Basketball Players

Elimination beckoned, and we all figured we knew what that meant. The run was over, here comes summer vacation, it's time to go fishing. Except the Nike puppets didn't go away. Even without LeBron James in the NBA Finals, Nike continues to run ads with the LeBron and Kobe Bryant puppets, playing on the theme that Kobe made the Finals and LeBron has to stay home baby-sitting the little kid next door, Lil Dez.

Is the table being set again? A week after the Lakers pulled a pair of contract offers to Lamar Odom off the table, the sides resumed talks Wednesday. The discussions were labeled productive, but there was nothing to report "at the moment," according to a source familiar with negotiations who was not authorized to comment publicly.

The Lakers will officially close the books on their championship season with Wednesday's victory parade and a few days' worth of individual exit meetings, but one question won't be answered amid all the confetti and congratulations. What's next? The Lakers will experience a flurry of activity between now and mid-July, starting with the draft June 25, in which they have the 29th, 42nd and 59th picks. Then the real decisions begin with free agency.

This was supposed to be the appetizer for the highly awaited main course of NBA free agency next summer. But if it wasn't already obvious to interested parties, it became painfully clear on Thursday that the eventful last nine days around the league have expanded well beyond a mere first course. And if you want to keep the food analogy going -- and no, this has absolutely nothing to do with Shaquille O'Neal's draft-day trade to Cleveland -- just look at the latest bloated deal.

Marcus Johnson played only 16 games for USC's basketball team, averaging 3.6 points during one injury-marred season -- and even he is turning pro. "Kansas has two players who would have been NBA lottery picks, Cole Aldrich and Sherron Collins, and they are returning to school," USC Coach Tim Floyd said late Monday night, only hours after hearing about Johnson. "Good for them. "Our guys get an offer from Islamabad and they're gone." Where the Trojans go from here is unknown.

O.J. May-who? The supposedly brightest college basketball star in town glittered upon a nationally fourth-ranked team Thursday night. O.J. May-oh-no. If the kid's brief pause here is going to be worth it, this was the night it would all start paying off, with USC against Washington State, the freshman lifting a young team and igniting a lukewarm fan base. O.J. May-day. You ask me, it's not working. The Galen Center had empty seats. The Trojans had big problems. And O.J.

This is about a tempest in a teapot, a condition found frequently in the silly bureaucracy of the NCAA. Just before the start of this college basketball season, UCLA received a letter of inquiry from the NCAA, seeking information about possible illegal contact between a recruit and a person representing the interests of the university. The recruit was Kevin Love, now the Bruins' star freshman center. The person representing the interests of the university was John Wooden.

There went the kneecap felt 'round Lakerdom. Here's a test for Lakers fans who are limping around today in sympathy with Andrew Bynum: What does his knee injury mean for the team's chances? A) There goes first place in the West. B) There goes first place in the Pacific. C) There goes home-court advantage in the first round. D) There goes the season. E) There goes the franchise. F) All of the above. The answer is, all of the above.

The four best freshmen in the Pacific 10 Conference will be in Los Angeles this week, all of them among the best in the country. The title of least-talked-about goes to James Harden of Arizona State -- the only one from the Los Angeles area. It's a Kevin Love-O.J. Mayo world sometimes, and Jerryd Bayless plays for an elite program at Arizona.

Christina Marinacci heard the comparisons before she ever dribbled a basketball for Santa Ana Foothill High: She was going to be the next Kristen Mann. As she played, and scored like Mann, the comparisons continued: She was going to be the next Jeanette Pohlen. Marinacci is a 6-foot-2 junior guard who shares Mann's competitiveness and Pohlen's skill set, but who she really wants to be is herself. "It really is such a great honor to be compared to such great players," Marinacci said.