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Mark Willard and Arash Markazi break down the importance of the Lakers finding an identity and developing chemistry this season.

Mark Willard and Arash Markazi break down expectations for Kobe Bryant this season as he recovers from surgery on his Achilles.

LOS ANGELES -- Shawne Williams was just another draft bust that had been discarded by the league when he arrived on Mike D'Antoni's and the New York Knicks' doorstep in September 2010.

"I gained my respect for Mike was when I first got to New York," Williams told ESPNLosAngeles.com at Los Angeles Lakers training camp this week. "We had a meeting and he told me a couple things. I won't put that out in the public, but he told me some things. He told me the truth. And I respect him for that."

What did D'Antoni tell him? What do you say to a former first-round draft pick who had already been charged with possession of marijuana, possession of a stolen handgun, and in a separate incident, misdemeanor drug possession for allegedly selling a codeine substance?
What message did D'Antoni have for someone who had already worn out his welcome with both the Indiana Pacers and Dallas Mavericks and became such a persona non grata that he was out of the league completely for the 2009-10 season before arriving in New York?

"I remember," D'Antoni said. "I told him I didn't want him. Because that's what happens in this league sometimes, you get labels on guys. I didn't know him, only what I read, what I saw, what I heard. So I'm thinking, 'Why do we need to go down that path again?' "

The honesty was something Williams, a 6-foot-9 forward with deep range who had been relying more on talent than mental toughness, needed to hear.

It humbled him.

For the first 18 games of the 2010-11 season, Williams sat on the Knicks' bench, racking up DNP after DNP. When he finally got a chance to play, New York went on an eight-game winning streak, with Williams making 15 of the 28 shots he put up during the tear.

"Eighteen games in, I got a shot to play and I ended up doing alright and I was playing ever since," Williams said. "To me, I just feel like Mike's system is a great system. He's a great coach. He respects players. He knows how to coach players. And that's basically it. That's just my guy. I like him as a coach, a person. That's just it."

For D'Antoni, the feeling is mutual.

"When you get to know the guy, he's nothing like the perception," D'Antoni said. "He's one of the most stand-up, nicest, coachable and skilled players that I've ever coached and I'm hoping. He's been off a couple years, so that is what it is and he still has to fight perception, but he's one of those guys that plays a lot better than people think."

"Sometimes this league is a revolving door"

Williams' lone season in New York with D'Antoni has proved to be the glory days of his career so far. Williams averaged 7.1 points, 3.7 rebounds and 0.8 blocks in just 20.1 minutes per game that season, while shooting 40.1 percent on 3-pointers.

He signed with the then New Jersey Nets after the lockout and never found his niche, shooting just 28.6 percent from the field in 25 games. The Nets traded him to the Portland Trail Blazers at the end of the 2011-12 season. Portland bought out his contract for 2012-13. Williams was out of the league, again. And fell back into trouble, again. This time he was arrested for possession of both marijuana and codeine cough syrup.

(Read full post)

At the Los Angeles Lakers' media day on Saturday, a few reporters showed up to ask about Kobe Bryant's Achilles (and high-diving skills), Pau Gasol's knees and a host of other topics.

Among the highlights:

• Bryant says he is "feeling good," and while there is no timetable, he's easing back into basketball activity. He also spoke to ESPN 710 -- listen to it here.

• Pau Gasol said Saturday he will not be available for the start of training camp as he continues to recover from offseason procedures in both knees, ESPNLA's Dave McMenamin reports. Listen to Gasol's interview with ESPNLA 710 here.
• Mike D'Antoni talks about the surgery he had right before accepting the Lakers' head coaching job and why this year will be different. Listen here.
• Steve Nash is ready to move on from last's year's disappointing season. Listen here.

Also speaking Saturday to ESPN 710: Jordan Hill (listen to what he has to say here), Steve Blake (interview here), Ryan Kelly (heard here) and Wesley Johnson (his thoughts here).

Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak doesn't expect Kobe Bryant to try to play a particular way in order to make the Lakers more attractive to free agents next summer.

"Kobe is not going to play to lure somebody to Los Angeles," Kupchak said Wednesday, addressing the press in advance on Saturday's media day. "He’s going to play to try to win games. If the way he plays helps lure players to Los Angeles, then so be it. But trust me, in January, February and March, that’s not what he’s thinking when there’s a game being played."

The Lakers have a massive amount of cap space stored for the summer of 2014 when they figure to be major players on the free agency market.

Whether Bryant is the one doing the recruiting or not, the Lakers will have to start to bring in fresh blood as their three best players -- Bryant (35-years old), Steve Nash (39) and Pau Gasol (33) -- are all far closer to the end of their careers than to the beginning.

Kupchak does not seem too worried about getting those players, whoever they might be, to come to L.A. despite the fact that the team was unable to convince Dwight Howard to stay earlier this year, and despite the fact that executive vice president Jeanie Buss' memoir, "Laker Girl," suggests the relationship between she and her brother, fellow VP, Jim Buss has been strained.

