Lakers Unwilling to Trade Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol for Dwight Howard

Jim Buss tells the LA Times that both Bynum and Gasol is too steep a price to pay for Dwight Howard, and that he believes the Lakers could win a title with the current squad: “I’m not as worried about this team making a run for the championship as maybe everybody else is,’ he says. ‘I know people are shook up and especially after Lamar left, but give it time.’ He’s got 66 games. And that’s possibly with a slow start, what with three straight games to open, Andrew Bynum suspended for four, some pup named Devin Ebanks to start and a new coach still teaching. ‘I don’t know what our record will be during the first half, but I believe over the last 33 games going into the playoffs we will have the best record in the West.’ He must be counting on the arrival of Howard. But he shakes his head, no. ‘I don’t understand the thinking that we need saving as a franchise,’ Buss says. ‘We have three All-Stars, and we need saving?’ There’s an Internet report suggesting Orlando was willing to trade Howard for Bynum and Pau Gasol, but now he’s shaking his head as if in pain. ‘Where does this stuff come from?’ he says. ‘You’d have to be kind of silly to give up two All-Stars like that for Howard. Zero truth to it. We have never been asked for Andrew and Pau and we’ve never offered them. I think they know we’d either say no or they would sound crazy for asking.’ There are some who contend Buss is so enamored with Bynum he would be blind to all trades with Bynum’s name mentioned. ‘Let’s just say this,’ he says. ‘You have to give up something to get something. And I’m willing to give up something to get something.’ But nothing is happening. ‘We’ve done everything within the rules that we could to explore this situation until we were just spinning our wheels,’ he says. ‘The player is still in control of his own destiny; he can block a trade just by saying I’m not going to sign a new deal and stay where he is. I personally believe now that we have the team that we will be playing with all season long.'”