We just checked, and the 28 other teams said they will, in fact, play the 2001-02 schedule after all, instead of just rolling over and playing dead right now.

	Fisher was king in the playoffs, but now he's hurt again.

It's like they have decided not to concede. What a concept.

Are you sitting down?

The Lakers are not invincible.

There. We said it. They should still be the favorites for the championship, until the summer trades and free-agent decisions play out and potentially alter the landscape, but they are not the overwhelming choice some would offer. In an unrelated development, speculation has been confirmed that the world is not flat. (But we're not touching the riskiest of all theories: the Grassy Knoll, Area 51, Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Daytona, Cal Ripken at Safeco.)

The Lakers have the best center and the best shooting guard in the game. They have the stability of a strong, successful coach and his system. They have the motivation of trying to become only the fifth team to win three consecutive titles and the first from the Western Conference/Division since their ancestors from Minneapolis in the early-1950s.

They just don't have players.

At least not many, and that's the triple post in the road. Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant are dominant. Fine. No argument there. But they can't do it alone, as the end of the regular season and the entire playoffs proved, when the contributions from the supporting cast was immeasurable.

	Horry

	Bryant

And as of today, they would practically be asked to do it alone.

Unless you're OK with Robert Horry as the backup center. You would prefer maybe Stanislav Medvedenko?

Greg Foster is in Milwaukee, traded for Lindsey Hunter, Horace Grant is a free agent and could officially be in Orlando by this time next week, and Mark Madsen is mending.

It's the same thing at the other positions. The Lakers currently have 10 players under contract and only eight of those will be healthy for the start of training camp, with Derek Fisher and Madsen expected to be recovering until at least early in the regular season. It's obviously not a panic situation, especially given the way they pulled out of the freefall last season. But it does go to show that there is great uncertainty in Los Angeles, that GM Mitch Kupchak has a difficult job ahead in the summer and that another championship is not a foregone conclusion, or even a three-gone conclusion.

	Harper

Owner Jerry Buss has sent word to his front office that he does not want to pay a luxury tax, so it's not like they can afford to spend all of the $4.5 million to lure scoring for the bench to replace Ron Harper and Isaiah Rider or a ballhandler to replace Tyronn Lue and (temporarily) Fisher or (perhaps permanently) Brian Shaw, since his contract is not guaranteed for all of 2001-02 and this is a team looking to streamline. The same goes for finding depth at power forward if Grant leaves, as expected.

Names like Mitch Richmond and Samaki Walker have been mentioned. Richmond can afford to take a financial hit, if he wants to go that route, because he got a $10 million buyout from the Wizards and would get some decent tip money off the projected playoff share. But how much? It's like the Lakers need to squeeze two or three dependable contributors out of the $4.5 million. The rest of the roster will be filled by guys at the minimum, whether a returnee like zone buster Mike Penberthy or a newcomer, but those will mostly be practice players anyway.

Suddenly, playing for the Lakers in summer league or accepting a training camp invitation as a longshot doesn't automatically mean being there to press your nose against the bakery store window. Someone could stick. To pick one possibility, the biggest name on their roster at Long Beach State among the new faces was Korleone Young, the former second-rounder of the Pistons who, to his advantage, had been running the triangle offense last season for Rockford and coach Stacey King. Can't imagine where King picked it up.

So while speculation continues around the league about the long-term viability of a Lakers dynasty, the wonder here is who will replace critical parts like Grant and Harper, if they leave as free agents or, in the case of the latter, retire, and several other significant pieces. They're still the most dangerous of all teams just because of Bryant and O'Neal. It's just to say that they're not a team without serious concerns early in what will be a critical summer, ranging from money to depth to the dependability of Fisher since he's now working on his second serious foot injury.

Charting who they do have today, under contract and healthy for the start of camp, is easier.