What can Mike Brown do for the Lakers?


People laugh when Mike Brown tells them he spends most weekdays in his office at the Lakers' training facility in El Segundo. They wonder what he does there, day after day while the NBA lockout drags on and on, with the 2011-12 season in jeopardy.

 Mike Brown closing in on staff


Toronto Raptors assistant coach Scott Roth, Philadelphia 76ers player development coach Quin Snyder and former University of Utah head coach Jim Boylen are the three finalists for a position on the staff of new Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike Brown, according to sources close to the situation.

Roth and Snyder have already interviewed for the position, sources said, with Boylen scheduled to meet Monday with Brown.

Brown has already hired famed Italian coach Ettore Messina to serve as a coaching consultant and likewise intends to hire John Kuester, recently fired by the Detroit Pistons, to focus on the Lakers' offense as Kuester did when he coached under Brown in Cleveland.

 Source: Lakers eye Mike Dunleavy
The Los Angeles Lakers have had to replace two coaching legends in the last 20 years: Phil Jackson and Pat Riley. The only time it's worked out well, the team turned to Mike Dunleavy. They're thinking of doing the same again this time. Dunleavy was contacted by the team this week and is said to be on the team's current "short list" to succeed Jackson, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. That list also includes former Houston Rockets coach Rick Adelman, who ESPN.com's Marc Stein and ESPNLosAngeles.com's Dave McMenamin reported Thursday also would be a candidate for the position.

 Defiant Kobe doesn’t see overhaul in Lakers’ plans
Kobe Bryant’s(notes) face seemed to instantly boil as he was asked about the “decline” of the Los Angeles Lakers. Such talk has taken root ever since the Dallas Mavericks stunningly swept the Lakers in the second round of the playoffs, ending Los Angeles’ two-year championship reign.

He called breakup talk “nonsense” at his exit interview with the media at the team’s practice facilities on Wednesday, and believes the Lakers’ current core group will make another title run next season.

 The Lakers are coming after Dwight Howard
As expected, Magic star Dwight Howard’s name came up often after the Lakers were swept out of the playoffs by the Dallas Mavericks. A Lakers’ revival could take place quickly if they could trade for Howard this summer or next season, according to some talking heads in the ABC/ESPN studio and some writers with the L.A. Times. It’s not a revelation.

 Lakers swept away, begin transition
For a franchise that's coming to grips with a season ending on Mother's Day, not closer to Father's Day, with getting swept into the dustpan instead of holding a broom, to losing with classless cheap shots instead of winning with grace, you can add another foreign concept that the denizens of Lakersland will have to swallow: patience.

 Lakers swept into season of uncertainty
The Lakers' season ended amid a firestorm of "Beat L.A." chants and a complete undoing at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks in a surprisingly early phase of the NBA playoffs.

The Mavericks won Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals Sunday, 122-86, and it could only get worse for the Lakers in what will surely be a long, agonizing off-season.

Their roster is aging. Their team looks slow. Their spending power is hamstrung by salary-cap guidelines that might get tighter with 22 of 30 teams claiming to lose money this season.

 Kobe expects to play despite badly swollen foot
Kobe Bryant(notes) walked out of New Orleans Arena on crutches with a swollen left foot, but the Lakers guard is hopeful he’ll play in Game 5 on Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Bryant suffered the injury after falling awkwardly and colliding into Hornets guard Willie Green(notes) with 1:32 left in the fourth quarter of the Lakers’ 93-88 loss in Game 4 of a first-round playoff series Sunday night. A Lakers spokesman said a decision on whether to give Bryant an MRI will be made on the flight to Los Angeles early Monday morning.

 Andrew Bynum, Shannon Brown injury updates
With speculative rumors of Andrew Bynum possibly not playing Game 4 of the NBA Finals spreading quickly, Pau Gasol practically sneered at the notion after Lakers practice Wednesday.

“He wants to be out there, no matter what,” Gasol said of Bynum.

Bynum backed Gasol’s hunch later by saying: “I’m doing OK. Just finished treatment, got a lot of the swelling out.  Going to do another one in about three hours.  I’m going to be playing (Thursday night).  I will be playing.”

 Trying to get to the bottom of pay-cut story on Phil Jackson


Michael Wilbon is a media giant, blabbermouth co-host of PTI, while also working alongside ESPN basketball expert  Magic Johnson at times, an occasional column for the Washington Post and a guest this week on Tony Kornheiser's radio show in Washington, D.C.

Wilbon has so much to say, there's no problem believing him when he says. "I have no idea what I said on the radio."

 Bryant signs extension with Lakers

 Phil Jackson says he's likely to coach Lakers next year

 Lakers are unlikely to make a major trade this season

 Lakers, Pau Gasol agree on contract extension; Kobe Bryant next?

 Contract extension for Lakers' Kobe Bryant is in holding pattern