The Lakers aren't dead exactly. They'll just be different next time you see them, which, for the first time in four years, won't be at the ring ceremony.

Unless, of course, the NBA has a droll moment and makes Phil Jackson sit through someone else's, and wouldn't Red Auerbach love that.

At the tail end of three consecutive championships, the Lakers won 50 games in the regular season and six in the playoffs, then stared at a roster that will require work.

Through player injury and aging, and management misjudgment, the Lakers became too ordinary around Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, and at a very bad time. By the fourth quarter of their 12th playoff game, their legs were gone, so was their famous grit, and the San Antonio Spurs ran through them into the Western Conference finals