Click here to read Part I of the interview

One of the changes you targeted in the off-season was upgrading our point guard play. Assess what Fisher and Farmar have been able to do, specifically defensively.

Jordan’s given us a boost, he did the same thing last year in the first half of the season, but wasn’t able to continue it for the whole season. Hopefully he can continue it for the whole season this year.

Derek Fisher has been a blessing, a god sends at that position. He’s exceeded our expectations on the court and off the court in terms of leadership in the locker room, with the press, just setting an example for our young players, in particular our two young point guards—Jordan & (Javaris) Crittenton.

Talk about how Kobe's game is different so far this year than it was at the end of last year and role Derek Fisher plays in that?

I’m not sure if I notice that big a difference. He seems to be more encouraging and embrace the leadership role even more. I thought his play the first half of last year was stellar, so I can’t say that he’s playing a lot better than he was last year. I thought he was really good in the first half of last year. Then when our play as a team wasn’t very good I didn’t think any of us looked very good.

He does seem to be embracing the leadership position and I think to some degree he recognizes the young talents on this team, not only for what they could be down the road, which may not help him, but for what they bring to the table today, which may help him. I think he embraces those contributions.

Where is Javaris Crittenton in his development right now? Will we be sending him to the D-Fenders?

It’s a typical rookie season. Now-a-days you’re no longer 23-years old when you’re a rookie, you’re 19, so it’s that much harder to understand what’s going on on this level and to get into a game with a veteran team. This is not unlike other rookie seasons that we’ve had in the past.

I’m sure that he’s frustrated from time-to-time, if not most of the time; because I know he wants to play. He plays a lot in practice and he had a very good training camp and we’re very very high on his contributions down the road. There’s no reason that he can’t be in this league and be a starter in this league at some point in his career and for a long time.

Where do we stand on Coby Karl? Have we seen enough to evaluate him?

Coby’s been sent down to the D-League, incidentally that’s something that we might do with Javaris—we’ll evaluate that as the season progresses, perhaps by the end of January we’ll have a better feel.

We thought for Coby it gave him a bunch of games where he could play a lot and work on his game and improve, because he wants to play at the next level. But as a team we have decisions to make also. He doesn’t have a guaranteed contract and contracts become guaranteed in the early part of January—the 10th—so it gave us a chance to evaluate him going forward also.

At this stage—January 3rd—we still have a week to sort our way through the financial part of the business, which is no fun. He played very well down there and it helped us in our decision making process.

Last year on this date we were 20-11, this year we're 19-11, but it seems like this team is significantly better and hasn't been aided by a soft early schedule.

It’s really too early for somebody in my position to feel too good about a team or too bad about a team. As you mentioned, our record is very similar to what it was last year and we know how last year ended. I do think several of our young players made significant progress over the summer and I think that leads to some expected optimism and I think that’s good.

We’re expected to win here and we’ve got a lot of games to go, so I’m going to reserve final judgment until the season ends. I do feel, due to some of the jumps that our young players made, perhaps a tad more encouraged than I was a year ago at this time, but not much. I’m going to wait until the end of the year.

Last season, the Lakers as a team didn't drive very often to the basket. This season Fisher and Farmar have both done this consistently and Trevor is always ready to go to the rack. Was this something you had hoped to improve from last season?

That falls more into the coach’s realm as far as answering that question. I don’t think there’s any doubt that the closer you are to the basket the higher the percentage is going to be and if we can somehow figure out how to make layups on all of our shots then we’d all be happy. That is something that you strive for. I’m not sure you can say “let me get this player” and therefore you’ll be making layups for the rest of the year.

I know our coach has made a point of having a so-called secondary break, which means that if there’s not an official fast-break, we do have a secondary break where he allows the players to freelance before getting into the triangle. A lot of times a player will react to the freedom of getting out and running, cutting, and being more innovative which might lead to more layups.

Typically out of a set offense with the clock running down you’re probably going to end up with jump shots. A higher percentage shot would normally come in a break of secondary break situation and that is something that our coach’s worked on this year versus last year.

What would you like to see this team improve on?

I think staying healthy is the most important thing in this league. A lot of that pressure falls onto our medical staff downstairs and our coaches in regulating minutes throughout the season.

Based on where we are to date we still have lapses in the fourth quarter where we give up a difficultly earned lead, weather that’s at home or on the road. It’s happened to us a couple of times on the road where we had a big lead heading into the fourth quarter and we weren’t able to hold onto that lead and close a team out. That’s something a veteran team has to learn how to do. I think our record would be two or three games better right now if we could have done that two or three times this season.

Is there a certain victory or loss this season really sticks out in his mind?

There’s a couple. I think the game at Golden State is a game that we controlled the whole game up until the last two and a half minutes and we couldn’t close it out. The Cleveland game, we had an 11-point lead going into the fourth quarter and that was a team I thought we could have beat on the road. We ended up 3 of 4 on the trip, so I’m happy, but that was a tough loss as well.

Then there was a home loss or two early in the season where I thought we could have controlled the game better. If you’re a decent team you’ve got to win your home games and we gave away a couple early in the season.