Kobe Bryant was back at practice Saturday afternoon after resting Friday to rest his sore left shoulder.
Kwame Brown was also back in action, although it was just on treadmill.
“Hopefully, I can play by the Clippers game (Dec. 16). So we’ve got all (this) week. That’s my goal, anyway.”
Is 50 wins out of the question for this club? Phil Jackson seems to think so.
“We haven’t really started to do some of the other structural things we want to do with the team,” said Jackson, who agreed to a two-year contract extension on the day of the Denver game. “We need to open a run again and find a way to win two or three games in a row and get some momentum.”
It’s been hard for the Lakers to string together a sustained win-streak that is the hallmark of the dominant teams in the NBA, but the schedule hasn’t been doing them any favors either. 11-8 doesn’t look too shabby after facing the second toughest schedule in the NBA through 19 games. Putting together such a streak could become easier with a heavy dose of the East coming up over the next month.
Phil also took sometime to downplay Andrew Bynum’s early season success, which came as news to the big man.
“He’s gone backward since the season started,” Jackson said. “He hasn’t had consistent playing time and misses a game . . . it’s a little bit troubling.”
News of Bynum’s regression, though, was news to Bynum.
“I haven’t taken a step back,” Bynum said. “I don’t feel that way.”
Bynum, the team’s leading rebounder in his third NBA season since being drafted out of high school, said he put in a lot of work during the summer to get in shape.
“I’ve been progressing,” he said. “I think I’ve been doing all right all season, except for the last game — I was recovering from food poisoning.”
Luke Walton is listed as questionable for tonight’s game after injuring his ankle in Friday’s practice. An article in today’s LA Times mentions that Luke has moved away from the beach (after selling his townhome to Kings rising star Jack Johnson) in favor of a bigger place east of Sepulveda, near where Kurt Rambis & Brian Shaw live. Until I get that six-year extension I’ll staying in my current west of Sepulveda shack.
On a final note, a former Laker is finding it harder to maintain his elite play into his late 30s, as Mark Heisler details.