"I don’t think [the book] would have anything to do with [free agency]," Kupchak said. "The Lakers and Los Angeles remains a destination place for athletes of any sport. This is a wonderfully supportive fan base in Los Angeles. It’s a vibrant city and the franchises that have been here, our franchise has been one of the best if not the best, once it came here in 1960. We’ve always figured out a way to bring players and put competitive and championship teams on the court. Those things don’t change."

What has changed is the Lakers' philosophy on doling out lucrative, multi-year contracts to role players as the team attempts to adjust its business and basketball practices under the rules of the NBA's current collective bargaining agreement.

"The worst thing you can do is be burdened with contracts that are $6-7-8 million a year that go out 3-4 years and you have just kind of average players," Kupchak said. "Then you’re really kind of stuck in the middle -- you’re not going to get a good draft choice and you’re not going to have financial flexibility. So, in our opinion, we’re set up probably as best as we can be set up for the future."

That set-up involved stacking the 2013-14 roster with a bunch of players whose contracts all expire at the end of the season. That could create an environment full of players who are motivated to play for their individual numbers in order to make themselves more attractive when free agency comes around, but Kupchak did not seem worried about that scenario.

"I think players look at it as an opportunity," Kupchak said. "And they clearly get guidance from their agent, but I’m sure their agents are saying, ‘Listen, if you play well in Los Angeles, they have all this cap room and financial flexibility a year from now. This is a great opportunity for you.’ In years past, when we were so far over the cap, I’m sure a lot of agents said, ‘Even if you play well, they’re only going to sign minimum [contract] guys.’ But I don’t think that’s the case. I’ve talked to a bunch of agents and I think they feel this is a good spot for players."

He better hope so. If not, then Bryant's recruiting pitch might be necessary. The last thing the Lakers want to have happen is to clear all that cap space and not find anybody worth spending it on.

When we last left the Los Angeles Lakers, a painful season was mercifully being put to an end at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs.

But the past is the past. A new season is right around the corner. Hope springs eternal, right?

A lot has changed in Laker Land in the five months between the Spurs series, which ended in a 21-point loss to complete the sweep on April 28, and when training camp opens up Saturday. Most notably, the will-he-or-won’t-he game the team played with Dwight Howard ended with the Lakers stranded on the dance floor as Howard made his Texas two-step to the Houston Rockets. Beyond that, L.A. said goodbye to key contributors Metta World Peace, Antawn Jamison and Earl Clark, and hello to a handful of hopeful replacements in Chris Kaman, Nick Young, Jordan Farmar and Wesley Johnson.

With that said, it’s time to count down to training camp. Let's take a look at the 10 storylines to keep in mind as the Lakers open up the 2013-14 season.

1. How will Kobe Bryant open up the “last chapter” of his storied career?
Seemingly whenever Bryant’s Achilles tear was brought up this offseason, one would point to Bryant’s age (35), his amount of career minutes logged (54,000 and counting between the regular season and playoffs) and other players to be decimated by the same injury (Chauncey Billups, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Elton Brand, etc.) to analyze Bryant’s chances of returning to form, but then couch all that with a statement along the lines of, “But I wouldn’t bet against him.” The speculation will end soon enough. Beyond the perfunctory questions of when Bryant will actually return to the lineup and how much playing time he’ll receive, there’s the more meta cloud of mystery as to what type of approach Bryant will take once he is back. Did all this time away from the game change him? Will he still be the player with individual iron will who demands his teammates to follow, or will he be more willing to meet them halfway? If the Lakers struggle, as ESPN.com’s NBA panel suggested, how will Bryant respond to potentially playing on a noncontending team for the first time in nearly a decade? After tapping into the fountain of youth for his “Vino” resurgence the past couple of seasons, does he have anything left for an encore? It’s sure to be fascinating.

2. What will a full training camp do for Mike D’Antoni?
"This year we should start off finding and solving some problems in October and in September when you watch guys play and [find out] what's their tendencies, and then you formulate your ideas and you try to get it going by November," D'Antoni told ESPN 710 in August. There were excuses built in from the start of D’Antoni’s tenure with the team last year, from the disadvantage of taking over a team that was 1-4 in the regular season following an 0-8 preseason to a roster that included a starting point guard with a broken leg (Steve Nash), a backup point guard with a lingering abdominal strain (Steve Blake) and a starting center still rehabbing a major back injury (Howard). Not to mention D’Antoni was coming off knee replacement surgery of his own when he took the gig and facing the fallout of being the guy the franchise chose over Phil Jackson. He’ll go into this season with a roster that better fits his style of play, a clean 0-0 record and more manageable expectations from a fan base that is no longer thinking championship or bust.

