Houston Astros defeat LA Dodgers 4-1. The Dodgers return to National League play and promptly continue their offensive futility. With Juan Pierre on the disabled list for the first time in his nine-year career, the Dodgers called up Jason Repko from the minors hit lead off. He struck out four times. The rest of the team managed 11 hits but couldn't do anything with those hits. Meanwhile Eric Stults coming off of his complete......

Kobe Jumps Over an Aston Martin....

Lakers 103, Washington Wizards 91 - The game wasn’t as close as the final score indicates. The Lakers led by 22 at halftime, and led by as much as 25 points in the third quarter. Kobe Bryant, who outscored the Wizards in the first quarter 19-15, ended up with 30 points on 10-15 shooting with eight free throws. Vladamir Radmanovic, Lamar Odom and Ronny Turiaf rounded out the starters with double-figure scoring, and Sasha Vujacic......

You can halt production on that purple and gold 2008 NBA Champions afghan you’ve been crocheting so diligently -- Lakers center Andrew Bynum is going to be out for the next 8 weeks. Bynum suffered a dislocated kneecap and a bone bruise courtesy of Lamar Odom’s big ass foot during the Laker’s victory over Memphis on Sunday. The good news is that the injury will not require surgery and the 20 year old big......

Three losses in a row. A close loss in Milwaukee. A thrashing at the hands of the Boston. Then losing a 14-point lead and the game to New Jersey. That’s what last week brought the Lakers, pain and misery. And now a 7-6 record after a promising start. But like all things in Lakerdom, it all gets blown out of proportion. Some Lakers fans are running around like Chicken Little after these losses saying it's......

Los Angeles seems to have a love/hate relationship with the Lakers right now. The games still sell out (and at the ">highest prices in the league) and there are more people walking around wearing Lakers gear than there are writers picketing out in front of Fox. But in every sports bar in the city there are loudmouths saying to nobody in particular, “Kobe is selfish and ruining this team.” The loudmouth sports columnists in......

While Kobe had an “off night” when he put up 43 against Golden State on Sunday, breaking his streak of games scoring 50 or more at four, he could return to his high scoring ways tonight against Memphis. The same Memphis he dropped 60 on last week. But is that a good thing? A few have questioned it, saying that Kobe’s offensive dominance is stifling team growth, short-circuiting a return to the team play of......

The Lakers go up against the best franchise of the last decade in San Antonio, win one of the most exciting and best-played games of their season last night — despite 2/5ths of the starting lineup watching from home — and what is the Lakers reward? A plane ride in an ice storm to face the hottest (and maybe best) team in the NBA. Welcome to the fun of the NBA in Texas these days.......

Disgruntled Laker fans, it’s time to come back home. I know a lot of you went astray in the frustrating aftermath of the Shaq/Kobe split, when there wasn’t enough money to keep their enormous egos on the same court. The Kobe vs. The World teams for a couple years provided some cheap thrills but didn’t win your heart. Then many of you had a little affair with the Clippers last spring, but you are forgiven......

How much has Lamar Odom meant to the Lakers this season? Look at it this way, he was playing more minutes per game than Kobe Bryant. If one guy deserved an injury-free season after everything he’s been through it is Odom. But the Lakers are going to have to get by without his minutes for at least the next four weeks as he suffered a “moderate” sprain of the MCL in his right knee. It’s......

Just what do we know about this season’s Lakers after nine games? We know they can win with Kobe dragging one leg behind him (although he looked better Friday night against Toronto, to the point that Phil Jackson benched him for “imposing his will” on the game and ignoring teammates). We know that young guys like Andrew Bynum, Jordan Farmar and Ronny Turiaf can take on more than maybe we thought. We know Luke Walton......

Don’t go there. Don’t even start. Tonight the Minnesota Timberwolves take on the Lakers, and that means talk-radio hosts and columnists looking to stir the pot are going to say it’s time for the Lakers to trade for Kevin Garnett. Laker fans need an intervention on this topic. It’s not going to happen — the Lakers can’t begin to afford him if he opts out of his deal after this season, and to trade for......

The coolest new thing at Staples Center is that it feels like the old Fabulous Forum. Call it throwback lighting — for the Halloween home opener the Lakers dimmed the lights on the crowd and hung special new lights to brighten the court. They called it “Lights Out,” but we long-time fans (I guess in transient LA remembering something from a decade ago counts as long-time) thought it felt like the Forum. There are......