Video: NBA TV previews the 2005-06 Lakers

Phil Jackson returns to the bench in Los Angeles to try to right the Laker ship after they missed the playoffs for the first time in 11 seasons. The team has changed quite a bit since he left and it certainly presents a new challenge for the erudite coach. Shaq, Payton, Malone and Fisher are gone. He must repair his relationship with Kobe Bryant, find a more effective role for Lamar Odom and try to get more out of Kwame Brown than the Wizards could. No matter what, the Lakers will be better than they were last year, when they were solid through most of February, but then floundered in the last two months of the season. Jackson will give the Lakers more confidence and more stability, which will put them back in the hunt for the playoffs.

Looking at the Laker roster, there’s a clear absence of a point guard, but Jackson has never had great point guards running the triangle offense. Lamar Odom should handle the ball more, taking some of the focus off of Bryant and making better use of his unique skills. Odom’s rebounding numbers may go down a bit, but the Lakers will have a more balanced offense if Bryant isn’t handling the ball as much. Kobe will still be counted on to take over down the stretch though. There’s probably nobody in the league you would rather have taking the last shot in crunch time.

Much has been made of Brown’s lack of consistent productivity in Washington, but he is still just 23 years old and Jackson is probably just what he needs to start to realize his potential. The Lakers will be much stronger if Brown can give them some balance with an inside presence. Knowing the importance of quality bigs in this league, they took a chance on New Jersey high-school product Andrew Bynum with the No. 10 pick in the draft. Bynum showed some skills in summer league and he will certainly benefit from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s tutelage, but don’t expect to see much of him this season. Chris Mihm will still be counted on to provide a lot of minutes at the 4 and 5 spots.

The Lakers didn’t make much of a splash in the free agent market because they are saving money for a couple of years down the line, but they did bring in Aaron McKie, who will provide a veteran presence in the locker room and may actually be the de facto point guard in the Lakers offense. They also added Smush Parker, who could compete for the point guard job as well.

Bryant

"It's about us collectively, just gelling together as a group and working hard as a group," he said. "We have a big hill ahead of us, but we just need to take it one step at a time."

Odom

X&O WEAKNESS
Team defense is their big weakness. This is a team that lost 19 of their final 21 games last season and gave up a woeful 101.7 points per game... There aren’t really proven commodities on this team other than Kobe. You can’t predict what Kwame Brown will do and Andrew Bynum is still very raw... Who can relieve the scoring pressure off of Kobe? Kobe averaged 43 minutes per game last season and will once again need to log heavy minutes this season.

HEAD COACH PHILOSOPHY
Phil Jackson will spread the floor, and do the best execution they can with the Triangle, I don’t see why he would change now. The question is that he has no real center right now, like he did with Bill Cartwright to a certain degree and certainly with Shaq. We saw how hard it is for Chris Mihm to even be a passing center. So, there are a lot of questions within this Triangle. I don’t think there is one player here that can run it successfully outside of Luke Walton and Kobe. Their goal is to make the playoffs, we’ll see... Phil does some of his best coaching with the odds stacked against his team (remember the Bulls won 55 games in 1993-94, Michael Jordan’s first season in retirement).
-- Don Casey (courtesy of the National Basketball Coaches Association)