From Mark Heisler, Lakers Nation: For Kobe Bryant’s sins when he was young and impetuous, the gods sent him Dwight Howard. Once Bryant was the prodigy who wanted what he wanted when he wanted it and O’Neal, seven years older, the one who knew which end was up. Now Howard is the prodigy who wants what he wants when he wants it, and Bryant, seven years older, knows which end is up. Not that anyone was ever like Shaq & Kobe, the superstar teammates who weren’t content to feud in private, trading haymakers in the press, as in 2003 when Shaq announced Karl Malone and Gary Payton had come for him, not Kobe… whereupon Kobe had Jim Gray go on TV to call Shaq a fat malingerer who wasn’t really a leader or a friend, much less his surrogate older brother, having failed to call Kobe after that summer’s arrest (other than to leave a message on his machine).

From TheGreatMambino, Silver Screen & Roll: As hot as the criticism got last season on Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Steve Nash, former head coach Mike Brown and VP of Player Personnel Jim Buss, no man was under more scrutiny than Mike D’Antoni. The mustachioed skipper had one of the most polarizing years in LA history, being blamed for a weak defense and ineffective rotations, but simultaneously being given a pass because of the rampant roster injuries. Even armed with 2 years and $8 million left on his contract, there’s still questions as to whether or not MDA would be leading the Lakers in November. Will Mike D’Antoni be the head coach for the beginning for the 2013-2014 season?

From Kurt Helin, Pro Basketball Talk: Kobe Bryant certainly hinted more than once he might hang it up after next season. However did you really think a guy that competitive would walk away? Now his Achilles tendon injury oddly makes it more likely he will return. Kobe does not want his final image on the court to be him slowed because of an injury. So he may come back for a season or two after his current contract expires next summer. That’s what he hinted at with Stephen A. Smith on ESPN Radio (as transcribed by Eric Pincus at the Los Angeles Times). The question was about Tim Duncan possibly getting a fifth ring.

From Michael C. Jones, Yahoo Sports: Los Angeles Lakers fans are easy for the rest of the country to hate. It’s not their fault — they are blessed with many enviable circumstances such as living great weather, rooting for a legendary team, watching superstars come and go every year and all of the ancillary things that come with living in the shadow of Hollywood. But in addition to their team consistently competing for titles, they are known for being notoriously late for games, lacking knowledge of the game’s nuances, sitting courtside at games expressionless for the sole purpose of being seen and chanting for two-dollar tacos during close, meaningful games. Why do some behave this way? It’s a question that deserves further exploration, and one prominent TV personality did just that for us all.

From Eric Pincus, LA Times: The offseason for the Lakers will hinge on a single choice by one free agent. Can the Lakers navigate through Dwight Howard’s free agency? “It’s the one decision we have to wait on,” said General Manager Mitch Kupchak. Whatever decision Howard makes will require a leap of faith. The Atlanta Hawks are one of the teams hoping to lure Chris Paul and Howard and the Clippers’ Chris Paul, although a letter to season ticket holders may be considered tampering. Kobe Bryant has been experiencing a taste of retirement as he slowly works his way back from a torn Achilles. On Friday, Bryant suggested he might play another year beyond his current contract.

From Drew Garrison, Silver Screen & Roll: Who you got – Kobe Bryant or Tim Duncan? Hakeem Olajuwon or Dwight Howard? Robert Horry gave his opinion on both (spoiler: he also took into consideration if Duncan won his fifth championship, something we discussed here just a week ago) in an interview with HoopsHype.When asked who had a better career between Bryant and Duncan, Horry’s selection would be Kobe. From a general manager perspective Horry gives Bryant the nod because he’s going to “sell tickets”" and “put people in the arena”:

From Darren Rovell, ESPN: The Kobe Bryant memorabilia saga has ended with an apology from the Los Angeles Lakers guard’s parents and a settlement that allows less than 10 percent of the items originally intended for sale to be auctioned. Bryant and a company that was auctioning off the memorabilia reached a deal one week before the two sides were due to go to trial in New Jersey. The agreement allows the sale of six items, which Goldin Auctions president Ken Goldin told ESPN.com on Monday morning he is confident still can sell for more than $500,000 combined.Bryant’s parents, who had contracted with Goldin to sell the items, apologized in a written statement.

