The best of times were a memory and the worst of times had just begun in the spring of 2005 when the Lakers drafted 17-year-old Andrew Bynum out of high school in what seemed the maraschino cherry on the sundae of their dysfunction.
Dysfunction was a popular word around them after eight years of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, but those now seemed like the good old days.
O'Neal was gone. Jerry West was gone. Chick Hearn was gone.
Rudy Tomjanovich, hired to replace Phil Jackson, had come and gone, fleeing within months to be replaced by . . . Jackson, who had been gone but was back.
Owner Jerry Buss, who had let Jackson go and was obliged to rehire him, seemed out of touch, musing that his 34-48 team could be in the Western Conference finals in "a couple of years."
In fact, Buss was more detached than ever, involving his son Jim in decisions, which, as far as Lakers fans were concerned, was like Jed Clampett turning the Beverly Hillbillies over to nephew Jethro.
The real heat was on General Manager Mitch Kupchak, whose challenge -- build a dynasty from the ashes of the old one -- was the NBA equivalent of "Mission: Impossible."
Bryant and Lamar Odom fit awkwardly. The West was even wilder with Steve Nash taking Phoenix from 29-53 to 62-20, forming a new elite class with San Antonio and Dallas the Lakers couldn't hope to crack.
Kupchak was second-guessed within the organization, scorched up and down the radio dial and asked to resign by a season-ticket holder at a town hall meeting.
At this low ebb, the Lakers -- with Kupchak in the lead, Jim Buss playing an important role and Jerry Buss going for broke as he always had -- made one of the most functional decisions in their history, gambling on the 7-foot Bynum with the No. 10 pick.
If one move won Bryant back after his days of rage in the spring of 2007, it wasn't the subsequent trade for Pau Gasol but the selection of Bynum two years before.
By the time Gasol arrived, three weeks after Bynum was lost because of a knee injury, Bynum's quantum leap had already turned Bryant around.
Bryant, who had railed at management for not trading the young center, demanded to be traded himself and then maintained a stony detachment, was all the way back to hope, noting after Bynum's injury, "We're a championship-caliber team with him in the lineup."
This, then, is how the Lakers literally saved the day.
Finding Andrew
