Stuck in Reverse: Who Can Help the Los Angeles Lakers?

Many names have been tossed around during the offseason as potential players to arrive in Purple and Gold. Point guard Chris Paul and center Dwight Howard have been the primary two targets of Lakers management.

Unfortunately, after having their deal with New Orleans shut down by David Stern for "basketball reasons," new head coach Mike Brown and his fellow Lakers watched as Paul was sent to the Clippers. This not only created a new heated rivalry for the first time in decades in LA, but also caused the departure of one of the Lakers current stars.

Yes, we all know Lamar Odom's reasons for wanting out of LA were a bit shallow, but never the less he's gone for practically nothing and now wearing a Dallas Mavericks uniform.

The Lakers then resumed their pursuit of Howard before Orlando's general manager, Otis Smith, shut down all potential offers, saying they were going to wait and see what happens.

So here the Lakers are, sitting on an $8.9 million trade exception and no true bench production. It doesn't help the fact that the entire roster is trying to learn a new system on both sides of the floor and superstar Kobe Bryant is battling a significant injury to his shooting hand.

But the Lakers sit at 10-6 after surviving a tough stretch with four 40-point games from Bryant. Now on the back end of back-to-back games against Miami and Orlando, questions have really begun to circulate about what the Lakers need to return to power.

Their defense is championship worthy and Brown will continue to work tirelessly to improve it. But offensively, the Lakers look completely lost. Outside of Bryant, they have no other creative mind and their three-point shooting has been absolutely dreadful as they sit dead last in the league in shooting behind the arc.



Losing backup point guard Steve Blake doesn't help the situation as he was finally coming to his own with the second unit and really getting ...

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