times, or when players are required to come in for physical therapy.

Following Tuesday night's Game 5 zombie walk against Denver, it read simply, "Flight, 3:00 pm. Pack for 3 games."

With that, you have one of the more significant practical implications the loss.

The Lakers now head to this afternoon to Denver for a Game 6 either propelling them into the second round or back to Staples for Game 7 Saturday night. The Lakers robbed themselves of an opportunity to eliminate the Nuggets, simultaneously blowing a chance for multiple days off ahead of a potential second round tussle with the Oklahoma City Thunder. As the whiteboard scrawl implies, should the Lakers win Game 6, they won't travel home, but instead straight to OKC, likely kicking off the series either Saturday or Sunday.

(UPDATE: The NBA has released Saturday's playoff scenarios, and no matter what, the Lakers will be playing Saturday. Either Game 7 vs. Denver at Staples, or Game 1 in Oklahoma City.)

(Read full post)

Sitting at the podium an hour or so ahead of Game 1, Denver coach George Karl spoke about the serious star power at the top of the Lakers roster. You do your best, he said, but sometimes only so much can be done about Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Andrew Bynum.

What Karl really wanted to avoid were the "wild cards." If the big names beat you, so be it. Don't let it be the other guys.

For most of the season, suppressing L.A.'s supporting cast didn't exactly require a yeoman's effort. Generally, they took care of it themselves. The Lakers bench was the NBA's least prolific, and the starting small forward and point guard brought little to the table, as well. However, things turned around down the stretch. Metta World Peace found his groove (before getting suspended for an elbow to the head of James Harden). Steve Blake showed signs of life. Jordan Hill squeaked into the rotation at the 59th minute of the 11th hour, and Matt Barnes, consistent all season, put up big numbers in the final weeks.

Their improvement greatly increased the odds of a genuinely noisy postseason run for the Lakers. Such things take a village, after all. Now four games into their opening round series against the Nuggets, the L.A. has a 3-1 lead.

How have the most notable "wild cards" impacted things thus far? Taking a look at four...

(Read full post)

To be perfectly honest, I haven't spent much time thinking about awards season this year. The big one (MVP) seems pretty obvious (LeBron James). It's hard to argue with Gregg Popovich as Coach of the Year. If James Harden doesn't win Sixth Man honors, the world might spin off its axis. Tyson Chandler had his hooks on Defensive Player of the Year for a while -- rightly so -- and Kyrie Irving is a near-lock for Rookie of the Year. The right guys, or at worst extremely credible guys, are winning thus far, so there's really not all that much to discuss.

Save maybe one. The strangest of the postseason awards issued by the NBA is Most Improved Player, given today to Orlando Magic power forward Ryan Anderson. As my fantasy team attested, Anderson had a very good year, averaging a career high 16.1 points and shooting 39.1 percent from 3-point range, but critics will point note his advanced numbers are about what they've always been, and Anderson simply benefited from moving into the starting lineup.

Someone like Milwaukee's Ersan Ilyasova, who finished second, made far larger statistical improvements.

The basic problem with the M.I.P. is the context: A player can only be so good going into the year and have a legitimate shot to win. The soft bigotry of low expectations, and all that. Which brings us to Andrew Bynum, who finished tied for fourth with Detroit center Greg Monroe. Bynum has for a while been called the second best center in the league behind Dwight Howard, the only guy worth Orlando's time in a big man swap. He's also been very effective when healthy, entering the year riding a streak of four straight seasons with a PER north of 20, which Bynum pushed to five in 2011-12. I.E., he was already seen as too good to have a real shot at M.I.P.

This season, Bynum's advanced numbers weren't all that different from ones posted earlier in his career (a knock against his candidacy, maybe, but applicable to Anderson as well), but he played a much different and more difficult role. His minutes were up, along with the level of responsibility. More importantly, Bynum had never seen the double and triple teams routinely sent his way over the course of the season. Relative to earlier in his career, producing at similar statistical levels was much harder. Still, he stayed healthy, made his first All-Star team, and firmly established himself as an elite NBA player.

Last week, ESPNLA's Dave McMenamin made a strong case for Bynum as M.I.P., posing the most fundamental question: "What's more impressive: going from average to good or going from good to great?"

