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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?

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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Granted, the 2012-13 season was pretty crummy for every Los Angeles Lakers player, but consider the plight of Jodie Meeks.

After two and a half solid seasons in Philadelphia, where Meeks established himself as a valued contributor on playoff teams, the sweet-shooting guard signed with L.A. at a discount with the hopes of winning a ring.

While he witnessed his teammates go down left and right with injuries as the season wore on, Meeks fortunately avoided any health problems. With Kobe Bryant out with a torn Achilles tendon, it was Meeks who was on the court at shooting guard in Bryant's place in the regular-season finale against the Houston Rockets, driving baseline and throwing down a game-sealing dunk in overtime to secure L.A. the seventh seed in the postseason.

But whoever was holding the purple and gold Voodoo doll spared Meeks only for so long. He suffered a third-degree sprain in his left ankle in the Lakers' opening playoff loss to the San Antonio Spurs, ending his season three games sooner than his team did after the Lakers' decimated roster was swept by the Spurs.

"It was really bad timing," Meeks told ESPNLosAngeles.com in a phone interview from his offseason home in Atlanta on Monday. "I was very frustrated just because, selfishly, I was like, ‘Man, I can get as many shots as I want now and I can’t even play.’

"I felt like it was a good opportunity for me to kind of showcase what I could do on a more productive level because the guys were hurt."

As this upcoming season approaches, all Meeks wants is that opportunity again.

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On Thursday night at the Nokia Theatre, there was an event called Kobe Up Close. The details: Jimmy Kimmel was going to interview Kobe Bryant for an hour, they were selling tickets for anywhere from $25 to $200, and all proceeds went to fight homelessness through Kobe and Vanessa Bryant's charity organization, which is partnering with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to help serve underprivileged families in Los Angeles.

Grantland »

Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak covers the health of Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash, Dwight Howard's departure from Los Angeles, Mike D'Antoni, Phil Jackson, Jeanie and Jim Buss and more. Listen

The NBA's 2013-14 season schedule was released Tuesday afternoon and there are plenty of intriguing games for Los Angeles Lakers fans to circle on their calendars (or enter reminders in their smart phones).

Here's a quick breakdown:

THE START

The Lakers tip things off playing in one of the three nationally televised games on opening night, Oct. 29, at home against the Clippers. They go upstate to play the Warriors the very next day, the first of 19 back-to-backs on the season. L.A. comes back to Staples Center for their next two games, hosting the San Antonio Spurs on the Nov. 1 and then the Atlanta Hawks on Nov. 3.

DWIGHT TIME

The Lakers travel to Houston to face off against Dwight Howard and the Rockets on Nov. 7 in just their sixth game of the season. You think that will give Kobe Bryant any motivation to be ready to play by late October? Howard will return to L.A. to hear the boo-birds on Feb. 19 in the Lakers' first game after the All-Star break.

FAMILIAR FACES

Former Lakers head coach Mike Brown (along with Earl Clark and Andrew Bynum, if he's healthy) will come to town on Jan. 14 when the Lakers host the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Lakers also travel to Cleveland on Feb. 5 in the middle game of a three-game trip that ends Feb. 7 in Philadelphia when Bryant will have yet another Philly homecoming.

Metta World Peace will surely receive a warm welcome from Lakers fans on March 25 when he returns to L.A. with the Knicks on March 25.

The Lakers will get their first look at Brian Shaw coaching the Nuggets on Nov. 13 (the first of two times next season when the Lakers play the second night of a back-to-back in the Denver altitude) and Shaw and Co. come to L.A. on Jan. 5.

MARQUEE MATCHUPS

The Lakers host LeBron James and the two-time defending champion Miami Heat on Christmas Day and foam fingers probably won't be handed out at the door this time. The game is at 2 p.m. PT on ABC. The Lakers play in Miami on Jan. 23.

They go to OKC to play Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook (and Derek Fisher) on Dec. 13 and play the Thunder in a rare home-road two game series on March 9 in L.A. and March 13 in Oklahoma City.

ROAD ARENAS

Their annual trip to the Mecca of Basketball at Madison Square Garden is Jan. 26 when they face World Peace and the Knicks and L.A. goes to the place that has been a thorn in its side for the last decade -- the Rose Garden in Portland -- on March 3.