From Suki Thind, Lakers Nation: We all love/hate Charles Barkley for the same reason: he speaks his mind. I personally like Barkley and how he says what’s on his mind, whether he’s right or wrong. Most recently, Barkley had this to say with regards to Kobe Bryant and his injury on the Dan Patrick Show: “I think he can be a good player. That’s it. Is he going to be an All-Star? He’ll probably be an All-Star because the fans will vote him in. But as far as being a dominant player, that’s not going to happen.” With this, I have to strongly disagree. Barkley actually makes it very easy for me to disagree with him for a few reasons.

From Eric Pincus, LA Times: The Lakers have four potential restricted free agents this summer: Darius Morris, Robert Sacre, Andrew Goudelock and Devin Ebanks. Once the NBA Finals  between the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat wrap up, the Lakers have until June 30 to tender qualifying offers to make any of the four restricted. The team is not likely to give an offer of $1.3 million to Ebanks, who underperformed in his third year with the Lakers. To restrict Morris, who progressed in his second season, the Lakers need to make an offer of $1.2 million. Goudelock, who was signed for the last couple of regular-season games after Kobe Bryant’s Achilles injury, would need a qualifying offer of $1.1 million. Center Robert Sacre’s offer would fall just under $1 million.

From Michael C. Jones, Yahoo Sports: The Dwight Howard saga wears on. As the July free agent frenzy that’s slated to take place when NBA free agency nears, the Houston Rockets are emerging as viable suitors to land the polarizing big man. Whether or not the Lakers are better off without him is a topic for another story (they’re not, by the way), but the fact is they have mortgaged their pride and their future on the fact that he will re-sign with them this summer and try to become the next great center in Laker-land.

Change is a constant, we all know that. Athletes and eras exit stage left and new ones emerge. Jason Kidd recently announced his retirement as did Grant Hill. Members of the NBA class of ’94, their careers were intertwined. It’s a transitional time in many ways – the NBA finals have finally begun with the Tony Parker-led Spurs taking Game 1 in Miami. The draft comes next and then the long hot summer. Coaches are coming and going including the current COY. Another legend refuses to go quietly into the good night, using a book blitz to provoke copy from those who chronicle the sport, ranging from place mat sketches to a San Antonio Spurs prediction. Sports writing has been going through its own metamorphosis for quite some time and will no doubt continue.

There wasn’t always the internet. There was a time when ink-stained hands and visors were common catch-phrases. The term catch-phrase in of itself is just another definition of meme. Some of today’s readers and citizen journalists might not necessarily equate link-fueled breaking news with seminal influences but the connecting dots do exist in the ether. How far back to you want to go? Grantland Rice was known for his elegant prose and Four Horseman mythology while Jim Murray combined heart and biting humor in a career than began during World War II and lasted through the Michael Jordan era. Ring Lardner melded jazz age sensibilities with baseball bush league stories and Red Smith summed up the role of beat writer as succinctly as any when he famously opined that you simply sit down at a typewriter, open up your veins and bleed. If you’re still unsure of how the past connects the present, just ask David Halberstam.

The ‘Page 2′ school of sports journalism has always served as a way to bridge hard reporting and colorful commentary. Simply turn from the front banner headlines and enjoy a respite. T.J. Simers worked a variety of west coast beats before landing at the L.A. Times in 1990. His style often causes blowback from readers looking for more metric truths but there’s something to be said for using a shooting contest between your daughter and Dwight Howard as a framing device. Besides, it translates nicely to ancillary pieces. Perhaps no writer mixed things up as much as gonzo trailblazer Hunter S. Thompson. Late in life he wrote a rambling series of Hey Rube pieces for ESPN that are beyond facile description. Bill Simmons took over ESPN’s Page 2 a decade ago, bringing an accessible Sports Guy take to what had previously been some pretty wooly waters. Simmons’ career has continued to flourish and morph, including his current role as one of ESPN’s talking heads. Are there really six degrees of separation between Grantland Rice and Dwight Howard? I don’t know but it’s an easy segue back to a Lakers-centric topic of conversation.

It’s not just players and writers of course. There’s always the conflict of league-mandated interviews between sideline reporters and coaches and none so treacherous as those involving Coach Pop. Continuing the circular trend is a carousel of coaching updates spinning out from the George Karl ouster. On the odd-couple front comes this story about Jerry Sloan and the Birdman. Indeed, old versus new school debates seem to be anywhere and everywhere these days. Witness the analytics-driven conflict between Lionel Hollins and Memphis vice president of operations John Hollinger. The information highway is long and ever-winding, a morning’s search can lead from a superstar’s continued path back from a devastating injury to the connection between athletes, celebrities and money management.