I'd say the latter. That only 28 of 121 voters put Bynum on their ballots indicates either people disagree, or more likely thought Drew was already too good to win, showing again why this is the goofiest of all NBA honors.

It's been a busy day on the blog. To recap, we looked at...

• The discipline shown by the Lakers in their Game 1 win Sunday afternoon.
• The pressure on Mike Brown to perform well in his first playoffs with the Lakers.
• Assault charges filed against Jordan Hill, who said Monday he expects to play in Tuesday's Game 2.

Dave McMenamin passed along reaction Monday's reaction from El Segundo to the incredible comeback for the Clippers Sunday night in Memphis, along with Mike Brown's comments regarding George Karl's assertion he saw "about 30" instances of illegal defense from the Lakers in Sunday's game.

As for the rest of practice...

Among the more underplayed positives of Andrew Bynum's dominant Game 1 came on the offensive end, where he had only one turnover despite multiple touches against near constant double teams. While Bynum improved against extra attention during the season, he was still fairly prone to miscues. Not Sunday. Brown attributed Bynum's near-pristine performance to a better understanding of what Denver would send at him. "[For the playoffs], we've broken down what Denver does. We've walked through it. We showed tape, we walked through it again. We showed tape again. Then we scripted it, and then we walked through it. So he has a better feel of what they're doing, and where they're coming from," he said.

(Read full post)

Denver coach George Karl used his press conference following the Nuggets' 103-88 loss to try to get into the referees heads and gain more favorable officiating in Game 2.

"(Andrew Bynum) was playing nice illegal defense," Karl said after Bynum tied the all-time NBA playoff record with 10 blocked shots Sunday. "He zoned up good. I think we got one illegal defense (called against the Lakers). I saw about 30."

Lakers coach Mike Brown chalked Karl's comments up to nothing more than gamesmanship.

"He’s a veteran coach, he’s been in the playoffs a long time," Brown said after practice Monday. "He’s got to try to work the officials in a lot of different ways. He’s just trying to work the officials, work the public a little bit which I applaud him for doing."

(Read full post)

The opening weekend of the 2012 NBA playoffs featured two games with dramatic fourth quarter results that got the rest of league's attention.

On Saturday, Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose tore the ACL in his left knee when he was still on the court in the fourth quarter even though the Bulls led the Philadelphia 76ers by 12 with just 1:22 remaining.

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Clippers trailed by as many as 27 points in the second half and came back to beat the Memphis Grizzlies with a furious rally in the fourth quarter.

Chicago coach Tom Thibodeau, the NBA's reigning Coach of the Year, was left to defend his decision to keep Rose and the rest of his starters in the game. Just a day later, Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro continued to play his best players late in the game even though his team entered the fourth quarter down by 21 points.

(Read full post)

Sunday, Jordan Hill put in a great performance in his postseason debut, scoring 10 points and grabbing 10 rebounds in L.A.'s 103-88 win over Denver.

On Monday, a promising beginning may have been derailed.

Hill has been charged with choking a family member in an incident on February 29th, while still a member of the Houston Rockets. A warrant for his arrest will be issued, and Hill will have to return to Houston to face the charge -- third degree felony assault on a family member. According to the Houston district attorney's office, Hill faces a sentence of two to 10 years, and a $10,000 fine.

Hill posted two posts on his Twitter feed this morning, "Wowwwww," and "Unbelievable!!!!!!!!"

Obviously this has very serious implications, first for Hill -- this is a serious charge with real prison time potentially attached.

UPDATE (2:15 pm PT)- Hill issued the following statement Monday:

"I'm saddened to learn of the accusations that were filed against me today. At this time, i cannot comment further other than to say that my attorneys are working to gather all of the facts and evidence and I plan to cooperate completely with the authorities.

"I'd like to apologize to the Lakers organization and to all of their fans or the untimeliness of these accusations. I promise to keep my focus and attention on the playoffs during this time and to helping my team win another championship."

UPDATE (3:10 pm PT) - Speaking to the media directly, Hill said he didn't anticipate missing any games. Mike Brown said as well, based on his understanding Hill should be available.

Here is Hill's brief time with the media Monday:

(Read full post)

Phil Jackson arrived in Los Angeles for the 1999-2000 season having already steered the Bulls to six NBA titles. You’d think heading into his first playoffs with the Lakers six rings would outweigh any skepticism over incense and engender a little blind faith from his players.