RIVALS

L.A. plays the Clippers on three other occasions after opening night -- Jan. 14 ("road" game), March 6 and April 6 (another "road" game). They travel to play the stripped-down Boston Celtics on Jan. 17 and the guys in green come to L.A. on Feb. 21.

ROAD TRIPPING

The Lakers' longest road trip is seven games -- at Phoenix, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, Miami, Orlando and New York -- spanning from Jan. 15-26. Their second-longest is a four-game trip through Oklahoma City, Charlotte, Atlanta and Memphis from Dec. 13-17.

THE FINISH

The Lakers have a brutal six-game stretch to close out the regular season, which could prove challenging if they find themselves on the playoff bubble. It starts with a road game against the Clippers, followed by three games at home against Houston, Golden State and Memphis and ends up on the road in Utah and in San Antonio.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ pitch to try to convince Dwight Howard to stay started long before billboards sprung up around L.A.

Some six months before the billboards appeared, in positioning Howard as the franchise's future, the Lakers put Pau Gasol in the past, and often, on the bench.

“We did have a free-agent market last year we had to be aware of, and you make certain arguments based on the future,” Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni told ESPNLosAngeles.com. “Whether they’re right or wrong, that’s the reality of it, and we went that way, but it was never meant to be a slight to (Gasol) or never meant to be that he was the cause of our problems.”

While health certainly had something to do with it -- Gasol’s knees, feet and head (a concussion) caused him to miss 33 games last season -- Gasol was aware of the ground shifting beneath him as the Lakers gravitated towards Howard.

“It was at times frustrating because of the reality of that specific situation,” Gasol told ESPNLosAngeles.com in a phone interview from Barcelona. “Obviously the franchise wanted Dwight to stay and everyone, or a lot of people, tried to make him comfortable and please him at times.”

Now, with Howard out of the picture, the Lakers’ Plan B is to go back to Plan A and make Gasol the team’s primary option down low.

“There was just a lot of factors last year that won’t come up this year,” D’Antoni said. “I even told (Gasol), you make decisions based a lot of times on the future that probably, if you were just doing the competitive, basketball thing, the decision would have been something else.”

The decision going forward, at least for next season (with Gasol in the last year of his contract and the Lakers set to pay him $19.3 million), is to go back to orbiting around the four-time All-Star.

“I expect him to have the best year he’s ever had coming up,” D’Antoni recently told ESPN LA 710 radio.

Whether that’s just lip service or not may be up to Gasol.

“I’m excited about next season,” said Gasol, who is still recovering from the procedures he underwent in May to alleviate tendinosis in both of his knees. “I’m going to work really hard to get myself in the best shape that I can and hopefully my body will react well. The main thing is if I can start healthy and stay healthy. And the rest, with my skill set and the team that we have, everything will happen well. But, it’s just a matter of being healthy and wanting it and working hard. I’m committed to having a great year and I hope our team, we have a great year together. So, great expectations for next season individually and also collectively.”

He’ll have the starting point guard, Steve Nash, on his side to help those expectations from going the way of Dickens’ Pip.

“I thought the games that Pau and I played together where Dwight didn’t play, I thought we really played well together and the offense really flowed,” Nash told ESPNLosAngeles.com. “So, I’m not concerned about that. That’s going to be great.”

Despite the Lakers being swept out of the playoffs to end last season, Gasol was playing his best basketball of the season at the finish. Gasol shot 50 percent or better from the floor in eight of the Lakers’ last 11 games in the regular season (L.A. went 9-2), and he registered three triple-doubles in a six-game span from April 12-26, becoming the first NBA big man to do so since Chris Webber had three in five games in Feb. 2005, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

“To me, it worked well when we started playing a little more inside-out instead of outside-in,” Gasol said. “One, we slowed the game down a little bit adjusting more to our personnel and our roster and then when there was better ball movement, whether if it was through the post or through the elbow or pick-and-rolls, when there was better ball movement we played better and our defense was better. We had better defensive balance, and things worked out better, so it is something we need to keep in mind.”