You can continuing with colliding worlds and emerging stories as long as your index finger has the strength to click but at some point you have to pull yourself away from the luminescent screen. What did Marshall McLuhan used to say, the medium is the message? No, I’m not hyperlinking it. Go, have some lunch, take a walk. Something.

From Elizabeth Benson, Lakers Nation: The Los Angeles Lakers are facing yet another busy offseason this year. The sixteen-time champions will be trying to create a roster that gives them the best chance of hanging their seventeenth championship banner from the rafters of Staples Center. However, they will be doing so by facing a ton of uncertainty this summer, especially in late June through early July, due to some big decisions that will be made by both management and the players themselves. One of those questions is in regards to whether or not the Lakers will use their amnesty clause this year. Per the new collective bargaining agreement, a team can use a one-time amnesty clause on a player, and the salary of that waived player will not count toward the salary cap or luxury tax.

From C.A. Clark, Silver Screen & Roll: It’s no secret that the Los Angeles Lakers will probably need to forge a new path to the next era of franchise dominance. After all, their current roster (one which failed miserably last year) is all but locked in place to take one more shot before being utterly and completely decimated. Barring wholesale changes, the Lakers will probably fail next season as well, and there will be nobody left under contract for any further attempts. This is good thing because, with an aging roster that can’t get the morning paper without pulling a hamstring, few franchises need to press the reset button as much as LA needs to.

From Brett Polakoff, Pro Basketball Talk: If you were going to try to rank all of Kobe Bryant‘s best shots from his amazing 17 years in the NBA, it would be a massive undertaking that would last weeks to get through them all and sort them in order of degree of difficulty, overall meaning, or importance. As recently as this past season, Bryant had a memorable array of them in a single come-from-behind, overtime win over the Raptors — a game I happened to be fortunate enough to witness in person. Bryant’s ultimate legacy will be many things, but making extremely challenging shots in the game’s biggest moments will definitely be near the top of that list. It may be surprising, then, to learn that Bryant himself has a mere pair of free throws in a regular season game ranked as high as any on his own personal career ledger.

From Dave McMenamin, ESPN: Kobe Bryant shuffled into a conference room on the second floor of the Los Angeles Lakers’ practice facility Monday with crutches under his arm and special Nike “Medical Mambas” on his feet and sat down for a near 30-minute interview with ESPNLosAngeles.com. The discussion included a wide range of topics, including Bryant’s thoughts on his rehab, Dwight Howard and Phil Jackson comparing him to Michael Jordan that have already been covered on the site. Here’s the best of the rest:

From Eric Pincus, LA Times: The Lakers are trying to prepare for Dwight Howard’s free-agency decision, whether he chooses to stay with the team long term or leave for another franchise.”It’s the one decision we have to wait on,” said General Manager Mitch  Kupchak in an interview with Mike Trudell of Lakers.com. “Then we will try to have a Plan A, Plan B, Plan C depending on what happens.”The Lakers hope Howard chooses to re-sign for what could be a $118-million, five-year contract. “I think this is the best city to live in with the best fans in the NBA,” said Kupchak.”There are certain things that you remind [Howard] of or talk to him about, and you hope that it plays in your favor.” In the meantime, the Lakers can prepare for the draft on June 27 and free agency on July 1, but there’s only so much to be done until they know Howard’s decision.”It moves quickly, so it’s not like you can go to a Plan B with certainty. There will be 29 other teams looking to improve their teams on July 1,” he said. “We spend a lot of time on those what-ifs, contingency plans.”

From Elizabeth Benson, Lakers Nation: If you have been waiting for Dwight Howard to speak on his own behalf, using his own words, to discuss his upcoming free agency on July 1, today is your lucky day. After a couple of weeks of hearing and reading reports and rumors from “sources,” Dwight himself responded to all the talk and criticism of his upcoming big decision this summer. Dwight conducted an interview with the Los Angeles TimesT.J. Simers, and while he didn’t give any groundbreaking news regarding his free agency, the interview was quite interesting and gave us his perspective on the matter.