How's Kobe feeling today? What's he saying? Does he still want to be traded? Is he a Laker for life? Our obsession with KB24's everchanging moods and whims continues into Month 6 (or Year 12, really).

Team Strength: Frontcourt Depth

The Lakers don't have All-Star talent up front, but they make up in quantity what they lack in quality.

L.A. has built up what might be the NBA's deepest frontcourt rotation, making its refusal to part with Andrew Bynum last winter even more baffling. For starters, of course, there's Bynum, who at age 20 is one of the game's best young centers but must win the battle of the bulge and improve his work habits if he's to continue along that track.

Then there are last season's two missing centers, Chris Mihm and Kwame Brown. Brown is limited offensively but has become a quality defensive player with the size to bang with opposing big men on the blocks. The 7-foot Mihm is more the offensive complement, dropping in short hooks down low and doing a solid job on the boards.

Behind them is the energetic Ronny Turiaf, an active but foul-prone power forward who can score and block shots; against smaller lineups he can fill in at the center spot and do a solid job, and one wonders why he hasn't played more the past two seasons.

Moving over to power forward, L.A. can man the position with either Lamar Odom or Luke Walton, though each is capable of playing the 3 as well. Behind them are Turiaf and two deadly shooters in Vladamir Radmanovic and Brian Cook; while it's a bit ridiculous that the Lakers felt the need to sign both as free agents last summer, it does make for a fairly endless reservoir of frontcourt talent.

And that saddens me a bit, because the Lakers are bringing Virginia grad Elton Brown to camp this fall. He's trying to double my alma mater's NBA representation (if one Cavalierly presumes Roger Mason, Jr. can keep his toehold in the league), but I suspect he hasn't a prayer with this roster.