we have a huge disadvantage in signing anyone

Here is the thing though. sacramento....waaayyy over the cap with a 70 million dollar yearly pay roll. Dallas....way over the cap with the same 70 million dollar yearly payroll as sactown. the only thing though is that they have billionair owners. owners who can afford to go millions over the cap and make up for it with their long post season drives. the lakers on the other hand, dont have the deep pockets to shell out millions more over the cap than they already are because post season revenue dosnt come in until 7 1/2 months after they would sign a new star. in other words, they dont have the deep pockets to cover for a 10 or 15 million dollar contract while waiting for post season revenue to flow in. thats only an option for the billionair owners. San antonio on the other hand will finish this season well under the cap with about 14 million to spare for any super free agent like malone or kidd. how can we compete with that? the only reason we have been able to blow that off before is because we have been the champs the last 3 seasons, somthing much more attracting than a team well under the cap. we no longer have that advantage. not unless Buss will allow his 150 million dollar type profits to dramaticly shrink. which i dont see happening. so if we cant compete with our top 3 competitors, Dallas, San Antonio, or Sacramento, how will we ever find our way back to the top???? i guess thats up to Shaq and Buss as we know we can count on Phil and Kobe.

We can compete cuz we won 3 titls in a row, and we have Shaq and Kobe as our dynamic duo. Basically any players who wanna win a title would wanna play for LA

big media market = good for player

Don't worry, I have a strange feeling we will be back on top for about 5 years. We may not win every year, but for at least the next 5 years we will be on or at the top of the league...

Yea... we wont win all the years, but once we DOnt win, the media will be all over the Lakers... huh? But funny how things are, but it's all good, with Kobe and Shaq and Phil, there's nuttin stoppin us... I luv tha roll players too!