Inside the steal, er, deal of the year

So much for the notions that:

* Jerry Buss is saving for the estate tax bill his kids will face and won't spend money anymore.

* Mitch Kupchak is a stiff.

* Kwame Brown never did anything for the Lakers.

* Minnesota Vice President Kevin McHale pulled off the worst trade of all time.

A lot of misconceptions went up in smoke in the time it took to announce the Lakers had acquired Pau Gasol for Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie and draft picks.

Or, in other words . . . who?

That's two contracts, two picks in the 20s and one of the Lakers' two promising young reserve point guards.

In comparison, the package McHale took for Kevin Garnett, which included Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes and a reviving Sebastian Telfair, looks like an All-Star team.

Of course, McHale was sending Garnett to his old team, the Celtics.

Memphis owner Michael Heisley, whose payroll-slashing mandate led to this "deal," has no Laker connection but can have Buss' suite when he visits from now on.

It must be a new day if everyone is giving their All-Star players to the Lakers and Celtics, but as Commissioner David Stern would say, "Mazel tov!"

"I think that the addition of Gasol makes the Lakers the most talented team in the NBA," said ESPN's level-headed Jeff Van Gundy.

"I think they could have fallen in the standings without Andrew Bynum and have been a sixth, seventh or eighth seed [or] possibly fallen into the lottery. . . .

"When Bynum comes back they have the most versatile front line in the NBA and the best closer in the game in Kobe Bryant."

In 28 NBA cities, there's reluctant admiration and/or consternation as the great preening purple-and-gold darling-of-La-La Land arises once more.

There's utter dismay in Chicago, where Bulls fans were finally over not getting Bryant and focused on something doable, like Gasol.

As a Chicago Tribune headline put it:

Joke of a Deal . . . to Bulls

Gasol trade's laughable terms make Bryant, the Lakers and the NBA happy

"Before the season, Bulls players indicated they were distracted by trade talk involving Bryant," wrote the Tribune's Sam Smith.

"Now that there's unlikely to be any movement, will they play better?"

Scratch one rising power in the East. If you want to know what time it is in Chicago, blizzard or no blizzard, it's baseball season!

Of course, being in the business of explaining everything, this is because . . . because . . .