Lakers in the News 5/31/12: Carraro named as assistant GM; Odds against Lakers reloading, but....

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Glenn Carraro named as assistant general manager of the Lakers


By Mark Medina
May 31, 2012, 6:26 p.m.
A season after parting ways with about 20 employees for cost-cutting reasons before the lockout, the Lakers are taking some steps in restoring their staff.

The Lakers named Glenn Carraro as the team's assistant general manager after spending last season as both the director of basketball administration for the Lakers and as general manager of the D-Fenders, the Lakers' affiliate in the Development League.

The Lakers were without an assistant general manager in the 2011-12 season after they didn't renew Ronnie Lester's contract. He had spent 10 seasons as assistant GM after working his way up the organization from being hired as a regional scout in 1987. Since then, Lester publicly criticized the Lakers for how they handled the layoffs last summer. General Manager Mitch Kupchak conceded in last week's exit interview that he missed Lester's presence.

"Ronnie was a dear friend and I thought we really worked well together," Kupchak said. "But the people that I work with now I have a great relationship with and you have to move on."

Part of that involved the Lakers hiring Carraro.

[Cha*n]

Free agency profile: Deron Williams

By Mark Medina
May 31, 2012, 8:11 a.m.
This is the first in a series of profiles focusing on this year's free-agent class.

Deron Williams, point guard

Most recent team: New Jersey Nets (moving to Brooklyn next season)

Type of free agent: Unrestricted

Positives: Well, we are talking about the most talented candidate in the free-agent pool. Even if the Lakers upgraded at point guard this season by acquiring Ramon Sessions, his shaky postseason play and Williams' superior talent still makes him a worthy candidate for the Lakers back court.

Most point guards are measured on their speed, both with how they execute pick-and-rolls and drives to the basket. But in Williams' case, he excels in those areas because of his size and power. In a weird way, this might actually suit the Lakers better since they often implored Sessions to slow the pace to ensure high productivity from Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant. Because Williams doesn't generate much offense in transition, he'd be much more suited at running the Lakers' preferred methodical tempo. Add in Williams' heftier playoff experience, and it's a no-brainer the Lakers would want the three-time All-Star.

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Odds are against Lakers reloading, but …

By KEVIN DING

EL SEGUNDO There has been plenty of genius in Lakers management, making the playoffs 31 out of the 33 seasons Jerry Buss has owned the team, winning the Western Conference almost half those years (16 times!), collecting 10 perfectly gold NBA championship trophies.
Some genius stuff.

And the rather useful ability to throw money at their problems.
They've thrown it wisely, make no mistake, but they've thrown it.
The image of the Lakers' front office as Mitch Kupchak, Jim Buss and Jerry Buss walk unsteadily toward the future of this NBA under this new collective bargaining agreemens is having to hand over all their familiar weaponry.
There's Kupchak slouched over even more than usual to remove a stack of bills tucked into the back of his waistband, Jim Buss lifting up his familiar headgear to show he's not hiding any of the big, old mid-level salary exceptions under the cap, Jerry Buss raising a frayed cuff of those youthful jeans he won't stop wearing and handing over for ridiculous revenue-sharing contributions whatever private checkbooks are tucked into his socks.

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2011-12 Report Card: Pau Gasol
May, 31, 2012
By Brian Kamenetzky
ESPNLosAngeles.com

It wasn't exactly the start to the 2011-12 season Pau Gasol had in mind.

The ink hadn't yet dried on the new collective bargaining agreement between players and owners when the Lakers sent Gasol to Houston as part of a three-team deal netting them Chris Paul. As you may have heard, a couple hours later the Commish put the brakes on the deal, sending everyone back to his team as if nothing had ever happened.

Except it had, and everyone saying all the right things didn't make it any less awkward.

Since Gasol had already been traded once, the natural supposition was it might happen again, leaving him smack dab in the middle of the NBA's juiciest trade rumors from that moment through March and the trade deadline. Not surprisingly, renting in Limboland wasn't all that appealing, prompting Kobe Bryant in late February to publicly demand the Lakers offer the Spaniard some clarity. It didn't come, but Bryant's comments once again highlighted the elephant in the room.

[Cha*n]

Wrong Lakers holding ticket prices down unforutunetly, lol

[Cha*n]

David Stern Shows Los Angeles Lakers Fans at 2012 NBA Draft Lottery There’s Plenty of Injustice to Go Around

By Michael C. Jones | Yahoo! Contributor Network

COMMENTARY | Fans of the Los Angeles Lakers have good reason to dislike David Stern after what he did to them by nixing the Chris Paul trade, but it was the results of the 2012 NBA draft lottery on Wednesday night that gave the rest of the league a reason to join them.
This comes in the wake of the New Orleans Hornets winning the first pick in the 2012 NBA Draft despite having just a 13.7 percent chance of doing so. There is plenty of skepticism going around that Stern and the NBA had something to do with the Hornets obtaining that pick and effectively winning the Anthony Davis sweepstakes. The NBA still owns the team, thus perpetuating this fundamental problem. Even though it's unlikely that there was actually any attempt by the league to fix the draft, there remains a modicum of doubt.
It's not completely unfounded, though.

[Cha*n]

NBA's rejection of Chris Paul trade hurt Lakers in several ways

By Mark Medina
May 31, 2012, 2:30 p.m.
Time and again, the Lakers ran into a roadblock that nearly tripped them.

Mike Brown entered his first season as the Lakers' head coach without a full training camp to fully teach his concepts. His players entered the 2011-12 season without enough time to learn them. The rest the Lakers enjoyed during a prolonged lockout suddenly evaporated as they navigated a grinding 66-game schedule. The disconnect between players and coaching staff led to constant rotation shuffling and underutilized roles.

Yet, the Lakers still featured three elite players in Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. They could've fared better than losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder in five games in the Western Conference semifinals had they held on to fourth-quarter leads in both Games 2 and 4.

So, no, Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak won't blame the team's fallen season on a nixed deal that would've sent Chris Paul to the Lakers, Gasol to the Houston Rockets and Lamar Odom to the New Orleans Hornets.

"I'm not going to look at what could've been and make blame as to why we got beat in Game 5 of the second round," Kuphcak said last week in his exit interview. "That certainly is not a reason why we got beat."

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Jim Buss: 'I'm very disappointed in the season
May, 31, 2012

By Dave McMenamin
ESPNLosAngeles.com

The NBA playoffs band continues to play on without the Los Angeles Lakers joining in on the music and more than a week after their ouster from the Western Conference semifinals, the loss still feels inharmonious to Lakers vice president of player personnel Jim Buss.

“Me personally, I’m never happy unless we win our last game in the playoffs," Buss said in an interview on the "Mason & Ireland Show" on 710 ESPN Radio on Thursday. "I’m very disappointed in the season. I thought we were a
better team than this, but you can look at it as this was the first year these guys have played together with this coach.

"There’s a lot of things you can look at and build for the future and say they haven’t had the time to gel like other teams. You watch San Antonio, they can play with their eyes closed because they know exactly where everybody is and what they’re doing and what their quirks are. You see a team that sticks together like that and we didn’t have that."

[gumby]

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