More from the media sessions following Thursday's Lakers exit interviews:

Lamar Odom, who brought down the house with his joking expectation that he'd have an easy contract negotiation -- "In and out: Three years, $80 million" -- was asked if he thought the Lakers could afford to keep both him and Trevor Ariza. (Shannon Brown is the team's third unrestricted free agent, but not in the same financial stratosphere as the others.)
"I don't know how the books look, you know what I mean?" he replied. "I just come out and play.
"But I think that's important, right? You want to keep the team together. We just won a championship. You don't want to see one piece not there, if you can help it.
"But it's the business of sports. Hopefully, we can keep everybody here."
The learning curve: Center Andrew Bynum, who also had his exit interview on Thursday, has no regrets about pushing himself to play in the postseason, even if his right knee wasn't fully healed from the torn medial collaterial ligament he suffered in late January.
"I wanted to make it back," he said, "so that's why I took it to the court maybe before my trainer wanted me to, or some of the other people around me. But I just felt like I wanted to experience the playoffs.
"Even though I definitely didn't play my best ball, I still got to understand the next level, what it's like to have to play a regular season game versus a playoff game.
"Five minutes in a playoff game is like 15 to 18 minutes in a regular season game. The intensity is just that high. So it was great for me to be able to experience that."
That difference, he said, was a definite surprise.
"Especially with Utah," he said. "I came back and I did pretty well in the last game of the regular season" -- in just his fourth game back, he had 22 points, four rebounds and three blocks -- "but then they switched everything up, switched the matchups up, and everything.
"It's like playing chess in the playoffs. Both teams get to adjust to each other in the playoffs, try to find something that works. It's way different than in the regular season."
The first priority for his summer, he said, is to rest and allow the knee to heal fully. Then he'll get back to the running and weight-room work he did last summer. General manager Mitch Kupchak and coach Phil Jackson have also asked him to get in some games during the summer, which he could do in the famed summer pick-up games at UCLA, or at some venue in Atlanta, where he works out in the off-season.
The goal is to get back to the extremely high level he was playing just before his injury. Looking back, he says that run of strong games in late January was built on two things: "One, the timing's there," he said. "You take the first 15 games of the regular season and you just keep building timing and getting better and better, getting into your rhythm earlier in the game.
"And if you watch those games, I'm up and down the court. I'm first or second, always, up and down on both ends, so I'm always ahead of the ball. I'm always involved. Coming back off the injury, you just can't get it back in a week and a half. It's just not going to happen."
Bynum also believes he and Pau Gasol have only scratched the surface of what they can do on the court together.
"I've got to get a little bit better at the high-post game," he said, "so when he beats me down the court, he doesn't have to worry about always having to stay high. That's something I plan on working about this summer.
"We still haven't been able to master it yet. We've still only played about 30 solid games together still, so I can't wait to come back next season and really develop a high-low action."
The color of success: The most telling thing about Sasha Vujacic's media session after his exit interview may not have been what he said, but what he wore.
Vujacic -- who reacted to the Lakers' NBA Finals loss to Boston a year ago by removing the color green from his wardrobe, and with negative comments when anyone wore green in the Lakers locker room -- walked in wearing a polo shirt that looked to be a perfect shade of Celtics green.
"It's a good feeling," he said. "I like green. Now I like it."
Vujacic had a harder time liking his own season -- which saw his minutes, shooting and scoring drop from 2007-08 -- although that disappointment was offset by the ultimate result.
"Sometimes you've got to give up something in order for the team to succeed," he said. "... To be a part of a team's success, and you've got to put individual things aside. That's what I've learned this season. ... Being in front of you today as a world champion is important for me and my teammates."
Vujacic shot just 39 percent this season (down from 45 percent), averaged 5.8 points (down from 8.8) and did not score a point in the Lakers' five-game win over Orlando in the NBA Finals.
"It's not a secret that I shot the ball terribly this year," he said. "I was a disappointment to myself as well. There's no one to blame for that, no excuses to be found. I was trying all year long to find the game rhythm, catch the freedom that I had last year and to play with the same not confidence but just freeness, be loose. That was missing. But I know what I'm capable of, he knows what I'm capable of, and I'm looking forward to next season."
The general opinion was that, playing fewer minutes, Vujacic tried to do too much with the time he had. He agreed.
"Of course I did," he said. "... Buy trying to do too much, you think you're going to get more minutes, but in order to just try to be loose and let the game come to you, you're pushing, you're pushing, you try to do too much, and then bad things start happening."
His hope and intention is to right himself by playing for his native Slovenia in this year's European championship tournament.
"That's going to be crucial for me, actually," he said. "And talking to Mitch and Phil, both of them agree that's a good idea. I think it's going to be a very interesting summer, to get away and refocus, and (have a) rebirth. I need to completely clear my mind of everything, and that's the best way to do it with the national team, and try to win something there."
It's the first time he's played for Slovenia in seven years, he said, "because the goals are high -- winning the European championship. Before, their goals were to just make it to the semifinals and quarterfinals and just see what happened.
"But for the first time, they came to L.A. and talked to me and they explained me the plan, and I like it, and I want to win."
That will be tough, because Slovenia is in the same pool with England, Serbia and Olympic silver medalist Spain -- which may or may not have Lakers forward Pau Gasol for the tournament.
"He played a lot of minutes this year," Vujacic said, " and I would understand if he played or not. ... Whatever he decides, I think Spain and everybody will respect that, and we will respect whatever he does.
"I wish him to play, because I don't want him to say if we beat them, it's because he didn't play. I think it would be fun."
White House on Line 1: Lakers spokesman John Black said Jackson had received a congratulatory phone call Thursday from a noted basketball fan, President Barack Obama, but didn't offer many details.
"Phil can share what he wants when he talks tomorrow," Black said, referring to Jackson's press conference scheduled for Friday afternoon.
Black also said discussions have already begun on visiting the White House, a tradition for championship teams in most major sports. He expects it will happen sometime before the season begins.
"It will be a scheduling challenge," he said, "but we'll pull it off."

