Mitch Kupchak

The traveling circus known as the Lakers hit All-Star weekend. Center Dwight Howard was hit with a barrage of questions about his future. "[The Lakers] told me they weren't going to trade me," Howard said. "That's what [General Manager] Mitch [Kupchak] said. " Howard was acquired by the Lakers in the off-season from the Orlando Magic. He'll be a free agent once his contract expires after the season. Howard has done his best to avoid commenting on his plans beyond the current season.

As free agency progresses, Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak finds himself sleeping fewer hours. And that routine is unlikely to change. Even after acquiring an elite point guard (Steve Nash) and two forwards (Antawn Jamison, Jordan Hill), Kupchak hardly sounded as if the Lakers are entering the 2012-13 season with their final roster. The most critical question involves their center Andrew Bynum. Kupchak said he talked with Bynum's representive, David Lee, on Wednesday about a long-term contract extension, a meeting he described as "positive and productive.

In a bemusing tone, Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak apologized to reporters who waited five hours to talk to him about two inconsequential late second-round draft acquisitions. But the focus on the Lakers' offseason efforts will hardly center on the prospects of Marquette point guard Darius Johnson-Odom or Gonzaga center Robert Sacre. It will zero in on the Lakers' failure to move up higher in the draft and whether the Lakers can make what Kupchak described as a "home run" during free agency.

Only two weeks after declaring the Lakers would try to hit a home run, General Manager Mitch Kupchak helped hit one out of the park. Their coveted prize came in the form of elite point guard Steve Nash. He officially signed his three-year, $27-million contract Monday morning. Nash stood at an introductory news conference at the Lakers' practice facility in El Segundo proudly displaying his No. 10 Lakers jersey. And he gushed for over half an hour about how this arrival bolsters his chances to win his first NBA championship entering his 17th year.

Skillful maneuvering by Mitch Kupchak remade the Lakers into a stronger, deeper team this summer.… Did his peers notice? … Two seasons ago, when the Lakers won the first of their consecutive championships in the wake of Kobe Bryant's venomous 2007 trade demands, Kupchak garnered all of two measly votes in balloting for NBA executive of the year.… Last season, he got none.… Perhaps it was Trevor Ariza's plight since leaving the Lakers that convinced Shannon Brown to stay.

Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak spoke to the media Friday, addressing the team's firing of Coach Mike Brown. "Today we relieved Mike Brown of his head coaching duties," Kupchak said. "Mike's a good man, very hard working, maybe one of the hardest-working coaches that I've ever been around. The bottom line is that the team was not winning at the pace that we expected this team to win and we didn't see improvement. " The Lakers asked assistant coach Bernie Bickerstaff to work as acting head coach, and Kupchak said the team has not yet reached out to find a permanent replacement for Brown.

Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak is never one to smash the glass and start hitting the panic button. He isn't doing it now despite the team's 1-4 start. He recognizes the issues surrounding the team. The Lakers are dead last in the Western Conference despite the largest payroll in the NBA - $100 million in player salary, plus $30 million more in projected luxury taxes. "Expectations are high, there's no doubt. The city is impatient," Kupchak said Thursday in a phone interview with The Times.

These have been crazy days for Mitch Kupchak. Long hours at work, dinner in a box, start over again the next morning. What's next? The Lakers' general manager was aware of the low approval rating accompanied with trading popular forward Lamar Odom and a 2012 second-round pick to Dallas for a 2012 first-round pick and a traded-player exception worth $8.9 million. Wouldn't Odom have been a useful piece in a trade offer for Orlando center Dwight Howard or other big-name players?

Shoulder butting, which might be outlawed in some states if it ever catches on, lately has become one of Magic Johnson's motivational devices for his Laker teammates. More unconventional than a routine high-five, it can either fire up a player or put him on the injured list.

Jerry West had been gone from the Lakers for a summer when Claire Kupchak told her husband, "You're becoming Jerry West." Mitch Kupchak considered that. On one hand, he was becoming Jerry West, only the best talent evaluator in the sport, only the man who helped build the Lakers of Showtime and then rebuilt them into the Lakers of Shaq and Kobe, and the man who over 14 years taught him how, and became a valued friend besides. Only Jerry West, is all.