RealGM

Throughout the summer and particularly in the past few weeks, Lakers Director of Athletic Performance Chip Schaefer has been among the members of L.A.’s training staff routinely working with various Lakers players. Many of L.A.’s younger guys - including Luke Walton, Josh Powell, Sasha Vujacic and Adam Morrison - have regularly been participating in strength and conditioning programs run by Schaefer.

Other players go through their own specific training regimen outside of the practice facility (i.e. Lamar Odom’s boxing routine), but Schaefer and the staff monitor what each and every guy is doing. Accordingly, Lakers.com headed over to the training room to get a player-by-player update from Schaefer:

KOBE BRYANT
Schaefer: One of the challenges that’s presented with an athlete like Kobe - who obviously is fully dedicated to his health and his well-being 365 days a year – are all the off-court obligations that need to be fulfilled in a limited amount of time. It’s non-stop. Therefore, it’s difficult for him to get the consistent training that he’d probably prefer to get if it weren’t for those obligations. That said, I don’t know anybody that does a better job of doing it all. The last couple of weeks Kobe has been coming in and coordinating workouts very, very early in the morning. I don’t know when he sleeps, but he likes to get his work done early. It’s been mostly on-court stuff, including a lot of flexibility stuff, here at the facility. As talented as he is, what really separates Kobe is that he continues to strive his on-court skill work, and he never gets tired of the fundamentals. There’s a reason why he is where he is.

ANDREW BYNUM
Schaefer: We do try and communicate with Andrew on almost a weekly basis. He did some international travel as well, but has created a base for himself to train in the offseason in Atlanta. He’s there right now, but we’re hoping to see him within a week or so. The reports that I have from Atlanta – I have a friend in the Hawks organization – are that he’s working hard and was just playing in their gym the other day. We’re hoping for big things for him this year.

PAU GASOL
Very late in the year, Pau made a comment to me that he’d done more weights (last year) than throughout his entire career combined. I laughed and said, ‘That means you’ve either really worked hard this year or it speaks to how little you did prior to this year,’ and we had a good time with that.

LUKE WALTON
Schaefer: Luke’s been in and out of town, and we also communicate through voice mails and texts. He’s been playing some basketball in local gyms as well as hitting a track here and there, which I’m not necessarily a big fan of without him doing some of his core and prep work beforehand. But he's been in working with us this week and we're starting to get up to speed.

Kilroy wrote:Am I the only one bugged by Bynum's Atlanta Home Base?

Who really knows what he's doing?

He already seems to have like a seperatist vibe to him with the team, but I would think, given how little he's contributed and how much he's getting paid, that he'd want to be as close to the training facility and his team as possible.

For me, it makes it that much easier to see him traded...

I mean you have guys that want to retire Lakers... Like Kobe, Fish, Lamar, Artest... Hell, even Walton... But your big hope for the future is.... Bynum? Who can't even train with the team?

Don't get me wrong, I get the idea that you want to keep a young guy away from distractions...
But that's what professionalism is... And if your goal in life is to be a Laker, it shouldn't be that hard a thing...

I think there are definately two camps on the Lakers right now...
Camp one knows what it takes to win it all and wants to do everything they can to make themselves better and help the TEAM... Let's just call that 'Kobe's Camp'...

But Camp 2 sees winning championships as a way to further their carreer... Not the other way around... Farmar seems to be there, I think Sasha is too... And it's starting to look like Bynum might be there too...

Maybe those guys need to play in LA on the other nights for a while... Being on a consistant contender like the Lakers has got to mess with your grasp of the reality of the NBA.

All in all, I guess all things will be answered when the season starts... Which couldn't happen fast enough for me...

dcash4 wrote:tony, you're reading way too much into bynum training in atlanta. he's there cause thats where his trainer is. simple as that. these are grown men, not children. they can spend their summers wherever they want.

Danny Darko wrote:Jordan Farmar between the lines- "he does what he wants... not really improving his strength or explosiveness, but he's a pussy and he loves to stretch"

dcash4 wrote:bynum had one of the best physical transformations in the entire league last off-season. going back even further from some of his high school pictures, this guy is dedicated during the off season. i wouldn't start criticizing his off-season work regiment until there is a real reason to do so.

seems like bynum is becoming what lamar odom used to be. the guy that couldn't do anything right. he's suppose to be back in LA this friday, 11 days before training camp even starts.

dcash4 wrote:bynum had one of the best physical transformations in the entire league last off-season. going back even further from some of his high school pictures, this guy is dedicated during the off season. i wouldn't start criticizing his off-season work regiment until there is a real reason to do so.

seems like bynum is becoming what lamar odom used to be. the guy that couldn't do anything right. he's suppose to be back in LA this friday, 11 days before training camp even starts.

Danny Darko wrote:Skyhook- I'd say cash is saying we've made Andrew the new whipping boy, not that he's actually disappointed in Drew

Kilroy wrote:
It's spelled T-O-N-Y... Only it's pronounced, 'Phil'...

I get it's where his trainer is from...
My thing is... There's other trainers....
If you're trainer is the reason you're apart from your team, you need to rethink that... Especially since nothing has shown me that his trainer's any good... Or at least any better than the Lakers staff and Kareem...

Also if you're a young NBA player that just signed a big contract, bring your trainer with you...

All that being said, if we were talking about Kobe or Gasol, it wouldn't matter... I'd have faith that he was going to come in a team player, and in better shape than last year... I'd have faith because those guys have shown they understand what it takes to win it all...

I started as a big Bynum fan... It's steadily erroded as the seasons of underwhelming performance have rolled along... I just want him to justify my early optimism...

And the biggest thing that worrys me about his is the fact that he doesn't seem to buy into the whole Lakers team concept... He always seems to be a bit separate...

All I'm saying is spending as much time with the team as possible in the off-season couldn't hurt...