Not so, Kobe Bryant said last week as the Lakers prepared for the opening round of the playoffs.

“Obviously he had come in having won six championships from Chicago, but at the same time you’re still like, “Is this really going to work?”

“You don’t know until it actually works.”

Mike Brown is not Phil Jackson. His resume includes an impressive .659 winning percentage through six sixth seasons running NBA teams, but it includes multiple playoff disappointments and in his lone trip to the Finals, back in 2007, Brown’s Cavs were dropped by San Antonio in four straight. Supporters say he squeezed a lot of wins out of LeBron James and a perpetually limited supporting cast. Detractors say that his offensive playbook could be could be written out on a cocktail napkin, and whatever success Brown had belongs primarily to James.

In short, Brown is like the overwhelming majority of NBA coaches – constantly working to maintain his credibility, constrained by the limitations of his roster, and balancing his will against stars at least as, if not more powerful, than he.

Brown’s title as an assistant under Gregg Popovich in 2003 was enough to lend some weight with a young Cleveland team short on championship experience. In Los Angeles, balanced against multiple rings for Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Andrew Bynum -- not to mention 16 for the franchise -- Brown’s hardware is more a sparkly party novelty passed around between hors d’oeuvres during cocktail hour.

A dip in gravitas (between the old coach and the new one), as well as a change in offensive philosophy, has fueled a season-long question of whether Brown's players are buying in to his system and his leadership. With help from Bryant, Brown managed to keep the season on the rails, but it wasn't easy.

Just ask Kobe.

(Read full post)

He's not exactly healthy -- asked what causes pain for his sprained right ankle, he replied "Moving." -- but Matt Barnes will play Sunday when the Lakers and Nuggets open up their first round series at Staples Center.

Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), this is spectacularly good news for the Lakers.

Already down Metta World Peace to suspension, facing Denver's depth and versatility the Lakers could ill afford to lose Barnes, leaving Devin Ebanks as the only available small forward not named Christian Eyenga. Now they have to hope Barnes, so reliant on energy and activity, can press through the pain and play his game, something he wasn't fully able to do last spring while fighting a knee injury. If he can't cut hard, move out on the break, or aggressively crash the glass, Barnes isn't nearly as effective. This is before we talk about the defensive side of the ball.

Coach Mike Brown still plans to start Ebanks, a smart choice allowing him to maintain continuity with the rest of his rotation, but Barnes is slated for heavy minutes. One of the more interesting things to watch over the course of the series will be the effectiveness of both on the offensive glass. Both Ebanks and Barnes posted offensive rebound rates near the top of the league among small forwards.

It doesn't serve the Lakers for them to be timid, but awareness will be key (with the 3's and the team as a whole). Well executed, aggressive work on the offensive glass will force the Nuggets to stick around the defensive end a little longer, taking some starch out of their transition game. On the other hand, mistakes will fuel Denver's attack.

"You've just got to pick and choose," Barnes said Saturday after practice. "We watched a lot of film on what we've done this year, what's been effective, and there are still times to go to the glass with them. You just have to pick and choose, because [Ty] Lawson's a one-man break, and Andre Miller likes to get the ball out and throw it ahead. So I've just got to be smart about when I crash."

Brown made it clear he doesn't want either to feel limited, but also emphasized judgment. A miscue here and there can be tolerated, but should either string a couple together Brown won't be shy about making substitutions.



Click below for more video from Saturday's practice, including Kobe Bryant, Ramon Sessions, Andrew Bynum, and Ebanks.

(Read full post)

Dave McMenamin has the news.

In a nutshell, Kobe Bryant will sit out the regular season finale tonight in Sacramento, ceding this year's scoring title to Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant. Kobe has said repeatedly over the last few days the scoring crown isn't important to him, and certainly anyone who didn't believe him before ought to now. Had he decided to strap 'em up and make a run at K.D. I would have understood, and this poll on the official Lakers Facebook page suggests Lakers fans wanted to see him go for it. Still, Kobe is unquestionably making the safer choice, and more than a few fingernails around town will probably be preserved.

With that, tonight becomes all about extended run for seldom used players like Andrew Goudelock and Darius Morris, along with everyone's first look at Christian Eyenga in a Lakers uni.