3. Who will make the team?
The Lakers have 11 guaranteed contracts for next season in Bryant, Nash, Blake, Young, Kaman, Farmar, Johnson, Pau Gasol, Jodie Meeks, Robert Sacre and Jordan Hill. They have also signed Shawne Williams, Elias Harris, Marcus Landry, Xavier Henry and Ryan Kelly as camp invitees. How many out of those five will make the team? The most who can make it is four, as the maximum number of players allowed on an NBA roster is 15. The Lakers will indeed likely open the season with a 15-man roster according to a team source, with several of those players on partially guaranteed deals that become fully vetted only if they stick around the team later in the season. Williams already has a partially guaranteed deal, according to a league source, so you figure he would put the roster at 12 (D’Antoni recently raved about him in an interview with Time Warner Cable SportsNet). And Elias Harris also has a partially guaranteed deal, according to the L.A. Times, so let's say he's No. 13. From there, who out of Kelly, Landry and Henry will be the odd man out when it comes to cut day?

4. Who wins the backup point guard job?
Yes, Blake will turn 33 this season, while Farmar will only be turning 27. And yes, Farmar has proved to be a championship-caliber player in L.A., helping to capture two rings before leaving as a free agent in the summer of 2010, but let’s not diminish what Blake is capable of. The 11-year veteran was at his best when the Lakers needed him the most last season, averaging 12.6 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.0 assists while shooting 40.7 percent from 3 during eight games in the month of April when L.A. made its playoff push. There could be plenty of time for both of them if D’Antoni is committed to cutting down on Nash’s minutes, but on nights when Nash receives a lot of burn, either Farmar or Blake will find himself riding the pine.

5. How long before the next Phil Jackson rumor pops up?
As long as Phil Jackson doesn’t have a job with another NBA team, his presence will continue to swirl around the Lakers like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. His name was already linked to the failed Seattle ownership group, the Brooklyn Nets, Toronto Raptors, Orlando Magic and Detroit Pistons in the past year, but none of that has quieted the calls by fans for him to return to the Lakers in some capacity (and consulting on a scripted television series about the team for Showtime won’t be enough). With the Jeanie Buss-Jim Buss relationship continuing to be played out in the public eye, it’s doubtful we’ve heard the last of Jackson when it comes to the team he coached to five championships.

6. Can Kurt Rambis get these guys to play defense?
In a move that is still somewhat puzzling considering D’Antoni’s natural motivation to remove himself from Jackson comparisons, Rambis was brought in as an assistant coach this offseason. While D’Antoni hasn’t made any delineations as to which one of his aides will responsible for what next season, Rambis’ defensive mind will surely be explored to help the Lakers start to find a way to get stops. The Lakers were tied with Brooklyn for 18th in the league in defensive efficiency last season, allowing opponents to score 103.6 points per 100 possessions. In a word: dreadful. Now, without the services of two former defensive player of the year award winners in Howard and World Peace, the Lakers will try to figure out a way to improve in that all-important end of the court.

7. What does Pau Gasol have left?
After he turned in a masterpiece of a Game 7 in the 2010 NBA Finals with 19 points, 18 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks, it’s been pretty much all downhill for Gasol. In the 2011 season he fizzled in the playoffs as Jackson’s “Last Stand” season went up in smoke. In the 2012 season, he was demoted in the pecking order as Mike Brown tried to develop a system around Andrew Bynum. And last season, D’Antoni felt compelled to go through Howard rather than Gasol to appease the impending free agent, not to mention that the Spaniard’s health was an issue during the entire campaign. With Bynum and Howard out of the picture and Gasol's body supposedly in good shape after he took the summer off from international competition for the first time in a long time, can he return to the form that made him a four-time All-Star and two-time champion, or will the 2013-14 season be a continuation of his rapid descent?

8. Will history be made?
Bryant enters the season with 31,617 career points, placing him fourth on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. The next name ahead of him? None other than Michael Jordan, sitting 675 points away with 32,292 career points. If Bryant can maintain his 25.5 points per game career average, it will take him somewhere in the neighborhood of 27 games to catch MJ. Nash enters the season with 10,249 career assists, putting him fourth on the all-time list. He is just 85 assists away from Mark Jackson for third. If he can distribute dimes at his 8.5 per game career rate, it will take him a mere 10 games to move up the ranks.

9. Will there be a Howard hangover?
By most estimations, having Howard in Houston will help clear the chemistry in the Lakers' locker room and allow the team to start fresh with a much-needed attitude adjustment. But what happens if the Rockets soar to the top of the Western Conference standings and L.A. is left with a roster devoid of rim protectors? The prevailing sentiment from Laker Nation after Howard skipped town was “good riddance,” but will regret creep up if a healthy Howard has an MVP-type season for Houston? Will everything that went down with Howard haunt the franchise in the way that the vetoed Chris Paul trade still lingers around the Lakers? Or will Howard wear out his welcome with the Rockets in the same fashion he did with the Lakers and the Orlando Magic?

