June 27th: NBA Draft: "Lakers Will Play It by Ear"

[Phil]

Lakers Will Play It by Ear
They own the 26th pick in what shapes up as a fluid NBA draft Wednesday and will hear many names being called before their turn.
By Mike Bresnahan, Times Staff Writer
June 27, 2006


A day ahead of the NBA draft, the Lakers have become symbolic of it: unpredictable and even a bit unknowing.

Such things happen when a team has the 26th pick, although the Lakers aren't alone in the uncertainty of the player they'll end up with in the first round Wednesday.

In the most fluid draft in recent league history, there still remains an overall lack of consensus, starting with which player Toronto will select with the first pick.

Closer to home, the draft brings less anticipation than a year ago, when the Lakers selected Andrew Bynum 10th overall in hopes of socking away a future All-Star center.

The Lakers are back toward the bottom of the draft, their usual place after deep playoff drives, but this time under different circumstances.

They finished with the 21st-best record in the league but traded their first-round pick to Boston two years ago (the pick has since been sent to Phoenix). The Lakers have Miami's first-round selection, which is five spots lower, as part of the Shaquille O'Neal trade two years ago.

[Phil]

Lakers debate pick
By Ross Siler, Staff writer



With the No. 26 pick in Wednesday's NBA Draft, Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak will be looking for the player, in his words, with the "best chance to play in this league for 8 to 10 years."

That player likely will be a ball-handling guard, with Kupchak saying he felt the Lakers were "one guard short" last season after Laron Profit ruptured an Achilles tendon in December.

But Kupchak also will have realistic expectations for what a player picked near the end of the first round could contribute to a Phil Jackson-coached team as a rookie.

"It's unlikely in this day and age that the 26th pick is going to play a lot for you next year," Kupchak said Monday.

Kupchak said the Lakers would like to move up in the draft but questioned the feasibility of doing so. In the meantime, they contribute to feel the reverberations from last year's draft, when they took high school center Andrew Bynum with the No. 10 pick.

Bynum played in only 46 of 82 regular-season games as a rookie, still an unknown quantity in the eyes of most. But Kupchak made clear that Bynum's future is with the Lakers, even as other teams continue to inquire about him. Kupchak was asked about his statement last June that Bynum would have been a top three pick in this draft had he played a year at Connecticut. It was the assessment Kupchak got from a Big East coach last year and a hypothetical question now.

[Phil]

Kupchak readies Lakers for draft
Commentary: Analysis of players and potential deals is heating up.
By Mike Waldner
DAILY BREEZE

Draft time in the NBA.

Two rounds. Sixty players. Two players per team unless you've been wheeling and dealing.

No big deal.

Wrong. It is a big deal.

Mitch Kupchak, general manager of the Lakers, provided a glimpse at the draft when he sat down with reporters Monday afternoon at the El Segundo headquarters of the Lakers.

The Lakers have screened almost 80 players.

That's a lot of players to work out when you have only two picks, No. 26 and No. 51, Wednesday in the draft.

"It's kind of crazy to bring in that many," Kupchak said.

Everyone does it.

The Clippers also have two picks, No. 34 and No. 52. They estimate at 130 the players they've brought in, they saw at private or group workouts not at the gym they use at the El Segundo Spectrum Club, and in Europe.

Assistant general manager Ronnie Lester is the player personnel point man for the Lakers.

"I do not feel there is a player in the world he doesn't know about," Kupchak.