There is probably no Lakers player who exemplifies consistent effort more than Derek Fisher.
After the Lakers' 89-70 win over Houston in Sunday's Game 7 at Staples Center, he's hoping his teammates have figured out the need for that constant.
"I don't think at anytime we consciously went out onto the floor without that mindset," Fisher said, "but I do think we learned that if you aren't conscious about coming up and starting games aggressive and physical and being ready to play, you can get yourself into a lot of trouble. Hopefully as we move past this round and into the conference finals, that can be the one thing that we hold onto from this series that will help us not have the slippage we had in three or four of the games in this one."
Youth, Fisher suggested, had something to do with that. So did the fact that the Lakers made a relatively huge leap last year, going from one-round-and-out appearances in 2006 and 2007 to last year's berth in the NBA Finals.
"Obviously, with what we accomplished last year we just sort of shortcut some of the experience it takes to become a champion," he said. "We got to the doorstep. This year, that's not an excuse or something we're relying on and saying, 'OK, we're still young.' We want to win right now. At the same time, we're still learning that isn't easy to do. It wasn't last year because we didn't get it done. And this year, to get it done, it's not going to be easy."
Bynum bounces back: It would be easier, clearly, with Andrew Bynum playing like he did on Sunday -- mobile and agile, a force both offensively and defensively -- than at other times in a series that he conceded was "up and down -- anybody could see that.
"I just know where I can help out, and knowing what kind of minutes I'm going to get has a lot to do with it," he said. "I think we had a great couple of practices, and I was able to go out there and play well."
Jackson certainly agreed, as did Pau Gasol.
"We liked some of the things Andrew did," said Jackson. "Obviously, Andrew has a shooting touch; we'd like him to have more touches than he had." (Bynum was 6 of 7 from the field).
"The reality is he's a cleanup guy. He's a guy that's got to clean up the boards, he has to take passes that are received off drivers that are cut off at the basket and complete at the basket. He's going to have stats like he had tonight.
"The thing we want him to grasp his how active his defense has to become for him to be really the player we want him to be, and the player who can change how good defensively we are as a basketball club."
Said Gasol, "Andrew played great. His production was very, very good today. He played aggressive, he controlled the boards and he was a presence. We need that from him consistently, so I was happy to see him contribute and play hard and play with emotion. That was a big plus for us.
"We're going to need that in the next series against a front lineup that is going to be a lot bigger than Houston's."
Bynum said he and Gasol had talked with assistant coach Kurt Rambis stressing defense, "and we were able to cut down on Brooks' penetration ... They didn't get many easy layups, and I think that changed the course of the game."
Said Houston forward Shane Battier, "He's 7 foot, 300 pounds. ... It's hard to beat that size and length."
Offensively, too, the Lakers were helped tremendously by the focus on their two big men.
"We tried to put the ball inside," said Lamar Odom. "If you get Andrew and Pau going, you create shots for everyone, most likely wide open shots."

