FIO Preview: Los Angeles Lakers

- Zach Harper Last Season Recap: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly The Lakers returned to prominence last year for the first time since Shaquille O'Neal and Karl Malone were the big men on the court. They benefited from two in-season trades that added an All-Star caliber player and gave stability to their bench rotation. The Lakers were a great team on the road by running up a record of 27-14 when they weren't the home team. Kobe Bryant ignited his team with a preseason temper tantrum that inspired them to overachieve. This made Andrew Bynum everybody's sleeper for becoming a star player and made the Lakers a legitimate force in the Western Conference. The Lakers benefited from acquiring Pau Gasol after Andrew Bynum went down with a kneecap injury and rolled on to secure the best record in the West. They swept the Nuggets, out ran the Utah Jazz, and bullied the Spurs to make it to the NBA Finals. They were completely embarrassed on a national stage in the Finals by the Boston Celtics, and the Lakers' return to championship status was thwarted once again. The biggest things that went right for the Lakers were two in-season trades. The first was the deal that sent Maurice Evans and Brian Cook to the Orlando Magic for Trevor Ariza. The two-for-one deal allowed the Lakers to figure out the problem of having too many players in their rotation and gave some much-needed steadiness to the Lakers bench. The second deal was Pau Gasol and a 2010 second round pick for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Marc Gasol, and two first-round picks. This gave the Lakers an All-Star at the PF/C position when Andrew Bynum went down with his knee injury. The Lakers finished the year 27-9 after the Gasol trade. It helped catapult them into the #1 seed in the West and eventually into the NBA Finals. What went wrong were the Andrew Bynum injury and the team's defense. Andrew Bynum was on a big run that few 20-year-olds have ever approached. But when he went down with a severe kneecap injury that took him out for the rest of the season, the Lakers' depth came into question and they were lost without a real shot-blocking and defensive figure in the paint. Adding Pau Gasol was a good band-aid but it didn't heal the defensive gaping wound that was left. Throughout the playoffs, the Lakers were out-rebounded by an average of 3.9 boards per game, which was ultimately what killed them in the NBA Finals against the Celtics. 2008 Draft Impact (Extremely Low) The Lakers were stuck with just the No. 58 pick in the draft after dealing their first round selection in the Pau Gasol trade. With the 58th pick, the Lakers took Joe Crawford from the University of Kentucky. Crawford is a decent guard who can shoot a very limited amount and has a decent all-around game. He won't have much of an impact at all this year for the Lakers unless several players go down with injuries, and more likely than not, he will end up in the D-League for the majority of this season. But hey, they still have Pau Gasol and that's better than anybody they could've taken during the 2008 NBA Draft. Off-Season Impact Moves Not only was there a very quiet draft for the Lakers of Los Angeles, but there was also a very quiet offseason this summer. The Lakers went into the summer with their roster pretty much set thanks to the two in-season trades that gave them their championship depth. The Lakers did decide to let Ronny Turiaf go to the Warriors after he signed an offer sheet and replaced him with Josh Powell, an athletic forward who most recently played for the Los Angeles Clippers. Powell will provide a little depth to the power forward position, but shouldn't figure in to being a big part of the rotation. The Lakers also added Sun Yue, their 2007 second round draft pick from China. Sun Yue is a guy who can play multiple positions (point guard, shooting guard, and small forward) and has a nice ability to handle the ball and make some plays. He's called the "Magic Johnson of China," which seems to have excited Lakers fans into thinking he's going to be a key contributor this year. I have to inform Lakers fans that Mickael Pietrus was called the "Michael Jordan of France" and Hedo Turkoglu was called the "Michael Jordan of Turkey." Just because a player is called the Magic Johnson of his native country doesn't mean he will in fact play like Magic Johnson. Sun Yue is going to be a decent role player someday in the NBA -- that day is not today and it certainly won't be any day this season. Preview for the 2008-2009 Season Team MVP: Kobe Bryant, SG - Despite what the "witnesses" in Cleveland might try to tell you or what Paul Pierce will proclaim in interviews, Kobe Bryant is still the best basketball player in this league. Call him selfish. Call him stubborn. Call him a bad teammate. But don't forget to call him the best player in basketball today. As Kobe goes, this team will go. He's the most important player to their success. Breakout Player: Jordan Farmar, PG - Jordan Farmar has gone from the big-eared kid who was just trying to find his way in this league to the big-eared kid who is carving a nice niche for himself in the NBA. Farmar could end up taking over the reigns of the starting point guard position at some point this season. I think he'll begin to be a deadly threat from the outside, and he'll be a mature enough distributor to be the main guy in the backcourt next to Kobe Bryant by year's end. Bust Player: Andrew Bynum, C - I expect to take a lot of flack for this selection here. Andrew Bynum is not necessarily as good as everyone expected him to be after a very nice 35 games last season. Bynum has the tools to be a good center in this league, but that doesn't negate the fact that he had a major knee injury that caused him to miss the rest of the season instead of the eight weeks he was supposed to miss. I think the knee injury will linger and that the Lakers will labor to bring him in effectively next to Pau Gasol. Bynum will be a good center in this league, but he will struggle this year to get his game and confidence back. Playoff Contender or Pretender? This team couldn't be a bigger contender. In fact, they've got to be the odds-on favorite to win the NBA championship this coming season. Their success is contingent on avoiding key injuries to Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol, and Kobe Bryant, and on Phil Jackson's ability to seamlessly inject Andrew Bynum into a lineup featuring Pau Gasol. The Lakers were not a very good defensive team last year. They were also not a very headstrong team. Despite weathering Kobe Bryant's disparaging offseason comments, the Lakers seemed to fold when the pressure was at its most intense -- the NBA Finals. Championship teams don't give up 20+ point leads in the Finals, and they certainly don't get eliminated because of a 39-point blowout. For the Lakers to erase this stigma, they will have to give Kobe Bryant more help during tough stretches, and Kobe will in turn have to be more willing to let players help. Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol have to be strong weapons when the season is on the line. They cannot wet themselves on national television if they expect to be called NBA Champions after June. Kobe Bryant doesn't need to be the MVP for this team to get back to the Finals and win. He just needs to be a leader, even at the worst times. That didn't happen against the Celtics last year. To be true title contenders, it cannot be an issue this season.