D’Antoni said next season he plans to go through Gasol down low, to give him opportunities at the elbow where he’s “devastating” and to have him run pick-and-rolls where Gasol can either receive the pass for his own scoring play or be positioned to make the next pass -- ideally, either a kickout or a lob -- to find an open teammate.

The coach also thinks that Gasol and newly acquired center Chris Kaman will be a natural fit together in the starting lineup.

“I just see them kind of blending in together pretty easily,” D’Antoni said. “A lot easier than it was last year (with Howard), let’s put it that way.”

Now, after three coaches in the past three seasons and after being bumped in the pecking order for both Howard and Andrew Bynum, Gasol will take up the task of reminding everyone that he can be more than just one of the game's most skilled big men.

"You don’t get to be one of the best by just being talented or skilled," Gasol said. "There’s certain things you also need to do in the game defensively, being physical and decisive out there. Being a presence. Those things are also very important. Talent and skill don’t mean that much if you don’t play as hard as you can or you don’t do other things because there are a lot of talented players in the league.

"To be one of the best, that’s actually what I’m going to work for again."

You may have heard about Steve Nash “trying out” for Inter Milan, the Italian soccer powerhouse competing, along with seven other teams, in the Guinness International Champions Cup starting next week. The tryout, which isn’t a real tryout, is among many promotional events scheduled in the lead-up to the tournament.

Nash sat down for an extended one-on-one with Grantland a few hours before the tryout to discuss his basketball philosophy, the Lakers’ future, the Spurs’ near championship, Dwight Howard, and lots more. What follows is an edited transcript of our chat.

Full interview »

Can an NBA team lose two players who had been honored as the league's top defenders and, in the process, become a better defensive unit?

That’s what the Los Angeles Lakers are trying to find out.

Gone is their best rim protector in Dwight Howard, off to Houston. Gone, too, is their best perimeter stopper in Metta World Peace, off to New York.

Now the Lakers will find out if less is more.

Not that L.A.’s defense was any good with the services of the three-time defensive player of the year in Howard and one-time DPOY winner in World Peace, anyway. The Lakers were tied with Brooklyn for 18th in the league in defensive efficiency, allowing opponents to score 103.6 points per 100 possessions. Even with Howard patrolling the paint, L.A. ranked 22nd in the league in opponents’ field goal percentage inside of five feet, according to NBA.com Stats Cube (59.8 percent), and even with World Peace’s notoriously quick left hand, the Lakers were 26th in steals per game, generating just 7.0 a night.

“Their defense never really gave them a chance to win,” newly hired Lakers assistant coach Kurt Rambis told ESPNLosAngeles.com. “It was very erratic at best. In a lot of ways, when you bring in a lot of players from a lot of different systems, it takes awhile to get everybody connected and on the same page, how you have to defend a myriad of offensive NBA sets and you have to defend talented offensive people, it takes all five guys. They’ve got to be connected, and they’ve got to make the correct decisions at the correct time, and for the Lakers last year, it was clear that they just never really got connected on that end of the floor.

“You could see throughout most of their games, guys would turn their palms up to the sky, and it was like, ‘Is that my responsibility? Is that your responsibility? Who was supposed to do what?’ So, we’ve got to do a much better job of getting them so they can cover each others’ backs at that end of the floor.”

The reason that Rambis is back with the Lakers is not only because the team lost its two most talented defenders in Howard and World Peace, but because it lost its two most defensive-minded assistant coaches in Chuck Person, whose contract was not renewed, and Steve Clifford, who became the head coach in Charlotte.

Rambis, who assumed a defensive coordinator-type role in the final two seasons of his last run with the Lakers when Phil Jackson was head coach, said that Mike D’Antoni isn’t giving him the same label.

“(D’Antoni) said that all assistant coaches will be involved in all areas in our initial conversation,” Rambis explained. “Not that we have etched everything in stone, but to come back as a defensive coordinator, you can talk to Mike about whether there’s going to be any sort of designation on that. By my understanding, there isn’t going to be, but he just kind of wants all of the gaps to be covered so everybody is responsible for working with players and being involved in practices and being involved with games. But to have myself associated with the defense, that means that area is going to be covered.”