Other postgame comments from the interview and locker rooms:
Gasol, on his effort, which yielded 21 points, 18 rebounds, three blocks, a steal and an assist (along with five turnovers):
"Kobe always tells me to leave no bullet in the charger, or gun. ... As far as the energy and going after plays, holding them every single possession, stopping Brooks on all those pick-and-rolls and all that penetration, it hurt us in Houston so much, I made an effort on that to get me going that way. And it worked."

Lakers forward Trevor Ariza, on the ongoing questions about the team's inconsistency:
"We were a little stubborn. We thought we could beat teams off our talent alone. At this point in time, you can't do that. This is a tough time of the year. Everybody wants to win. They're going to step on your throats to get to where you want to go, and you have to do the same. ...
"We definitely realize that if we don't play hard, we're not going to beat anybody."

Rockets coach Rick Adelman, on the Lakers' defense and his team's offense:
"They (the Lakers) played more aggressive. That wasn't a big surprise to us that they were going to extend their defense. I thought we did some uncharacteristic things. We got a couple of shots blocked when the shots weren't even there; we crashed into their hands a couple times. That's on us.
"Usually, it's a combination of both teams. They picked their aggression up and it's not like we didn't talk about it. We should have been ready for that and we weren't. We didn't respond the way we needed to and we got down. It's hard to come back when you get down on the road, just like they found out."

Battier, with a lament not unlike that of the Lakers after Games 4 and 6:
"We knew they were going to give us their best shot, especially in the first quarter, and to be honest with you, we just didn't have the energy to match it.
"We turned the ball over, they got in transition, they got some easy buckets and we didn't move the ball well enough to make enough shots to make it a game."

Rockets guard Ron Artest, asked if his team -- which started 0 for 12 with two turnovers in its first 12 possessions -- came out tight:
"I don't' think we were tight. I just think we were maybe thinking too much. We didn't get a chance to get Shane open. We didn't get a call, we didn't get a chance to drive, and I think guys realize where we have a chance to improve. ...
"What happened was we just had an off game. They stepped up the intensity, we fumbled a little bit and they got off to a great start and kind of rode it from there."

Rockets guard Aaron Brooks on the Lakers' defense:
"They were just zoning up and we didn't react well. We couldn't make any shots and I think that was the problem. We did not make any shots in the first half. In games like this, it would have been nice to have a low-post presence."

The Lakers may not be concerned about being down a game to the Houston Rockets, but that doesn't mean they're aren't making changes.
Phil Jackson indicated Lamar Odom would replace Andrew Bynum in the starting lineup for Wednesday's Game 2 at Staples Center, meaning that starting spot has gone from Bynum to Odom to Bynum and now back to Odom over the first six games of the postseason.
Jackson could not recall making similar changes in his starting lineup during the playoffs, either with the Bulls or Lakers, except because of injury. He was asked in his pregame press conference if that meant he felt the situation was serious.
"I don't think so," he said. "I think it's a little bit more about our type of execution we can do on the floor, and the number of collective games we played together as that unit in the last year and a half gives them a little more comfort on the floor.
"Our damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't aspect is we know we need rebounding and shotblocking and size with Andrew in there at some level, if we're going to be very successful this season, and that means continuing forward. We're not as forceful or as intimidating around the paint if we don't have him. But we're so much better at the offensive end because of the mobility we have (with Lamar) it's kind of like a situation where you have to live with one or the other. I think we'll give up more points in the process, but we also gather more points, gain more."
For all that, Jackson said he didn't know if the Lakers are a better team with Odom in the lineup.
"You know, we want Andrew to be that force, that player out there," said Jackson. "We think that it's an important aspect or premise for this team. But we have not functioned well in these playoffs, or as well, as we have when Lamar started."
It's a choice that means surrendering some size against Yao Ming and the other large, bulky Rockets, but Jackson said toughness is not his big concern.
"Spacing is, really," he said. "We need to have good spacing and ball movement, and we have to have a flow in our offense. We can't get static and get them into a mud-pit game where they can grind it out in those kinds of half-court situations. And that's what we'll try to establish."
Odom more or less shrugged off the change, and a question whether it was difficult to keep switching between the bench and the starting lineup.
"The game's the same," he said. "... It is what it is. It's what's needed."
Walton returns: Luke Walton returned to the active roster for Game 2, after missing two games since injuring his ankle against Utah.
"I think he's going to have an opportunity," said Jackson, "but we'll see how significant his role is."
Dee-fense: Kobe Bryant was second in the voting again, but this time it was a little closer.
A couple of days after LeBron James' landslide victory over Bryant in MVP balloting, Dwight Howard edged Bryant as the top vote-getter for the NBA's all-defensive team.
Howard finished with 55 points and 27 first-place votes, followed by Bryant (53 points, 24 first-place votes), James (47 points), Chris Paul (36) and Kevin Garnett (35) to complete the first team.
Named to the second team were Tim Duncan, Dwyane Wade, Rajon Rondo, Shane Battier and Ron Artest.
The NBA's 30 head coaches vote for the defensive team, and are not permitted to vote for players from their own team.
Fisher, Trevor Ariza and Pau Gasol were among the other players receiving votes.

