The Los Angeles Times has made significant changes to its coverage of the Lakers and Clippers for the 11-12 season.

Brad Turner will replace Lisa Dillman as beat writer for the Clippers, which leaves Mike Bresnahan as the only traveling writer covering the Lakers for the Los Angeles Times.

Longtime columnist Mark Heisler has been laid off by the newspaper. 

Kobe Bryant and his representatives will meet with officials from the Turkish basketball club Besiktas on Saturday, according to a Reuters report.

"At the moment there's a 50 percent chance that Kobe may come to Turkey," said Seref Yalcin, head of basketball operations for Besiktas, on Tuesday. Yalcin made the comments to reporters in Turkey, according to Reuters. "Everything will be clearer after the meeting on the 30th [of July]."

Besiktas signed Deron Williams in mid-July.

It remains unclear if Kobe Bryant will actually play competitively overseas, but there's at least one additional venture he'll partake in to enhance his footwork.

The Lakers star is listed as one of the participants planning to play in the Celebrity Soccer Challengeon July 31 at Kastles Stadium in Washington D.C., an event sponsored by former U.S. women's soccer player Mia Hamm and her husband, ex-Dodger Nomar Garciaparra.

Bryant's certainly no stranger to the pitch, as he played soccer growing up in Italy and is an avid fan of La Liga's FC Barcelona and the Brazilian national team. He also attended the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Former Lakers assistant general manager Ronnie Lester said Jim Buss, the vice president of player personnel and son of owner Jerry Buss, and his siblings are making more decisions and have increased roles.

Lester said Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak wants him to return, but there is resistance inside the organization.

"Mitch wants to bring me back, but he can't get the Busses [Jerry and Jim] to agree to bring me back," Lester said.

Lester was asked whether it was true that Jim Buss has taken Jackson's former office, which would imply that Buss will be around more.

"Jim Buss is not around much," Lester said. "The only time he is here consistently is a week or two before the draft."

Exhibition games like the two taking place in the Philippines this weekend are proving to be quite profitable for players, with one source with knowledge of the deals saying the Lakers' Kobe Bryant, Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant and Chicago's Derrick Rose are being paid more than $400,000 apiece for their weekend of tax-free work.

According to a source close to the NBA's league-wide audit, three teams -- the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Orlando Magic -- will be paying close to $20 million each as part of the league's luxury tax this season.

All three had player salaries well over the $70 million threshold. The Mavericks and Lakers, two of the most successful franchises over the last decade, have traditionally had high payrolls, while the Magic have been adding salary in an attempt to keep Dwight Howard in Orlando.

The traditionally free-spending New York Knicks are a notable absence from the list. Despite adding Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire in the last year, they won't be paying the luxury tax for the first time in over a decade. 

While Kobe Bryant has been rumored to join Deron Williams and sign with the Turkish team Beskitas for weeks, a source close to the All-Star told Yahoo! Sports that he is nowhere near any kind of deal and is merely listening to offers for now.

Kobe Bryant's representatives have had conversations about a deal for him to play for Turkish club team Besiktas this season in Istanbul, Besiktas Coach Ergin Ataman told The Times in a telephone interview Thursday.

Ataman said the team is trying to satisfy Bryant's salary demands so that he can join New Jersey Nets All-Star point guard Deron Williams on the team. Williams signed with Besiktas about a week ago.

"We made our offer to Kobe and now we are waiting for their comments about the situation," Ataman said. "But we didn't talk about details. I think they are thinking now about our offer, and I think in the beginning of August, the first week of August, our president [Yildirim Demiroren] will be in the United States for Deron Williams' press conference and I think that they will meet to sign in USA with Kobe."

Bryant's agent, Rob Pelinka, didn't return repeated phone calls Thursday to speak about the negotiations Ataman talked about.

If the NFL is able to move toward a labor settlement, it could create more pressure on the NBA to construct a deal. But players' union president Derek Fisher has a different view of the NFL. He wants no part of football's structure.

"It breaks my heart to see the way guys like LaDainian Tomlinson get dealt with in the NFL," Fisher said of the former MVP who gained 914 yards for the Jets last season after he had been waived by the Chargers. "To see what he'd done for the San Diego Chargers and to get to that place where he was under a contract that's already been signed. The Chargers were able to absorb value in income and potential profits from years of his services, and then at the drop of a hat, based on arbitrary thinking because he's a certain age and he can't produce at a certain level anymore, he's gone. Out the door."

While NBA owners may be seeking to create their own version of the NFL system -- based on revenue sharing, a hard cap and the right to cut off salary to underachieving players -- Fisher is skeptical. He believes revenue sharing can resolve many of the owners' problems, but he is extremely skeptical about how they would institute a hard cap as well as contracts that are partially or entirely nonguaranteed.

Turkish club Besiktas is in talks with Kobe Bryant's representatives about the possibility of the Los Angeles Lakers' star playing in Turkey during the NBA lockout.

"It is a fact that Kobe Bryant's managers have contacted us," coach Ergin Ataman said Thursday, a week after Besiktas signed New Jersey Nets point guard Deron Williams.

Ataman said Bryant was waiting for an offer from Besiktas. The club, however, said it would need a sponsor to be able to pay for Bryant's contract.

"Our board will evaluate that," Ataman said.