The Lakers have had a precipitous decline on the defensive end. After they held the Boston Celtics to just 79 points on 40.8 percent shooting in their Game 7 win in the 2010 Finals, their last three playoff appearances have ended in ugly fashion. First the Dallas Mavericks shot a blistering 46.2 percent on 3-pointers during a four-game sweep in 2011, amid Andrew Bynum decrying the team’s “trust issues” on the defensive end. Then the Oklahoma City Thunder scored 100 or more in three of their four wins against L.A. in their 2012 second-round series. Finally, in last season's first-round sweep by San Antonio, the Spurs shot a combined 53.0 percent from the floor in Games 2-4 after figuring out the Lakers' D that held them to just 37.6 percent shooting in Game 1 of the series.

“They never got connected defensively,” Rambis said of the 2012-13 season.

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Like Billy Crystal and the Oscars, Kurt Rambis and the Los Angeles Lakers always seem to find a way back to one another.

“I sound like that guy on 'Saturday Night Live': 'The Lakers have been berra berra good to me,'” Rambis told ESPNLA.com on Monday, mimicking Garrett Morris’ (one of Crystal's contemporaries in the 1970s) SNL impression of a Dominican baseball player. “It’s been a great association with myself and the Lakers. Obviously they have provided an awful lot of opportunities for me, as a player, assistant coach, head coach, front office opportunities. I’ve learned a lot over the years, and this is just another path. Just another path with the Lakers and it’s going to be interesting. I’m excited about it.”

Rambis never strayed too far from the team after being fired from the Minnesota Timberwolves following the 2010-11 season. His wife, Linda, continued to work as a manager for special projects for the Lakers, and last season Rambis split his time as a network analyst for both ESPN and Time Warner Cable SportsNet, the Lakers' cable television broadcast partner.

Now he finds himself in the position of being responsible for fixing any problems that should arise with the Lakers next season rather than just pointing out the problems on TV.

Rambis touched on a variety of topics over the phone just hours after he announced the news of his reunion with the franchise via Twitter.

On the Lakers' disappointing 2012-13 season …

"It was a very difficult year for the Lakers. We talked about it on ESPN and Time Warner. Any time that you add an awful lot of new players, which is basically what the Lakers did, there’s an assimilation process that has to happen. Even just dealing with terminology, you might be thinking the same thing, but everybody calls it something different or can call it something different depending on what team they came from or coaching environment they came from. So, just getting everybody to be connected out there on the floor offensively and defensively was going to take some time. And it did. Then you throw in a coaching change, you throw in players getting injured, that stagnates the process.

"Obviously the death of Dr. [Jerry] Buss and what he meant to this organization and the team and leadership, for awhile it seemed like the Lakers [were reeling from his loss]. Then obviously everything that went on with the Lakers throughout the season –- lineup changes and injuries -– it just wasn’t conducive to having a great team. There were high expectations on that team. Even myself, from the very beginning, I thought that team had a great chance to win the championship. A lot of things had to work right for them in order for that to happen, but they had a great shot. If that was going to happen, everything kind of almost had to be perfect, and it just never worked out that way. There were just so many things that went wrong all season long, and that’s the nature of the sports business. It doesn’t always work out perfectly for you.

"But when you look at how the Lakers played or how well they played since the third week in January, they started playing some good ball. They started getting connected and from that point on, ‘Hey, this looks like a team that can do some damage in the playoffs,’ until Kobe goes down and then everything changes once again. It was just a completely disruptive up-and-down year for the Lakers. You need that sort of consistency and continuity in order to excel at a really high level."

On Kobe Bryant's health …

"His injury is going to be one of the big ifs of this upcoming season. Steve Nash’s health, losing Dwight [Howard], Kobe’s injury, new players on the team, those are all going to be ifs, how everything transpires. Everything I’m hearing about Kobe, he’s feeling great and he’s going to come back well. But that still remains to be seen. You still got to get out there on the floor and see what adjustments he has to make and see how he recovers from it. But if anybody can, if anybody has the drive to do it, he’s that guy. I’m sure he’s going to do everything that he can to get himself back healthy and playing at a very high level as soon as possible."