EL SEGUNDO -- Playing in Utah is always going to be a little different for Derek Fisher, but at least it's not quite so hurtful any more.
Which isn't to say he won't get booed when the Lakers play the Jazz in Game 3 of their first-round playoff series Thursday night.
"Yeah," he said Wednesday, before the Lakers flew to Salt Lake City, "but probably not as much as the first time I went back. I think there will still be some boos there, and I think it's transitioned, though, from more of a personal boo to, you know, 'You're on the Lakers.'
"I think people have had time to deal with my not being on the team and my family transitioning away from Utah. I think that's behind everybody for the most part. Everybody knows the story, knows the deal, and now it's Jazz-Lakers."
For those who need a refresher course on the details, Fisher rejoined the Lakers last season after one year with the Jazz. That year concluded with an emotional rollercoaster when his infant daughter, Tatum, was diagnosed with a form of eye cancer, taking him away from the team during the playoffs. (In the most dramatic moment of his Utah tenure, he returned from his daughter's treatment in mid-game and helped lead the Jazz to an overtime win against Golden State.)
After that season, he was released from his contract with Utah to relocate to a city better able to address his daughter's treatment needs and signed with the Lakers -- a move that didn't go over particularly well with Jazz fans, who booed him mercilessly when he made his return to Salt Lake City with the Lakers. It was a reaction the classy veteran guard didn't expect.
"It was shocking, it caught me off guard, it was disappointing," he said. "But between the first time I went back last season to the second time, there was a huge difference, just in the way I saw it, the way I felt it. I think I had come to grips myself with the fact that there wasn't anything else that I was going to be able to say or do, and even better, I don't have to feel obligated to try to convince somebody of why we made the decision we made. I think once I got to a place where I was OK with it, it didn't really matter how other people responded.
"I think that game was good for me, personally, just to have that experience and understand that this world is not created in a way where you can please everybody, you can do things that are going to be what everybody likes for you to say or do.
"So I think it was good for me to have that experience. And I think it took probably a couple weeks after that experience to gain some understanding in terms of me understanding myself and what I was feeling. And then from there, it's been really smooth in terms of feeling comfortable with what has happened and why it happened, and that life really has moved on in a major way."
That's also true for 2-year-old Tatum -- she turns 3 in late June -- whose cancer remains in remission.
"Every eight weeks, we still have to go through the exams and the scans and the MRIs, and each time we go back, as things continue to stabilize, the doctor stretches it out a little bit," said Fisher. "It starts from every three to four weeks to four to six weeks, to six to eight weeks. Now we're at eight weeks, and as long as that pattern continues, we'll get to about 12 weeks, and then when she turns 4, if things continue to stay where they are, we'll be past that red zone in terms of the chance of the cancer returning or cancer forming in the other eye."
The estimate is that his daughter has about 50 percent vision in her left eye, although they won't really know until she's old enough to explain to doctors what she can see. "It's all just from testing, lights and different stuff like that," he said.
In other notes from Wednesday's practice:
Fatigue: Center Andrew Bynum, in his sixth game back since being sidelined by a knee injury, scored 10 points, all in a little more than seven minutes to open the game. Phil Jackson was asked what happened.
"He ran out of gas, really," said Jackson. "And they double-teamed him. They came back and double-teamed him, he missed some free throws, had some things that just didn't continue to go right for him. But he gave us a great start. ...
"It's going to happen with him. He's going to have some lapses in energy. We've got to talk a little bit about his pregame work, too, because I think he's working a little bit too hard to get ready for the game, and I think it takes something out of him during the game."
Needing more: Jackson also said he felt the Lakers weren't getting enough out of the size mismatch Pau Gasol has enjoyed against the smaller Utah lineup with Mehmet Okur sidelined by injury.
"We're not doing very well getting the ball into him," said Jackson. "He just didn't have enough touches in the second half.
"Some of that (is that) he was on the bench. I kept him on the bench for a while. I know this is going to be a grind the rest of this series, so I wanted to give him a little bit of a rest while we had a lead. But we didn't have an opportunity to use him the way we want to. ...
"We went to some other things, and Kobe got going a little bit in the second half, and he dominates the ball when he's going that well. Some of those things just didn't happen and work out for (Pau)."