10. How will those new jerseys look?
Being a fan isn’t just about analyzing the rotation and cheering for what the players do on the court, it’s about having an opinion on how they look while they’re doing it, too. It’s not all serious stuff. Paul Lukas of Uni Watch recently ranked the Lakers’ jerseys as the No. 2 best kit in the league, just behind their rival Boston Celtics. It’s tough to mess with a classic look like that, but the Lakers are giving it a try, introducing a black alternative “Hollywood Nights” uniform as well as a white, short-sleeved jersey. If that wasn’t enough new wardrobe possibilities, the NBA is considering allowing players from the Miami Heat and Brooklyn Nets to put nicknames on the back of their jerseys, which could lead to a “Black Mamba” No. 24 uniform down the road.

The Los Angeles Lakers have signed forward Marcus Landry, the team announced today. Per team policy, terms of the agreement were not released.

Landry, a 6-foot-7 forward out of Wisconsin, has spent time over the past three years with the Maine Red Claws and Reno Bighorns of the NBA Development League and internationally with teams in Spain, China, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. During his two seasons (2010-11 and 2012-13) with the Bighorns, Landry played in 84 games (83 starts) averaging 16.9 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists in 36.0 minutes.

Signing with the New York Knicks as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2009, Landry played for both the Knicks and Boston Celtics during the 2009-10 campaign, averaging 2.4 points and 1.1 rebounds in 6.1 minutes over 18 games.

The Milwaukee native and younger brother of NBA veteran Carl Landry was most recently a member of the 2013 Lakers summer league team, for which he played in all five games (four starts) and averaged 15.2 points and 4.2 rebounds in 26.5 minutes.

Pretty much any fan of the Los Angeles Lakers will tell you that the last three seasons haven’t been very fun, with the 2012-13 season falling much closer to painful than joyful on the experience scale.

“We were stacked and it was an epic failure,” said Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist and Lakers super fan, Flea, in a recent podcast with LandOLakers.com. “For me, it was the most disappointing Lakers season of all time and not even close to any other season.”

From the embarrassing ending to Phil Jackson’s final campaign, to the uninspiring Mike Brown era (L.A. topped 100 points just 24 times in the 71 regular-season games he coached), to the utter disaster of last season, the return on investment of time, money and emotion spent by Lakers fans has not resulted in any sort of payoff.

I know what that life’s all about, having grown up as a Philadelphia sports fan. Losing and frustration and disappointment come with the territory.

If I went into every season with a championship-or-bust mentality as a fan, I would have given up watching sports a long time ago and probably would be really into cooking shows and have some random additional skill, like being able to play the piano.

But, I kept watching and I keep watching. And even though there’s been only one Philadelphia championship in my lifetime (the 2008 Phillies) and I have that Jerry West in me where I hate to lose more than I love to win, I have conditioned myself to still be able to find enjoyment as a fan in a season, even if there is no ring at the end.

Now, the Lakers have 16 championships in their history, compared to just five for the three major pro sports teams in Philly (three for the 76ers, two for the Phillies and zero Super Bowl wins for the Eagles … I’m not an ice hockey guy). So that fact alone might naturally lower my expectations. But is being a Lakers fan all about rooting for rings and nothing else?

What if those expectations were removed? What if you forgot about the history for a second and, instead of focusing solely on the team’s quest for No. 17 or Kobe Bryant’s fight for No. 6, you took in each game for what it is? What if a loss in January wasn’t a referendum on how the team could potentially perform in June, but rather something the team could learn from in February?

Take my Eagles, for instance. Have you seen them under Chip Kelly? I came into this season thinking that an 8-8 record would be pretty much their ceiling after a dreadful 4-12 mark last season. Two weeks into it and they’re 1-1, so that’s right in step with my instincts. But there is nothing mediocre or ho-hum about how they got to 1-1. If I wanted to view everything in the specter of their Super Bowl chances, then I could focus on how they almost let a 26-point lead disappear against Washington and how they were 7.5-point favorites at Lincoln Financial Field in Week 2 and lost to San Diego.

But if I forget about Lombardi for a second, I can appreciate what’s going on here. Back-to-back 30-point games? Last season, the Eagles scored 30 or more in just one game all season -- a 38-33 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. LeSean McCoy putting up 184 running yards in Week 1, Michael Vick collecting 428 passing yards in Week 2 and DeSean Jackson hauling in 297 receiving yards over two games? This is silly stuff. And wildly entertaining. And all I could ask for as a fan.

So, how about it, Lakers fans? What if Mike D’Antoni gets these guys to reach the 110-115 points per game that he promised at his introductory news conference? What if there is chemistry and growth and a few upsets along the way -- both from the Lakers beating a team or two that are better than them and falling to a few inferior opponents?

The knee-jerk reaction from some of you I’m sure will be, “Well, we had ‘Showtime’ already AND we won.” And you’d be right on both counts. But even though this season’s Lakers will be wearing the same purple and gold uniforms as those teams from the 1980s, everything else has changed in the NBA they’ll be competing in. You can still honor the past without making it an unrealistic standard you hold the present to. Plus, it’s all about context. Comparing this aging Bryant/Steve Nash/Pau Gasol-led team to Magic Johnson/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar/James Worthy in their prime isn’t a fair fight. But comparing it to the squad that had an injured, unhappy Dwight Howard on it last season? Or to the team that slogged up and down the court under Brown? It would have to be better than that, right?