On what he learned in his time away from the Lakers …

"I think any time that you go to different environments and different cultures, coaching clinics, you’re always learning something about basketball. Like I said earlier, if you’re stagnant in your beliefs and coaching philosophy and style, then you’re basically falling behind. So, it was a great learning experience for me going to Minnesota. It was a great experience being involved with television with ESPN and Time Warner. I think they’ve all been beneficial for me. It’s just going to add to being able to help Mike [D'Antoni] out as much as I can."

Rambis also appeared on "The Max & Marcellus Show" on ESPN LA 710 radio Monday and answered more questions about his new opportunity with his old team.

On how his hiring came about …

“This is absolutely Mike D’Antoni’s call. As long as I’ve been with the Laker organization, they don’t put pressure on the head coach to hire certain people. They might make suggestions, but they’ve always let the head coach hire whoever he wanted to hire, except obviously a little bit of an obstacle last year when multiple coaches were involved after the firing of Mike Brown. But, under normal circumstances, the head coach brings in his staff and the Lakers organization has always let the head coach do that.”

On what style D'Antoni will implement next season …

"Mike understands that the team can’t play with blinding speed. They don’t have the wing runners, they don’t have the athleticism that you need in order to do that. I think Mike, when you look at getting Steve and what Steve can do in terms of creating shots and then trying to accommodate Kobe and what he can do out there on the floor, started adjusting and adapting and playing a brand of ball that suited the team. But, you never look at a coach [and go], ‘Hey, this is a way I we think we can play,’ and then if they can’t play that way, make the adjustments and adapt. I think Mike did that over the year, but I think there just wasn’t enough time to really implement the things to involve Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol and Kobe inside that you really need to in order for that type of team with that talent to excel at the level that they needed to excel at to make a long playoff run."

On how his style of play as a player translates to his coaching …

"I would hope that any coach is trying to get players to play tough, to play hard, to play a physical brand of basketball. You have to, when you start looking at the playoffs and how the game changes. If you want your players to have success, you have to get them to where they can overcome injuries, to where they can keep their focus intact despite a very hostile environment, and you got to have a certain toughness and nastiness that goes along with that. You can see players that rise above the distractions, that rise above the obstacles and can continue to play well, if not better. Those are the type of players that you want, and those are the type of characteristics you want to instill in your ballplayers that if it gets tough and you start to wilt, you’re not going to survive in this league and you’re certainly not going to survive in the playoffs. So, we want our players to be tough, we want them to be nasty and we want them to be able to feel comfortable whenever the environment gets tough."

Ironically, it was Phil Jackson who may have best summed up Mike D’Antoni’s first season as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.

“Mike hasn’t had a chance in L.A., he really hasn’t,” Jackson said back in May while appearing as a guest on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," after audience members booed the mention of D'Antoni's name.

And that was before Dwight Howard left for Houston, making it clear on his way out the door that he would have preferred Jackson over D’Antoni as the Lakers' head coach.

D’Antoni has been maligned by some Lakers faithful for the team's disappointing 2012-13 season, and perceived by many to be at least partially responsible for Howard's departure. And although he replaced Mike Brown five games into last season, plenty of Lakers fans feel he actually replaced Jackson, since the 11-time champion had interviewed for the job before D’Antoni did back in November, and seemed to have landed it until a notorious late-night call from Lakers management informed him otherwise.

But grumbling aside, D'Antoni remains in the job, and has the backing of the front office heading into the 2013-14 season. Executive vice president Jim Buss and general manager Mitch Kupchak believe that the coach’s flexibility in the second half of last season was a key factor in the team finishing 28-12 and want to give him a full training camp and a healthy roster in 2013-14 in order to show what he can do.

Several times last season, D’Antoni paraphrased Winston Churchill in describing his approach to the Lakers' ups and downs, “When you're going through hell, you put your head down and keep going, and that's what we're going to do.”

The pressure of a $100 million payroll that was built to be a contender and was struggling just to play .500 ball was persistent and intense. The Lakers are hoping that Howard’s departure will perhaps act as a sort of pressure release valve heading into the upcoming season.

“Expectations should be lower and I think that will ease the pressure on him,” said a source familiar with the Lakers front office’s thinking.

“I think every year's fun,” D’Antoni recently told Fox Sports when asked how grateful he was to have a traditional offseason to prepare his team. “Coaching's fun, so I'm not complaining the other way, but this is a lot better. Some of the best times are training camp and getting your ideas in how you'd like them.”

