Los Angeles Lakers Off Season Thread

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Why not? For veterans minimum of $1 million. Lakers bench is horrendous.

Jermaine O'Neal will have a workout with the Lakers in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

O'Neal underwent season-ending knee surgery in February.

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LOS ANGELES -- Antawn Jamison is joining up with Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash to chase a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Jamison will sign a one-year deal for the veteran's minimum with the Lakers, a league source told ESPNLosAngeles.com's Dave McMenamin.

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Another Dwight report. Hopefully this one is true. Everything basically points to Dwight going to the Lakers. Per Real GM.

Dwight Howard has long coveted the Brooklyn Nets as his next landing spot, but after a summer filled with daily rumors of four-team trade proposals, the six-time All-Star has moved on from his Big Apple infatuation and is locked in on joining the Los Angeles Lakers, according to sources.

The Lakers, Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers are reportedly discussing a three-team trade that would send Howard to the Lakers, Andrew Bynum to the Cavaliers, while the Magic would receive Anderson Varejao and multiple draft picks.

Howard has always been impressed with the Lakers’ winning tradition and intrigued with the off-court opportunities that come with playing in Los Angeles.

Questions about Howard's role with the team, however, became an early concern for the three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year. Howard has since moved on from those concerns and is confident he will be an integral part of a team that will have a chance to compete immediately for a championship, according to sources.

The Lakers are reportedly ready to make the trade, but first need assurance from Howard that he will commit to the team long-term. Sources say Howard is “excited” about the opportunity to play for the Lakers and will re-sign with the team when his contract expires at the end of the 2012-13 season.

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Resigned Jordan Hill to a reasonable short term contract which was a definite for the team.

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Lakers were interested in Delonte West before Mavericks resigned him. Supposedly they are also targeting Michael Redd and Jodie Meeks.

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Its official.

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Kobe Bryant goes back to school: Lakers switching to Princeton offense - Yahoo! Sports

LONDON – Kobe Bryant has been searching for spacing and freedom and flow on offense, for a way to counter defenses bent on sagging and suffocating him on the floor. Even before the Los Angeles Lakers delivered him point guard Steve Nash, Bryant had raised an idea with coach Mike Brown about the possibility of employing a distant cousin to the triangle – the Princeton offense.

So there was Brown and Bryant in a side room in a Las Vegas gymnasium during Team USA's training camp in early July, listening to Eddie Jordan detail the offense's intricacies, laying out how Bryant, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum would benefit with and without the basketball. Here was an old-school Ivy League blueprint daring to be a solution for the Showtime Lakers' issues.

Jordan happens to be the foremost Princeton authority in the NBA, the heir to architect Pete Carril, and that's an immense part of why the Lakers are moving toward an agreement to hire Jordan as an assistant coach. Jordan sold his vision of the offense to a most willing subject, and ultimately Bryant departed for these Olympics convinced that the Lakers have a sound plan of action for the 2012-13 season.

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Lakers need to get a backup shooting guard who is good at threes.

Leandro Barbosa remains a free agent and the Lakers appear to have interest.

Barbosa finished the 11-12 season with the Pacers following a trade from the Raptors.

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Sources -- Dwight Howard-to-Los Angeles Lakers four-team deal 'very close' - ESPN

I really hope this isnt true. This has got to be the stupidest thing Lakers do if they trade both Bynum and Gasol to get Dwight and Harrington just to save money. They will not get out of the first round if they do the trade. Gasol better not be included in the trade. If he is, Kobe should just retire now.

A four-team trade that would send Dwight Howard to the Los Angeles Lakers is "very close" to happening and could be agreed upon Friday, league sources told ESPN The Magazine's Chris Broussard.

In the proposed four-team deal, sources told Broussard that Howard and Denver Nuggets forward Al Harrington would go to Los Angeles, Lakers forward Pau Gasol and Nuggets guard Arron Afflalo would go to the Orlando Magic, Philadelphia 76ers guard Andre Iguodala would go to Denver, and Lakers center Andrew Bynum would go to Philadelphia.

A league source told ESPNLosAngeles.com's Ramona Shelburne that the pieces in the potential trade are still very fluid and that Gasol has been in and out of the talks. The source, though, said the deal still is very close to happening and could go down Friday morning.

Earlier Thursday, Yahoo! Sports, citing sources, reported that talks of a four-team trade involving Howard have taken place this week and have "grown serious."

The proposed scenario also includes the Magic receiving draft picks and salary-cap relief, the sources told Yahoo!

Sources told Broussard that Philadelphia has not spoken to Bynum or his representatives and has no assurances he will sign a long-term extension with the club.

"The Sixers are willing to take a shot (without Bynum's commitment)," one source said.

Although Bynum signing an extension with the 76ers is not out of the question, according to a source, his stance all summer has been he only will sign an extension with the Lakers.

Bynum, who grew up about an hour away from Philadelphia in Plainsboro, N.J., could sign a three-year, $60 million extension this season or wait to become a free agent after the season and be eligible for a five-year, $102 million deal.

Near the end of July, Howard met with Magic general manager Rob Hennigan and reiterated he still wants to be traded, and if he isn't, will leave the team as a free agent after next season.

The Lakers' position on Howard has remained relatively unchanged for the past few months, league sources familiar with the situation have told ESPNLosAngeles.com. The Lakers always have been willing to trade for Howard without assurances he'd re-sign with them after the season, believing that once Howard experienced a championship culture, he would want to stay.

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Sources -- Dwight Howard-to-Los Angeles Lakers four-team deal complete - ESPN

A four-team trade that would send Dwight Howard to the Los Angeles Lakers is complete, multiple sources told ESPN on Thursday night.

A source with direct knowledge of the talks told ESPN.com's Marc Stein that the Lakers will receive Howard, the Denver Nuggets will get Andre Iguodala, the 76ers will get Andrew Bynum and Jason Richardson, and the Magic will get Arron Afflalo, Al Harrington, Nikola Vucevic and one protected future first-round pick from each of the other three teams.

In addition, the Magic will be getting other pieces, including 76ers No. 1 draft pick Moe Harkless, a source told Stein.

Sources close to the process told Stein and ESPNLosAngeles.com's Ramona Shelburne that a trade call with the league office has been scheduled for Friday to secure the necessary NBA approval to make the deal official.

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Source -- Los Angeles Lakers reach two-year deal with guard Jodie Meeks - ESPN Los Angeles

Our bench is starting to look a lot better than last year.

The Los Angeles Lakers' roster continued to take shape after the Dwight Howard trade became official, witth the team reaching agreement with free-agent guard Jodie Meeks on Friday, according to a league source.

It is a two-year deal worth close to $3 million, with the second year a team option for the Lakers, the source said.

Meeks, a 6-foot-4 shooting guard out of Kentucky, has career averages of 8.1 points and 2.2 rebounds in his three seasons.

Meeks is a career 37.1 percent shooter from 3-point range. More than half of his made field goals last season for the Philadelphia 76ers were from beyond the arc (97 of 191).

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Dwight Howard traded to Los Angeles Lakers - ESPN

IT IS OFFICIAL!!!!!

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