Its October 6th, the Lakers first preseason game is tomorrow night. Today, they play, they bond, they learn. This team has many pieces and lots to learn. Last season was only a small example of what these guys are capable of achieving. This year, well, lets hope it’s what we’ve all been waiting for.

Derek Fisher has made it clear that this Summer has been great for him in terms of recovery from injury and preparing himself for the upcoming season. “It’s actually one of my best summers, if not the best summer overall,” said Fisher. His locker room leadership is key to this team, but his shooting to open the game and set the pace is also an important factor. Let’s hope that he can find his niche on this team and motivate the young guys to strive for the delicious champagne.

Kobe spent some time with the media discussing a potential starting line up of Lamar Odom, Trevor Ariza, Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, and himself. He said he really likes the thought of other teams not being able to see the paint because of the size of this team. The defense of this team will hopefully show how tough they really are. Defense wins championships and with this much size and versatility there is no excuse for not altering almost every shot that comes through the lane.

Head Coach Phil Jackson had something to say about Gasol and Bynum on the court at once as well. “Right now (Bynum and Gasol) are very clumsy and aren’t working well together . We have a group that played together very well last year, and there are some things that we need to discuss to see how long we drag this out and how quickly we facilitate this.” With that said, Jax also made it clear that these guys have a chance to really play phenomenally together.

On a final note, Phil Jackson made a statement saying that Dennis Rodman was the “best athlete he had ever coached.” Interesting thought considering he has 9 championships and The Worm wasn’t MVP of a single one of them. Well, strangely enough, Kobe agrees with Phil. “I do not disagree with that at all,” said Bryant. “People obviously think of Jordan first, but as an athlete, Dennis was a freak of nature. In terms of his size, he ran like a deer, he could run all day, he could defend from the one position all the way up to the five. Look at one series when he was guarding Jordan when he was with Detroit, and fast forward to when he was with the Bulls and he was guarding Shaq. You don’t see athletes like that too often.”

Regarding the opening game tomorrow night, expect to see Bynum, Mbenga, and Mihm play plenty of minutes with Odom running the point and showing what he’s capable of.