None of Churchill's grim determination there.

Late last season D’Antoni told ESPNLosAngeles.com, “We're not running anything that I would normally run,” but the moves the Lakers have made since Howard left for Houston have been more in step with the system for which D’Antoni is known.

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EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- After spending the first eight years of his career in L.A. after the Los Angeles Clippers drafted him in 2003, Chris Kaman never thought his path would lead him back to the City of Angels.

"I'm excited for another opportunity back in L.A.," Kaman said Tuesday at his introductory news conference with the Los Angeles Lakers. "I never thought it was possible. I just never thought I would be back here."

How sure was Kaman, who spent the past two seasons in New Orleans and Dallas, that his life was done in L.A.?

"A week and a half, literally, before I decided to make my decision to come [to L.A.] I closed on my house in Manhattan Beach that I had had for like five years," Kaman said with a groan.

Just like the Lakers never expected Dwight Howard to bolt after only one season when they acquired him, Kaman figured his days in Los Angeles were a thing of the past. The Clippers had moved on with DeAndre Jordan in the middle. The Lakers had just the mini midlevel exception, worth about $3.2 million, available to try to lure a non-veteran-minimum-type free agent. And the Lakers were offering only a one-year deal, looking to keep their books open to make a major splash in the summer of 2014.

Much like Howard took a paycut to go to Houston, Kaman chose not to hold out for more money because L.A. felt right.

"Sometimes players are not fitting in the best situations all the time and it didn't work the way that I anticipated," Kaman said of his one-year stint with the Dallas Mavericks, playing alongside his German national team comrade, Dirk Nowitzki. "Coming into this year, I wanted to make sure that I had a good fit where I would go."

While there's a Howard-sized void in the Lakers' roster where Kaman can slide right in, it remains to be seen whether he will start at center with Pau Gasol at power forward, or be the first big man off the bench backing up Gasol and Jordan Hill.

"It doesn’t matter to me," Kaman said of a potential substitute role. "I'm here to do a job and, whatever it is, I'll do it."

Kaman averaged a modest 10.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 0.8 blocks last season, but it's the way Kaman scored that had the Lakers interested. He can play the pick-and-pop game, evidenced by his 51 percent mark from midrange last season (16-23 feet from the hoop), which ranked seventh among players who played in at least 40 games.

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EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- In the week since Dwight Howard announced his decision to go to the Houston Rockets, players and front-office members of the Los Angeles Lakers have been treading pretty lightly on the subject.

General manager Mitch Kupchak released a statement wishing Howard luck. Even Kobe Bryant said, "I'm happy for him."

Leave it to L.A. native and newly-minted Laker Nick Young to say what everybody seemed to be thinking at his introductory news conference on Friday.

"That was the first time I've ever seen anybody leave L.A., wanting to leave L.A., and I'm from here so I haven't seen that," said the 28-year-old Young, who not only played high school ball at Reseda Cleveland but also played his college basketball at USC. "But Dwight had to do what he had to do."

Young jumped at the chance to return to the place where Howard fled.

"I just felt like I needed this opportunity," Young said. "Over the past couple of years, I feel like I've been getting disrespected a little bit out there and I feel with this stage the Lakers set, with the opportunity for playing time here, I can get my name back out there and get the respect I feel I deserve. I did this for myself, really."

The disrespect Young was referring to occurred in Philadelphia last season. The 76ers signed him to a one-year, $6 million deal, and he languished on the bench, picking up DNP-CDs with regularity. A season before that, he was hitting big shots in the playoffs for the Los Angeles Clippers. In 2010-11, he was averaging a career-high 17.4 points per game for the Washington Wizards.

Coming to Los Angeles was about getting back on track.

"We think there's a lot of playing time here for him if he works hard and earns it," Kupchak said. "We see him playing at the small forward and the guard position. He's very gifted athletically. We know he can score. We've been talking about improving the other parts of his game, which I think he's committed to working on to becoming a complete player."

While the Lakers couldn't offer Young much in terms of salary -- he signed a one-year deal for the veteran's minimum, worth about $1.2 million -- what they could offer was the precious commodity of a chance to play major minutes and a shot at the future.