I called up Paul Coro, who covers the Phoenix Suns for the Arizona Republic and got on the beat one month after D’Antoni got the job as head coach of the Suns. How did Phoenix fans accept the 7 Seconds or Less era?

“When he took over the team, [there] was kind of free rein because there wasn’t any expectations,” Coro said. “Everything about it was great. They were winning beyond anybody’s imagination. They were doing it in a way that was innovative and thoroughly entertaining. It just blew people away how much fun it was. Immediately, they had big crowds -- sellouts early in the season. I think they ended up starting a sellout streak that carried on for a few years. It was nothing for them to be up in the 110-120 [point range].”

Albeit the Suns have never won it all, having lost to the Chicago Bulls in the 1993 Finals and to the Boston Celtics in 1976, so you could say that they never knew what it was like to root for a championship team like L.A. The point is, though, that those D'Antoni Suns teams were worth it for the fans. They were memorable. They were thrilling. They were fun.

A healthy Bryant, Nash and Gasol, with additional playmaking from guys like Nick Young, Jordan Farmar, Wes Johnson and Steve Blake, plus Jordan Hill and Chris Kaman playing big down low and Jodie Meeks and Ryan Kelly or Shawne Williams spreading the floor outside can be fun, too.

I'm excited about watching the next Eagles game. Do I think this will be the best season ever for the Birds? Nope. But they could surprise me. It's a nice feeling.

Wouldn't it be nice to feel that way about the Lakers again?

Mark Willard and Arash Markazi debate what Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni must accomplish this season to remain the head coach in Los Angeles.

The Forum

On March 18 of last season, Darius Morris didn’t get into the game until the last three minutes of the Los Angeles Lakers’ blowout loss to the Phoenix Suns. Coach Mike D’Antoni stuck to a seven-man rotation on the second night of a back-to-back, and Morris didn’t figure into his plans.

Two days before that, Andrew Goudelock was playing for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers and picking apart the Lakers’ D-League affiliate, the L.A. D-Fenders, with 33 points and 12 assists in a 15-point win.

Five weeks later, Morris and Goudelock made up the Lakers’ starting backcourt for Game 3 of their first-round playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs. They put up an admirable effort -- Goudelock finished with 20 points and three steals, Morris had 24 points and six assists -- but the Spurs still embarrassed the Lakers, winning by 31 points on the Lakers' home floor.

The Lakers started the season with a Hall of Fame-bound backcourt of Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash, backed up by a D’Antoni favorite in Steve Blake and a pure, space-the-floor shooter in Jodie Meeks.

They ended it with two former second-round picks playing close to 40 minutes apiece in a playoff game.

Even with the rash of injuries the Lakers experienced last season -- trainer Gary Vitti said it was the worst string of bad luck he’s seen in his 20-plus years with the team -- the Lakers clearly had to address the guard position in the offseason.

Part of that process was upgrading from Morris (who remains an unsigned free agent after L.A. cut ties with him) and Goudelock (who signed a one-year deal to play in Russia after shining with Chicago’s summer league team).

Here’s a look at how the Lakers’ depth chart at guard should shake out next season:

1. Kobe Bryant

Even as a 35-year-old coming off of Achilles surgery and entering his 18th season in the league, Bryant is still the sun the Lakers' planet revolves around. He’ll be looked to to jump-start the Lakers' offense, whether in scorer or facilitator mode (hopefully more of the latter), and instill the belief that L.A. can actually accomplish something in 2013-14 outside of jockeying for draft lottery status. While Bryant will still surely play more than any other guard in the Lakers' lineup next season (when he's ready to return from his injury), it will be up to D’Antoni to manage his minutes better than last season. Bryant played 38.6 minutes per game in 2012-13, including an average of 45.6 minutes in his final seven games leading up to the injury. Just like the sun sets, Bryant and D’Antoni will have to figure out a way to pace themselves, perhaps by borrowing a page out of Gregg Popovich’s book and sitting Bryant on the second night of back-to-backs like the Spurs often do with Tim Duncan.

2. Steve Nash

Not only is Nash older than just about every player in the league -- he’ll turn 40 during the season -- he’s older than some of the top executives, as the Denver Nuggets hired 36-year-old Tim Connelly to be their general manager in the offseason and the Suns, Nash’s former team, brought on 33-year-old Ryan McDonough as their GM. Nash has already proved to be an ageless wonder, however, and as long as he can put his hip and groin injuries behind him, he will be relied upon to run D’Antoni’s offense the way the two hoped could have happened last season. Just like Bryant, however, there should be a minute cap for Nash. He averaged 32.5 minutes per game last season with only Blake providing consistent relief. The addition of Jordan Farmar, who at 26 is nearly a decade and a half Nash’s junior, will make it easier to cut into those minutes.

