Kurt Helin

Most of us are making New Year's resolutions. And most of us are not keeping them. If you and I can make and then abandon them, no reason we can't come up with a few for the Lakers -- and if they would actually keep a few of these they may get to play a few more games this spring. Get healthy. It's one of your resolutions -- to eat better, to drop a few...

Tonight, when the Lakers take the floor in the underrated city of Charlotte (5:30, KCAL9), it will be their 10th game since Lamar Odom went down with a sprained knee. It also is the end of their first long road trip. How have they done through a tough stretch of the schedule without the guy assistant coach Tex Winter called "the foundation" of the team? An inconsistent but pretty good 5-4, thank you very much....

Like rewatching "The Year Without a Santa Claus" or drinking eggnog, ABC has decided that the Lakers playing the Miami Heat is a holiday tradition. That's seriously how they've been promoting today's Christmas Day match up (11:30 on ABC 7) for the past couple of weeks -- "a game that has become a holiday tradition." What this match up really seems is sad -- more than three years after Shaquille O'Neal left the Los Angeles...

For the first time this season the Lakers are on a "bring the large pullman bag" road trip, six games between now and Dec. 29. Stops include Chicago tonight (5:30 on KCAL 9); tomorrow in Minnesota (5 on KCAL 9); Friday with Tony, Paulie Walnuts, Silvio, Christopher and the gang in New Jersey (4:30 start but tape delayed by KCAL 9 until 5:30 to make sure you can get home from work in time); and...

For a little perspective on what lies ahead for the next 30 days for this season's Lakers, let's drift back in time to 1988, the year when Jerry Falwell and Larry Flynt were battling each other in court, Nirvana was formed and Paula Abdul was forever our girl. In the NBA, a young Michael Jordan was scoring 35 points a game and dragging his Chicago Bulls teammates close to the top of the league. So...

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...

We're now about one quarter of the way through the insanely-long NBA season, a time fans can usually get a pretty good a read on what kind of team they are rooting for and if they should really focus more on a team that can win a title next spring. While this blogger knows the biggest tests lie ahead, what we've learned so far about the Lakers should have us excited -- not just for...

Sure, the Lakers are 19 games into their season, but so far it has been the equivalent of a lazy Sunday morning. They've barely had to leave home (only four games away from Staples Center, like only leaving the house to grab the paper), and they've faced the second easiest schedule in the league so far, like making a cup of Pete's to sip while reading said paper. The young team got to gel...

Laker fans, you can exhale now. In case you missed it, they've collectively held their breath since just a few minutes after 9 last night, when early in the third quarter Kobe Bryant leaped to take a shot and landed on the foot on Indiana center Jeff Foster, rolling his ankle. It hurt to watch, just like it did when teammates had to help Kobe from the court. But today, after X-rays and a second...

While most of the city's sports fans were either celebrating or mourning, a few looked up from their beers last night to watch another cross-town rivalry played out at Staples Center, albeit one with a lot less on the line (at least this time around). And the game -- a 97-88 Laker win over the Clippers -- was pretty indicative of how the two teams have progressed this young season. The Lakers have evolved from...