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Last season, Lakers advance scout Rasheed Hazzard often joined us to discuss L.A.’s coming opponents, as he spent much of his year on the road evaluating NBA teams and players.

This season, Hazzard has a new title - “special assistant coach*” - that has him focusing some of his time on developing Lakers’ players, yet his league-wide knowledge hasn’t dipped a bit.
*Hazzard is also an assistant coach for L.A.’s D-League squad, the D-Fenders.

While taking a look at the current league standings, Hazzard helped give us an idea of L.A.’s biggest potential threats out West, discussed which teams are better or worse than their current records, and more.

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NBA Commissioner David Stern, in Houston to attend Game 6 of the Lakers-Rockets series, took questions from assembled media members about 25 minutes before the scheduled 8:30 p.m. local tipoff.

Predictably, most of the questions from the media tended towards the negative (refs, economy, flagrant fouls), but Stern managed to get a few positive notes in there. Here’s a rough transcription that I typed while he was talking:

Q: On if anything’s surprised him thus far:
Stern: Obviously when the Bulls took Boston to seven games, it was surprising, and the dominance thus far of Cleveland has been surprising. Houston’s victory after losing Yao was a fascinating example of how a team can be motivated. It’s a demonstration of how talented the players in this league are.

Q: On the Dallas - Denver situation between Mark Cuban and Kenyon Martin:
Stern: I take full responsibility for the non-league action. I had spoken to Billy Hunter and Mark Cuban … I called Billy and said what went on there was not anything I was proud of, but I thought there was an attempted apology in the blog - which is the way Mark communicates - but I thought some (other form of apology) was necessary. This was not something that I was particularly proud of … It’s a wake up call to tread carefully.

Q: On flagrant fouls:
Stern: I’m depending upon my broadcasters to take care of that. We need to do a better job as well if people are confused, but we would hope that our broadcast partners would put the rule up, understand it and indicate how (tough it is). It’s the most difficult sport to referee.

Q: On what he’s thinking about at the moment:
Stern: I’m a little bit disappointed that the competition committee hasn’t been more active on the instant replay; the other thing I’d like to discover is arena security in the broad context but yet maintain the intimacy, which sets us apart in a good way.

Q: On the NBA this season:
Stern: We had a great year. The game has opened up … It is faster moving. Scoring has gone up, and we’ve worked hard to eliminate the isolation … I want to see the world’s most gifted athletes going at it. We’re not going back (to a more physical style) on my watch.

Q: On economy affecting the league:
Stern: I think I’m concerned about the business of sports, because there’s no business I know that hasn’t been under pressure. Right now our renewals are pretty much on pace with last year … I think we’re going to have good attendance next year. Revenue might be a bit down because teams are lowering prices, but we (will be OK).

Conclusion:
Stern: Let me end on a positive note: I think the game looks great. I think the 1st, 2nd and 3rd team All League, watching these players grow coming out of the Olympics, the team has been a joy to be apart of.

Ernie Johnson, host of TNT’s “Inside the NBA,” posed this question to Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Chris Webber after Denver beat Dallas on Tuesday evening: “Are the Lakers tough enough to win a championship?”

The question actually came from Bill Plaschke of the L.A. Times (who was credited by Johnson), and here’s how Kenny Smith answered after Barkley said he didn’t know:

I think they’re tough enough to win a championship, and they have all the elements in place. There’s no championship team that’s going to go through (the playoffs) and not lose on their home court, very rarely that’s going to happen. So, you lost a game. They’re tough enough, they have all the elements in place and toughness comes in a lot of forms. It doesn’t just come in phyiscality. It comes in mental toughness, being able to take the adversity and fight through it, and not always depend on the fact that you are better than a team, or you can get things done, but also when teams are playing at their best to shut them down. So yes, the Lakers are tough enough to be a championship team.

Barkley then questioned L.A.’s defense, suggesting that championship teams didn’t concede 20-point leads because of their defense, to which Webber responded:

I think they’re tough enough because we interviewed Kobe (Bryant) at the beginning of the season and he just said what you said Chuck, (that) last year the reason why they lost the championship was because they weren’t defensively tough enough and they weren’t aggressive. So I take that to mean that he told the team that, and over the summer they worked on it, and these little lessons that they’re going through now, they’re keeping it in their mind. If that’s all that they have, that they weren’t aggressive and didn’t meet the challenge, I think they’ll be OK.