3. Jordan Farmar

Once upon a time, Farmar left a Lakers team that had won back-to-back championships because he didn’t want to continue to play behind an aging point guard in Derek Fisher. This time around, Farmar is joining a Lakers team that suffered back-to-back early exits in order to -- wait for it -- back up an aging point guard. Despite that, it seems like a natural fit for Farmar to return to the Lakers and play in a system that is better suited to his dribble-drive game than Phil Jackson’s triangle offense ever was. He will play both the 1 and the 2 at times and could really show his value if Bryant misses any portion of the season while still in recovery.

4. Steve Blake

Blake is the incumbent here, but it will be difficult for him to maintain his primary backup spot if Farmar comes in and performs to the best of his ability. The good news for Blake is there will always be time for him and his brand of hard-nosed, on-ball defense, and if D’Antoni gives Bryant and/or Nash the second night of back-to-backs off, there could be major minutes to be had. Plus, D’Antoni told ESPN 710 radio in Los Angeles that he plans to play an 11-man rotation. If the coach follows through with that plan, there will certainly be a role available for Blake.

5. Nick Young

Young has played shooting guard for the majority of his six-year career, but the Lakers think he’s capable of playing small forward. “Nick’s size, ability to create his own shot and athleticism make him a versatile player who will give our lineup multiple looks on the floor,” GM Mitch Kupchak said in the news release announcing Young’s signing mere minutes before the team used the amnesty clause to waive Metta World Peace. So, while Young will inevitably get some time at guard, he’ll more than likely be the team’s starting 3 when the season opens up.

6. Jodie Meeks

Meeks’ role will likely be hit-or-miss -- he’ll stay in when he’s hitting his shots and sit when he’s missing them. Like Blake having his value challenged by the addition of Farmar, Meeks will have to fight against becoming redundant with the addition of Young.

7. Xavier Henry

Henry, a former lottery pick by New Orleans in 2010, has the right frame at 6-foot-6 to play swingman, but hasn’t gotten the rest of his game together enough to stick in the league yet. Henry has a training camp invite with no guaranteed money, according to a league source, so his first priority is making the team, let alone cracking the rotation.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- The Los Angeles Lakers have signed free agent forward Shawne Williams, the team announced Tuesday. Williams' contract is one year deal for the veteran's minimum (worth approximately $1.1 million) but is only partially guaranteed, according to a league source.

Williams last played in the NBA for the Brooklyn Nets (then the New Jersey Nets) in 2011-12, averaging 4.5 points and 2.7 rebounds in 25 games. The 6-foot-9 forward, drafted with the No. 17 pick out of Memphis by the Indiana Pacers in 2006, has career averages of 5.7 points and 2.8 rebounds in 16.4 minutes in 215 career games (23 starts) for the Pacers, Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks and Nets.

The 27-year-old Williams had the best production of his career playing under Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni for the Knicks in 2010-11. That season, Williams averaged 7.1 points and 3.7 rebounds while shooting 40.1 percent on 3-pointers.

ESPNNewYork.com's Ian Begley previously reported Williams' invite to Lakers training camp in July.

The Lakers plan to roll out some shirt-sleeve alternate jerseys next season, including one in black – should a team with the tradition and iconic uniform look of the Lakers mess with their look like this? Or is tradition just another word for “old”?

The Forum

The Los Angeles Lakers are a team on the rebound. The recovery process after Dwight Howard’s departure may not be brief, and it probably won’t be painless. Time will likely heal all wounds, but it’s hard to imagine the Lakers will be better off in the short-term.

But what holds true for the team doesn’t necessarily apply to the individual. Even though they occasionally flirted with great chemistry as a pair, Pau Gasol might actually be better off without Dwight Howard this season.

Part of that has to do with Gasol likely being better off, period. Last year, Gasol languished through 49 injury-riddled games, averaging career lows in points per game (13.7), field goal percentage (46.6), and PER (16.7). If he’s healthy, you’d assume there would be some return to the mean.

Howard’s exit might speed along that process. Last season, when the two big men shared the floor, Gasol averaged .92 PPP (points per possession) on 46.1 percent shooting from the field. In his 707 minutes without Howard, however, those numbers improved to 1.07 PPP on 47.8 percent shooting.

Of course, a big part of that improved effectiveness had to do with the spots on the floor from which the touches originated. With Howard on the floor, Gasol had 28 percent of his shot attempts come from within 0-3 feet, and 22.3 percent come from 3-9 feet. Without him, those numbers jumped to 31.8 and 26.9 percent.

It’s simple -- when Gasol was closer to the rim last year, he was a better scorer. Gasol averaged .87 PPP in post-up chances last season, compared to .83 PPP on spot-up jumpers. That’s atypical for most players today, but that’s how good Gasol is with his back to the basket.

Unfortunately, the spacing issues with Howard just didn’t allow Gasol to get on the block very often, and the number of touches he received in the post dropped considerably. In the 2011-12 season, 28.5 percent of Gasol’s shots came from the post. In 2012-13? That number fell to 24.4 percent.

