For now, anyway.
According to ESPN's Ramona Shelburne and Dave McMenamin, Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak met separately with D'Antoni and team owner/vice president of player personnel Jim Buss following L.A.'s 142-94 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday. D'Antoni, though, assured the local media that his powwow with Kupchak was nothing out of the ordinary, via McMenamin:
The defeat that prompted the sitdown wasn't just the worst in the Lakers' rivalry with their Staples Center co-tenants; it was the worst ever suffered by the Purple and Gold in their illustrious 66-year history, dating back to their days in Minneapolis.
A loss like that—the latest low point in a disastrous 21-41 season full of them—would seem straw enough to break D'Antoni's back. But management was reportedly more concerned with figuring out ways to get this threadbare team back to playing something more closely resembling NBA basketball than with contributing even more entropy to an already chaotic situation by letting go of the one Laker who hasn't been hurt this season.
Injuries up and down the roster have given D'Antoni plenty of cover from the stench of this ongoing catastrophe. No Laker has played in every one of the team's games this season; Wesley Johnson has come the closest, with 62 out of a possible 63 games under his belt as of Friday.
Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash have been foremost among L.A.'s wounded, walking and otherwise. Bryant missed the first month-and-a-half of the campaign while recovering from a torn Achilles tendon, and returned to head trainer Gary Vitti's care shortly thereafter upon fracturing the tibial plateau in his left knee.
Nash, meanwhile, has been battling the very same nerve problems in his back and legs that sprung up after he fractured his left f...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