I'm having trouble finding today's column on the website, so for the record, here it is:

LOS ANGELES -- The Lakers and Clippers played Sunday night.
Which makes this an ideal time to talk about Andrew Bynum.
No, he didn't play. But his impending return has far greater big-picture implications for the Lakers than an ugly 88-85 win over the junior varsity.
And because he didn't play, he's untainted by a dreadful game before a silent crowed that probably would have been improved, at least in long stretches, if it had featured two D-League teams, if not 10 fans selected at random from the stands at Staples Center.
And so: Bynum.
Phil Jackson has clearly, at times, wearied of talking about his absent seven-footer, so on Sunday, the best place to go to discuss Bynum's return was a short distance down the hall, in the office of Mike Dunleavy. Those of us interested in Bynum were able to get a different perspective on the young center, and Dunleavy was given a chance to talk about something other than his own collection of the disabled and disinterested. So it was a win-win situation, and Dunleavy warmed to the task -- particularly when asked if he'd seen Bynum in the stretch of really high-level play right before his injury.
"Well," Dunleavy said, "let me put it this way -- as opposed to the time he got 42 on us? Was that during that period?
"I saw him play pretty good then."
For those who have forgotten -- including the reporter who asked (and no, it wasn't this one) -- back on Jan. 21, Bynum rolled through the Clippers like Shaquille O'Neal nursing a ticketing grudge, finishing with 42 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks.
That was the start of a five-game outburst in which it looked like the "next" part of "next great center" had become superfluous, as Bynum averaged 26.2 points, 13.8 rebounds and 3.2 blocks.
The sixth game in that sequence, though, was the Jan. 31 game in Minnesota in which Bynum suffered the torn medial collateral ligament that has now sidelined him for 31 games.
So you can figure Dunleavy was pretty thrilled Bynum wasn't back in time to play Sunday. That becomes even more true when Dunleavy rattles off what Bynum will bring in return. He started the obvious points -- size, shotblocking, and the easing of the burden on Pau Gasol.
"If you're going to start (Lamar) Odom," said Dunleavy, "there's no question Gasol has to play the primary low-post player on the other team. With a Bynum, you can rest him off that at times. You can play them both together. You can come and sub for him.
"And then offensively, Bynum is so long he gets them a lot of easy buckets. He rolls to the bucket, you have to pick him up. If you don't, it's a dunk, which opens up something for somebody else. ...
"It's just having another guy that can break a game open for you in either an offensive or defensive way."
There's all that, and then there's this: The minute Bynum returns, the Lakers' second unit -- which has not been the same since Bynum was hurt and Vladimir Radmanovic was exiled to Charlotte -- will get a lot better. Either Bynum is part of the second unit, or he's a starter, and someone (Lamar Odom, perhaps?) goes back to the reserves.
"I haven't crossed that yet," Jackson said, during Sunday's inevitable Bynum-update portion of his pregame conversation. "I kind of envision him going back as a starter again, just because he's got an injury he's recovering from that takes some activation still." (In other words, better to have him go from the start, when he's loose, than to loosen up before the game and then sit.)
So -- as if you didn't know -- there's a lot the Lakers are waiting for, and have been, really, since Bynum was writhing around on the court in Memphis after banging into Kobe Bryant. That wait is not quite over; Jackson seemed to indicate he won't return against Sacramento or Denver because those games may be a bit more up-tempo than the coach prefers, given that Bynum's current physical condition is, in his own word, "terrible." (Lifting Playmates at parties may be a decent upper-body workout, but it doesn't really do a lot for the cardiovascular system, it seems.)
Still, there's no question Bynum needs to get as much game activity as possible.
"Everything in therapy is controlled," said Jackson. "And basketball's not controlled. It's all reactive. So it will take a different kind of conditioning and reaction to get to that point.
"He'll need those two, three games, four games or whatever we can get in there for him to get that back, and then hope that our practices are spirited and active enough to bring him the rest of the way for the playoffs."
Jackson knows the 26-point, 13-rebound Bynum isn't going to be making an appearance any time soon: "He's not going to be in 'A' game shape condition at all by the time the playoffs start."
He'll be good enough to make an impact, though. Maybe not at Clipper-crushing levels, but as the playoffs begin, the Lakers will take whatever they can get.
-- Contact columnist David Lassen at dlassen@VenturaCountyStar.com.