ESPN

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Perhaps partly because Dwight Howard is out of the picture, perhaps partly because Pau Gasol is far healthier than last season (OK, mostly because Howard is out of the picture), Los Angeles Lakers head coach Mike D'Antoni has made an about-face from his initial coaching instincts when counting on Gasol's services.

Remember when Gasol was benched late in games last season? Or relegated to sixth man status? Or positioned on the perimeter when he was on the court and encouraged to attempt the most 3-pointers of his 12-year career?

Not the case anymore. Just three days into training camp, D'Antoni has already named two definitive starters while Kobe Bryant is out: Gasol at center and Steve Nash, his longtime pupil, running the point. And expectations are high for the former four-time All-Star in the middle.

"When your knees hurt, it’s not easy to play," D'Antoni said after practice Monday, referring to the 33 games Gasol missed a year ago because of chronic pain in his knees. "I think he feels better and when he feels good, I think he’s going to be great. Keep your fingers crossed because hopefully he’ll have his best year ever. He’s still young enough, he’s only 33."

D'Antoni wasn't finished with the praise yet.

"I think he has at least five more good years, real good years, in him," D'Antoni said.

With Gasol's role firmly entrenched, D'Antoni is turning his sights to a five-man group of Jordan Hill, Chris Kaman, Wesley Johnson, Shawne Williams and rookie Ryan Kelly, to a lesser extent, to determine who will be his partner in the Lakers' starting frontcourt.

It's a diverse crowd. Kaman is the biggest of the bunch at 7-foot, 265 pounds, but he brings with him the ability to consistently hit the from the midrange. Hill is known as an energizing garbage man who plays defense and works the boards, but he spent the offseason working on his outside shot. Williams and Kelly are strictly stretch fours. Johnson is more of a slashing wing who, like Hill, has worked to improve his outside shot to become more appealing in D'Antoni's system.

"Pau can play with anybody," D'Antoni said. "He makes anybody look good with his passing, so, you can play him with Jordan who is more of a runner and slasher, or you can play Kaman who is more of a catch-and-shoot kind of guy, so they’ll all blend in real well together."

D'Antoni said he would prefer to find a full-time starter at power forward by the Lakers' opening night against the Los Angeles Clippers on Oct. 29, rather than shuffle the starting lineup as the season goes on based on matchups.

"I would rather teams have to match up with us," D'Antoni said. "(The) team that we put out there should be our strongest team and we’ll figure that out. It could happen, but I would like to have everybody know their role and feel comfortable in it. Not some days start, some days not. It might happen, but I don’t know."

It's hard to read the tea leaves to handicap the power forward race based on D'Antoni's comments so far.

On one hand, D'Antoni has stressed the need for defense coming out of the position, so Hill could be considered to have the advantage, yet D'Antoni said Hill has been, "Little rusty, little tired like everybody, but good."

The coach has complimented Kaman's versatility in terms of being interchangeable when being on the court together with Gasol, however Kaman starting means that seldom used second-year player Robert Sacre would become the team's back-up center, which would be a major leap from the bench role he played last season.

Johnson has a lot of upside, but very little experience at the position. Williams had success playing under D'Antoni in New York, but was out of the league altogether last season. Kelly hasn't even been able to practice with the team yet during training camp as he continues to work out on the anti-gravity treadmill while recovering from foot problems.

"At this point, we're still determining what the lineups will be," Kaman said. "We've had three practices and everybody is kind of jumping the gun a little bit. Let things happen and see how that goes. Who knows what the lineup is going to be? Who knows if we go small, big? It just depends on the teams and the day and how coach is feeling about certain things."

No matter who wins the starting job, D'Antoni is hoping the pool of players can make up for the absence felt from Howard's departure.

"These guys have other strengths," D'Antoni said. "Dwight is a very good player, obviously, and we would play a certain way. This way we’ll play a little bit more wide open, a little bit different but that remains to be seen. The biggest thing on the defensive end, we just got to collectively do the job."

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).

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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Whenever he’s been asked about the Los Angeles Lakers’ biggest needs this offseason, Kobe Bryant has repeated the same two buzzwords: length and athleticism.

As their three best players -- Bryant, Pau Gasol and Steve Nash -- age, logic dictates that the Lakers’ rotation could use an extra dose of spryness. As last season showed, the Lakers were simply too old and unathletic to compete for anything more than a bottom playoff seed despite possessing as much top-heavy talent as most contenders.

Even with Dwight Howard and Earl Clark bolting in free agency, the Lakers’ core frontline of Gasol, Jordan Hill and new offseason signee Chris Kaman is formidable. The same, however, could not be said about the Lakers’ perimeter crop until a few signings last week.

The additions of Nick Young, Jordan Farmar and Wesley Johnson pale in comparison to some of the franchise-altering moves of other Western conference teams, but that misses the point. The trio is a solid upgrade over the Lakers’ perimeter options last season, which should be cause for optimism given L.A.’s limited cap space and means to improve.

None of the backcourt signings make the Lakers a contender, let alone a lock for the playoffs, but each player adds a skill or two that the Lakers’ role players lacked. Plus, since all three are on veteran’s minimum contracts, there is little risk involved from the Lakers’ side. If anything, the Lakers got great value given the reasonable likelihood that each player outperforms his price tag.

Here’s a look at each of the Lakers’ perimeter pickups and how they fit with the roster:

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Well, the coach is in place, but Mike D'Antoni and his crutches won't make their debut until Sunday, meaning the Bernie Bickerstaff era will continue for one more day. And it's pretty important the interim coach go out on a high note. Given the early hole dug by the Lakers, every opportunity to make up lost ground must be seized. The Suns represent nothing if not a beatable opponent. Phoenix may boast a superior record (4-5) than the Lakers, but the Suns have beaten nobody above .500 and don't have a single player who would definitely crack the starting lineup for the purple and gold. Every winnable game L.A. cashes in is another step toward stabilizing the season.

For more insight on the Suns, we sent five questions to Michael Schwartz from the True Hoop network's Valley of the Suns blog. Below are his responses.

Land O' Lakers: Stylistically, what does the post-Steve Nash era look like? What are the primary differences and do any similarities remain?

Michael Schwartz: This season the Suns are running aspects of the “Corner” offense that Timberwolves coach Rick Adelman popularized, as Fox Sports Arizona’s Randy Hill described in further depth. That has been an easy adjustment for Suns like Goran Dragic, Luis Scola, Michael Beasley and Wesley Johnson, who played for Adelman in recent years. Dragic has been getting everybody involved with dribble penetration and probing for opportunities, and the Suns have run some offense through Scola and Beasley at times in the high post. The Suns still want to play fast, and rank fourth in pace, the highest since 2009-10.

A major difference is the lack of pick-and-roll opportunities. The Suns will still run it at times with Dragic and Gortat, but it’s not the staple it used to be. Jared Dudley used to get open looks when defenses collapsed on the Nash pick-and-roll, so this could be one reason his numbers are down to start the year.

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