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These past five years haven't exactly been full of rest and relaxation for Los Angeles Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak. At this time back in 2004 Kupchak was taking a lot of heat for the Shaquille O'Neal trade that sent the Lakers back to the lottery for the first time in ten years. Patience was preached but no other franchise in sports is more accustomed to competing for a championship than the Lakers.

Mitch's accomplishments are so impressive because he made all the right decisions when necessary even when faced with an overwhelming amount of disapproval. The Lakers' future is so bright because Kupchak didn't jeopardize the long-term success of the club on undependable players like Jason Kidd or Jermaine O'Neal, instead he waited for the perfect pieces to come along and they did.

The 2009-2010 Lakers' roster looks to be one for the ages with depth that could rival some of the best teams of all-time. The re-signing of Lamar Odom
cemented them as the favorites to repeat next season and the dynasty word is starting to be thrown around. However, the offseason nearly took a turn for the worst as Odom was rumored to be strongly leaning towards signing with the Miami HEAT, which would have been devastating to the Lakers.

"There are two sides to the whole negotiation," said Kupchak this week on ESPN's the Herd with Colin Cowherd. "The Lakers side and I know you're familiar with some of what took place. We are trying to keep a team intact, but there are financial challenges, just by nature of the players that we have and what they are getting paid. The fact we have Ron Artest. We brought back Shannon Brown. You could only do so much. You can only expect ownership to do so much. There was actually a concern from my point of view that we wouldn't even have the "ability" to keep this team intact.

"Phil has always looked at Ron as a player he'd like to bring on board, so we have a coach that eager to coach him," said Kupchak. "I am concerned about the change. We won a championship and our small forward was Trevor Ariza, who we tried to bring back and negotiations broke down, so you really try to keep that team together because you know that team won the year before now were bringing a new player on board. I think he'll fit in; offensively he's more polished than Trevor is at this point. Trevor is much younger and is going to continue to improve and that's a little scary to be facing Trevor two or three years in a row with Houston. We think we had a good backup Plan B when we couldn't come to terms with Trevor and there's Ron Artest ready to go."

crazyeights wrote:Great article? Eh, I disagree. Could it be the writer is Greek and that's why you said so?

IMO it was pretty biased toward the Lakers.

"Phil has always looked at Ron as a player he'd like to bring on board, so we have a coach that eager to coach him," said Kupchak. "I am concerned about the change. We won a championship and our small forward was Trevor Ariza, who we tried to bring back and negotiations broke down, so you really try to keep that team together because you know that team won the year before now were bringing a new player on board. I think he'll fit in; offensively he's more polished than Trevor is at this point. Trevor is much younger and is going to continue to improve and that's a little scary to be facing Trevor two or three years in a row with Houston. We think we had a good backup Plan B when we couldn't come to terms with Trevor and there's Ron Artest ready to go."

enlightenment wrote:Kwame for Caron Butler and the Lakers starter PG (Making room for Smush) was a great move... It was fate

Dexmor wrote:Shouldn't he not be resting and looking for another player. I know they said they would only carry 13 but I think that is a mistake.