So should Gasol be playing the majority of his minutes at center this season, despite the offseason signing of a more conventional center in Chris Kaman? It should certainly be an option.

Here’s a big reason why. When Howard was off the floor last year, Gasol posted a solid defensive rebounding rate of 22.6 – the same number as Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah and a better number than mammoth centers like Nikola Pekovic, Roy Hibbert and Kaman. Gasol may look a little soft, but he can more than handle his own on the glass. Truth be told, his post defense (only .75 PPP allowed last year) was pretty good as well, even though his declining athleticism and foot speed and didn’t help much in the way of rim protection.

Kaman shares a lot of those same issues, and his health is also a constant concern. But for a team who needs to score the ball a ton to account for what should be a pretty bad defense, the offensive chemistry in the frontcourt will be particularly important.

That being said, the two big men should be able to co-exist together, primarily because Kaman is an excellent mid-range shooter. Kaman’s jumper is a weapon he’s relied on more and more over the years, and considering his deficiencies as a post passer and finisher around the rim, it may be his only viable weapon left. Hypothetically, Kaman’s ability to stretch the floor should allow Gasol to assume his rightful position on the block and get more touches with more space to operate. Actually getting the touches is important, though: Gasol’s usage rate somehow declined last year when Howard was off the floor from 21.7 to 20.8.

Gasol’s role may be a little ambiguous in Mike D’Antoni’s system, and that kind of speaks to a larger point. Call it the burden of skill. Because he can seemingly do everything well offensively -- facilitate, shoot, score around the rim -- Gasol is often charged with filling in the gaps of his frontcourt partners, regardless of whether or not it’s optimizing his own production.

Gasol’s identity (is he a 4 or a 5?) also seems to change based on his surroundings -- he’s sort of a basketball chameleon. His ability to play with virtually anyone during his prime made him a champion. Now a little older, and with a little more scoring responsibility, the goal for the Lakers accompanying frontcourt players should be to complement Gasol, and not the other way around.

For the Lakers to rebound successfully this season, they’ll need Pau Gasol to help out and fill the void left by an absent big man. He’s done it in the past, he did it in brief moments last year, and he’s still capable of doing it now.

But the question is this: Will the Lakers have the means to help the helper?

Stats from ESPN.com, NBAwowy.com, MySynergySports.com, and Basketball-Reference.com were used in this post.

Yes, the Los Angeles Lakers might have 23 Pacific Division titles since the NBA created the league classification at the start of the 1970-71 season. And true, the Los Angeles Clippers have only one, coming last season. However, in the “What have you done for me lately?” sports world we live in, the Lakers’ “Showtime” history won’t give them a leg up on the lads from Lob City this year.

The story of the five-team Pacific Division for 2013-14 is one of the haves (Clippers and Golden State Warriors picked to finish second and sixth, respectively, in ESPN.com’s Summer Forecast of the Western Conference), the have-nots (the Sacramento Kings and the Phoenix Suns were picked 14th and 15th in the West in the same survey) and the Lakers, who fall somewhere in between.

With the Clippers coming off the most successful regular season in franchise history and adding Doc Rivers to the fold, the boys in red, white and blue are primed to back up their first Pacific Division title with another one, continuing the trend over the past decade of teams getting hot in the division and staying that way (the Lakers won five straight division titles from 2007-2012 and the Suns won three straight before that from 2004-07).

ESPNLosAngeles.com broke down each of five teams’ prospects heading into this season, including a take from both an anonymous Western Conference scout for the teams’ on-court plans and from an anonymous Western Conference front-office executive looking at the direction each franchise is headed.

LOS ANGELES LAKERS
2012-13 record: 45-37
If absorbing Dwight Howard’s departure wasn’t enough for the Lakers to digest, the best three players remaining on the roster -- Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash and Pau Gasol -- all enter the new season with serious health questions. How will Bryant respond to Achilles surgery as a 35-year-old? Will Nash, at 39, be able to keep his body on the floor through the rigors of an 82-game season? Is there anything left in those 33-year-old knees belonging to Gasol? And is Mike D'Antoni the right man to try to keep it all together? Still, the Lakers trudged ahead without Howard, making a couple of high-talent, low-budget pickups while maintaining their coveted cap space for the summer of 2014.

Players Added
Rookies: Ryan Kelly, Elias Harris (undrafted free agent)
Free Agents: Jordan Farmar, Wesley Johnson, Chris Kaman, Robert Sacre (re-signed), Nick Young

Players Lost
Free Agents: Earl Clark, Dwight Howard, Antawn Jamison
Waived: Metta World Peace (amnesty)

Scout’s take:

-- "They’re going to be back playing more of Mike D’Antoni’s style, which is a lot of early offense, playing the pick-and-roll, playing to Steve Nash’s strengths. You got a guy in Jordan Farmar who is going to be able to play in that style. He’s quick, he’s athletic, he can play point guard. Nick Young is an athlete, a guy that can get up and down the court and can really score coming off the bench. Wes Johnson is a guy who can space the floor for them, hopefully."

