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You’re right about Ronny’s disappearance late. Especially against the Celtic’s. We really could’ve used that energy and attitude in that series, when the Celtics seem to get into other player’s heads with the chatter. But I think it made sure the Lakers did not get priced out of keeping him. i don’t see anyone offering him too much, because he gets into foul trouble too much, and needs to be a stronger rebounder. I think Ronny can improve, but needs to keep his confidence up. I’d like to see him work on being a more aggressive rebounder, and work on his back to the basket game.

I think the team returns largely the same. Lamar has a large expiring contract whose value rises as the trading deadline approaches. So in essence, if the experiment works, Lamar gets an extension, if it doesn’t he is converted to other pieces. The only question for me is whether Ronny comes back or not. At the right price he does but the team must be concerned about the collapse in Turiaf’s energy and game near the end of the season and playoffs. He is not an enforcer either. If Ronny goes, I like giving Craig Smith a go, an unrestricted FA and possibly the strongest widebody in the league. Or even bringing back MBenga.

With Gasol in training camp and Tex having spent the summer thinking about his skills,I believe we’re about to see Triangle 4.0. T1 was Pippen as the pivot the offense moved around,T2 was Shaq,T3.1 and T3.2 were Lamar and Kobe and not as successful, and T4 will revolve around Gasol.

It’s not clear that the Lakers have an option to trade Lamar, but they might. I suspect that the Lakers will continuously monitor possibilities.

So far, I’ve come up with 3 or 4 scenarios that are credible–and the draft has, if anything, made them a bit more likely. If the Lakers make a trade, the timing will be out of their control, but I’d predict the trade will happen by the beginning of training camp in October–or not at all.

Monitoring these scenarios will at least give me something to do until October!

In 2008, if Ariza develops as expected, Trevor will negotiate a long term contract and become the starting small forward the year after. The player who must rebalance the team in the meanwhile is the veteran small forward–who might also serve as a mentor to Trevor. That veteran player must see the writing on the wall and either be willing to radically renegotiate his salary with the Lakers down–or be prepared to become a free agent.

Right now, the Lakers don’t have that kind of veteran player.

The Lakers may or may not have a deeper problem: the projected starting power forward and center have never played together. Some experts have expressed strong doubts about how effective they will be playing on court at the same time. Under those conditions, the Lakers may revert to their 2007 starters half of the time or more. In other words, ihnstead of having a 3, 4, and 5, the Lakers would often have one 4 1/2 and two 3 1/2′s.

If this is to be a year of transition to starting for both Andrew and Trevor, the Lakers desperately need Lamar at the 4, working with Pau at the 5 much of the time.

If Bynum and Gasol work well together, and Bynum is clearly the starter, it would be better for Gasol to focus entirely on the 4, and Lamar would need to focus entirely on the 3–sharing with Ariza. Luke would probably also work at the 3, but VladRad and Ronny would back up Gasol at the 4. Mihm and Mbenga would back up Andrew at the 4.

Under those circumstances, Lamar may become more the problem than the solution. Even under the best of circumstances for Lamar, he would only have one more year as a starter. It would then be financially hard to pay much more for Lamar than VladRad, Luke, or any other quality role player.

This is the dilemma facing the Lakers as they move forward into 2008. If the Lakers could find a veteran small forward who would like to showcase his skills for a year, it might be in Lamar’s interest to be traded this year to better downstream prospects.