Even though the Lakers have let it be known they want to maintain as much cap flexibility for the summer of 2014 as possible to pursue max-level free agents, Young is seen as a piece that could stick around once those marquee players are added.

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The Los Angeles Lakers have until July 16 to decide whether to use their annual one-time amnesty provision, or to give peace a chance. Metta World Peace, that is.

The veteran small forward is one of four players -- Steve Blake, Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant are the others -- on whom the Lakers can still use the amnesty provision to help lessen their luxury-tax burden next season. The Orange County Register reported Monday afternoon that "barring some late change," World Peace and his $7.7 million salary would be released via amnesty to help the Lakers save approximately $30 million in luxury-tax fees. The time frame to amnesty players is July 10-16.

Lakers sources indicated to ESPN that the team is still weighing the situation carefully and "looking at everything."

After agreeing to terms with veteran center Chris Kaman earlier in the day on a one-year, $3.2 million contract, the Lakers have only veteran minimum contracts remaining to fill out their roster.

Lakers guard Kobe Bryant made his feelings about the situation clear. Bryant first tweeted that "No game 7 win without Metta! This is a tough day for laker nation #misspeace #newcbacasualty," then followed it up with a subsequent tweet saying "Personally I'd keep Metta and make a run with the unit we have and just add a few pieces #keepthepeace #lakersstilldeciding."

While he was at it, Bryant offered his first public comments about center Dwight Howard's decision to leave the Lakers and sign with the Houston Rockets. Bryant had un-followed Howard on Twitter and also posted a photo of Gasol and Bryant together on the court via his Instagram account after Howard announced he had decided to join the Rockets on Friday.

"I wish d12 the best honestly," Bryant tweeted. "I just find it hard to follow players that wanna kick my teams ass #thatsjustme."

LOS ANGELES -- Dwight Howard’s old avatar on Twitter used to be a picture of him in a Los Angeles Lakers uniform with the retired jerseys of George Mikan, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal hanging behind him.

Howard was expected to follow the Lakers’ Hall of Fame lineage of centers but decided to leave L.A. less than a year after joining the team to sign with the Houston Rockets last week.

The two living legends in Howard’s old avatar, which he immediately changed after committing to Houston, have not taken the news well.

On Monday, Abdul-Jabbar chimed in on Twitter and Facebook and wrote, “Dwight Howard is a perfect example of the fact that ‘potential has a shelf life.’ Laker fans should be patient and allow Mitch & company to prepare themselves to do some serious work in the free agent market.”

O’Neal, while speaking at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday, said he wasn’t surprised by Howard’s decision to take less money to leave Los Angeles for a smaller market.

"It was expected," O’Neal said. "We've all been in L.A., and not a whole lot of people can handle being under the bright lights. Everybody wants to do it, but when you get there, there are certain pressures. I think it was a safe move for him to go to a little town like Houston. That's right, little town. I said it."

Both O’Neal and Abdul-Jabbar were critical of Howard even before he decided to leave the Lakers.

Abdul-Jabbar told the San Francisco Chronicle last month he met Howard only once and that Howard expressed an interest in learning from the former Lakers captain but he never again reached out to Abdul-Jabbar. “He's charming, he's charismatic, very nice young man,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “Maturity-wise, he doesn't get it."

When Abdul-Jabbar was asked about teaching Howard the sky hook, he said, “At least he'd have an offensive move.

“He gets the ball on offense, oh my God, he doesn't know what to do. It's usually a turnover, people come and take the ball from him or tie his arms up. Offensively, he doesn't get it. Hasn't made any progress. We (the Lakers, when Abdul-Jabbar was a special assistant coach) played them in '09, and when I saw him this past season, he was the same player.”

O’Neal was just as harsh in his criticism of Howard when he was on ESPNLA 710 last month.

“He's too nice," O'Neal said. "I'm a connoisseur of giggling and playing and all that and making you laugh and playing with the fans, but when I cross that line, I'm ready to tear your face off. I don't care who it is. You could put one of my aunts or uncles out there, and I'm going to give him these elbows in their chest and I'm going to throw it down in their face. That's what you have to do. ... He's just too nice. If I was him, I would get into the same mood I was in."