-- "I don’t expect them to be a strong defensive team. They’ve got a lot of older, veteran guys. I just don’t know that that’s the strength of Coach D’Antoni. I think he’s a tremendous offensive coach and I know his philosophy is, ‘Well, if we outscore the opposing team then we’ve played good enough defense.’ He’s basically said that in the past."

-- "I do expect the Lakers to be competitive again. I think they’re a playoff-caliber team. I don’t know if they’re going to be one of the top-tier teams in the West."

-- "I do expect Kobe to be back playing at a high level. I know there’s uncertainty with the Achilles' heel. Just with his talent and his drive, I expect him to be back at a high level. I would almost worry about him pushing it too far, too fast. I think they’re going to try to force him to come back kind of slow. Don’t try to take on the world right away.

"Kobe, to me, is going to thrive off of his smarts and his experiences. He’s always been one of those guys that’s just been like a sponge. I think that’s what separates him from the average player or even a very good player. I think this is just another challenge for him. He’s like [Michael] Jordan in that way where he’ll almost make up motivation, make up something to help get him motivated.

"I would not be surprised for him to be back at an All-Star level. I don’t know if it’s going to be next season, it could be, but I could definitely see him being back as an All-Star because that’s just in his DNA."

Exec’s take:

-- “It’s kind of a year where I’m sure they don’t know what’s going to happen and the rest of the league doesn’t either. A big part of it is where is Kobe going to be at? If there’s a guy you don’t want to doubt, it’s him. If he’s anywhere near 100 percent, you can’t count those guys out to be in the playoff hunt at the very least."

-- "I think they’re trying to get through with a team that can probably be competitive this year and see where they’re at health-wise, and then next year they obviously got a ton of flexibility to kind of re-mold that franchise.

-- "Dwight being gone, it hurts you from a talent standpoint, but it might help from a chemistry standpoint -- just from the outside looking in. If you have Nash and Pau both healthy and Kobe is anywhere near 100 percent, I think they’ll see more rhythm with that offense."

-- "I think Nick Young will be a good addition off the bench for them, if they bring him off the bench, give them some punch."

-- "I don’t know if they have the depth to contend for a top five or six seed in the West, and if Kobe is not anywhere near 100 percent, I think it could be a challenging year for them."

-- "They'll see where they're at. At this point I don’t think they want to think about that possibility [of stripping down the team] right now. I don’t think that’s how they think. Their aspirations are a lot higher than most teams every year, and I’m sure they want to see where Kobe’s at come Jan. 1 and see where the team’s at. If they get to the point where it’s the trade deadline and they can tell their team’s not going anywhere, I’m sure they’ll at least consider something with Pau or any other pieces they might be able to move for a longer-term piece."

-- "I think all of this comes back to where Kobe’s at -- healthwise, mentally -- because I think they’re going to factor in how he views what’s the short term and long term with them because he’s been such a statue of that franchise for so long. I think it will be something that they feel their way out as the season goes along on that."

Lakers 2013-14 prediction: 44-38

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Will the Lakers make the playoffs this season?

It’s a key question of the offseason, but it’s one usually answered with more questions. Is Kobe Bryant healthy? Is he the same Kobe? Are Pau Gasol and Steve Nash actually on the floor? Is Phil Jackson involved somehow?

With so many unknowns, the consensus has been that the Lakers will miss out on the postseason this year. In a recent ESPN.com panel, the Lakers were not only pegged to miss the playoffs, but were ranked 12th in the Western Conference.

It seems a little unsettling -- particularly to Kobe -- if only because the shift from known entity to wildcard happened so quickly. While it’s difficult to predict where a team with so many question marks will finish, we can look at the precedent set by teams of a similar makeup and style.

Healthy or not, maybe the only thing that’s safe to assume right now is that the Lakers will be a below average defensive team.

The first (and biggest) reason for that is the loss of Dwight Howard. Although he was far from the one-man defensive anchor he was in his Orlando days, Howard still had a positive impact defensively last season, as the Lakers allowed 5 more points per 100 possessions when Howard was off the floor than they did when he was on the floor. Last year was a poor defensive effort by Howard’s standards, but it was still among the league’s best.

Maybe losing a great defensive player could be overcome on its own, but let’s not forget that the Lakers ranked 20th in defensive efficiency last season with Howard. It’s also tough to ignore that Mike D’Antoni has only coached one above-average defensive team (better than 15th in defensive efficiency) in ten seasons, or that Pau Gasol and Steve Nash are both now a year older. New additions Nick Young and Chris Kaman aren’t exactly renowned for their defensive prowess, either.

Add all that up, and it would be somewhat of a miracle for the Lakers to finish above 15th in defensive efficiency this season. Assuming that miracle doesn’t happen, where does that leave the Purple and Gold?

A look at the offensive and defensive efficiency marks for the playoff teams of the last decade is a good starting point.

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