The Lakers will be forced to make a decision on the future of Caron Buter prior to October.  They have until then to sign him to an extension, or risk losing him when he becomes a restricted free-agent in the summer of 2006.

"Hopefully I'll be here," Butler said. "I really want to be here. I feel like it's a great situation. We'll see what happens. But I definitely want to be here.

"Anybody can get traded in this game," Butler said. "I saw Shaq get traded, saw Michael Jordan get fired [from the Washington Wizards' front office], I saw a lot of crazy things in this game. So anything can happen. But what I want to do is just continue to play hard and leave it all out there. We'll see what happens."