• Pau Gasol, Shannon Brown and 2 future first round picks (2012 and 2013) for Kevin Love and Michael Beasley. It is no secret that David Kahn, the GM for the Minnesota Timerbwolves is horny for Gasol.  As a top 5 forward/center, Gasol would provide the Wolves with immediate credibility in the paint.  Shannon Brown is an athletic freak who is longing for a bigger contract and a bigger role, Minnesota could offer him both.  The two future first round picks are the carrot that could push Kahn over the edge in his decision to move a young and talented Kevin Love, for a more talented but much older Gasol.  Beasley is a solid talent, but with a reputation as a troublemaker, he is not someone a young/influential Minnesota team is going to value as highly as a veteran team like the Lakers would.  While Minny is in rebuilding mode (making the Gasol trade seem less sensical), the two future first rounders allow Kahn to stockpile future youth to make up for getting older in this trade.  Gasol + Rubio would surely bring some fans to the arena next year as well.
• Pau Gasol for Monta Ellis, Ekpe Udoh and Al Thornton.  Yes, the Lakers don’t want to move Gasol, but the chance to get a significant scoring upgrade in the back court in Ellis (24 ppg) all while getting younger and more athletic might be too good an opportunity to pass up.  Moving Gasol will hurt, as the Lakers do not have the front court depth to be able to recover from his loss without making another trade, but Ellis is a prize.  Udoh adds some young depth at the 4 spot and Al Thornton (who would need to be signed and traded) would provide some useful scoring off the bench and is still young enough to offer some upside.
• Andrew Bynum, Steve Blake and a future first round pick for Chris Paul and Carl Landry.  Adding Chris Paul, who tore the Lakers apart in the playoffs last season, would be the prize the Lakers would need in order to part with the young and talented Bynum.  The injury histories of Chris Paul and Andrew Bynum would be a wash in terms of risk, so the merits of this deal come down to whether or not you think the Lakers need a start point guard over the emerging Bynum at center.  Landry, who would need to come in a sign and trade, is a nice player to tack on to this, and could slide into the 4 spot with Gasol moving to center for the Lakers.
• Derrick Caracter, Luke Walton and Steve Blake for DJ Augustin and Boris Diaw.  This gives the Lakers another young point guard to throw into the mix while ridding them of Luke Walton’s salary.  The only sense this could make for Charlotte is that it rids them of Diaw’s $9M salary for 2011-2012 and gives them a more veteran point guard to help groom their #1 pick Kemba Walker.  Caracter adds some young size to the Bobcats front court.

So, those are four trade possibilities to be considered.  None of them seem overly likely but it sure is fun to think about.

While it is obvious that Kobe could play at a high level into his 40s (he has a great mid range jump shooting game, which can thrive even after a player’s athleticism has subsided (see Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, Michael Jordan (at 45+), etc), one has to question whether he might do his legacy a favor by winning two more rings and retiring at the age of 35, still playing at peak levels and with 7 rings to look back on.

How many more seasons do you think Kobe will play?

So, while a grueling trip it is intended to be, the Lakers tend to find themselves on these long mid season road trips.  With a 4-0 start to this current trip (including back to back wins over the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks), it seems the Lakers are primed to continue their winner trend.

Fact: Carmelo Anthony is a top 5 young star in the league.
Fact: Carmelo Anthony would be the best possible situation for Laker fans as he could team up with Kobe for the next two years while Kobe gracefully caps off his career (I think Kobe should retire in 2-3 seasons and go out on top), and then could be the leader of a new squad that would still be competitive and not suffer a decade of futility (a la post-Magic when the most exciting thing the Lakers had was Sedale Threat, Cedric Ceballos and Terry Teagle.
Fact: Carmelo Anthony to the Lakers would male them once again clear title favorites (forget all this talk about losing Bynum would make the Lakers too small to battle the likes of the Celtics in the post-season, Bynum is a difference maker due to size, but Carmelo is a difference maker period!)
Fact:  The Lakers are likely not going to get Carmelo without giving up something more than Bynum.  It will likely take a package that includes Shannon Brown (the only other young player with any trade value), Devin Ebanks (a guy who will be a solid pro) and Derrick Caracter (a young big who will have a serviceable career).

Fiction:The rumors about the Lakers getting Carmelo Anthony are real. While it was fun to go through the “Facts” and pontificate a Carmelo to LA love story, Carmelo wants to play for the Knicks and a package that nets Denver Wilson Chandler and Landry Fields (plus an unload by Denver of bad contracts) is a better deal than the Lakers can offer. While its fun to talk about, we should quickly put this distraction to rest and focus on regaining the championship form that they will need to get through a tough upcoming postseason.

While I’m not suggesting that Bynum is the savior for the Lakers, I am saying that he makes the team more complete and creates a wider margin for error on a team that should contend for the 2011 NBA championship…..which if won would be their third in a row and sixth in the last decade.

While it is understandable that the landscape of online content is clearly skewed towards the promotion of shock-content or wild assertions in an effort to capture audience, John Hollinger goes just a bit further than the rest of us.  Hollinger, who first made a name for himself by inventing the largely unreliable PER rating system (a system that laughably lays claim to the “fact” that a guy like Kevin Martin is a more efficient ball player than Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash) is now making a name for himself with his “scientific” power rankings, rankings that as of yesterday had the Los Angeles Lakers as the 11th best team in the league, behind not one, two or three, but FIVE teams the Lakers have defeated already this season.

Being a sabermetrician at heart myself, I have tried to understand Hollinger’s futile attempts at doing to Basketball what Bill James and Paul Depodesta/Billy Bean successfully did to baseball. No matter how hard I try, however, each time I try to dig into Hollinger’s “science” I get about 20% of the way through the equation before getting lost in my own personal list of arguments against his formula.  Rather than waste my time trying to lay the arguments out here, let me just save you all some time, he is flat out wrong……and an ass who will forever be labeled on this website as a douche-tool.

• Gasol to be out until Christmas?  Just kidding…ha ha…maybe (Link).
• Bosh, Wade and Lebron on the same team in 2010?  Don’t count on it thanks to our failing economy (Link). Plus, Kobe tells Lebron to stop talking Free Agency (Link).
• Speculation that its not Stephen Jackson that is going to be out of Golden State soon but rather Don Nelson (Link).  Are Clippers interested in Jackson? (Link).
• Mike Dunleavy as good as gone? (Link).

MLB:

• Returning Home? Dodgers may move Sherrill for Edwin Jackson (Link).
• Wolf could be back in Blue (Link).
• Dodgers after Vazquez? Noooooot (Link).
• MLB.com confirms that Red Sox meeting with Lackey (Link).
• Orlando Hudson to New York? (Link).

Sometimes there are games that, when teams look at their schedule at the beginning of the year, they know they are likely to lose.  The Suns played one of those games and got clobbered by the Lakers and then the next night the Lakers got a taste of that schedule medicine, getting clobbered by the Nuggets.  Don’t worry LA/Phoenix fans……you are both at 7-2 and the tough schedule now will make you tougher come playoff time.