No Knee-Jerk Reaction at Center, Get It?

Refusing to let the loss of Shaquille O’Neal alter the Lakers’ long-term plans, General Manager Mitch Kupchak said Friday they will not make any trades before Thursday’s deadline simply to bring in a starting center for the rest of the regular season, especially if it means tearing at the core of the team.

“It changes how we look at things to a degree,� Kupchak said of the knee injury that is expected to sideline O’Neal eight to 10 weeks. “But we have never been an organization that does things with a knee-jerk reaction and I don’t think we will now. Since there is the possibility we will get him back this year and the guys have been doing well, then we’ll probably proceed along the same course.�

The possibility remains, however, that the Lakers could make a deal of relatively minor significance before Thursday. The interesting part between now and then will be to see whether they cut off talks regarding Sean Rooks, now the backup center to Elden Campbell.

Asked if the O’Neal injury alters whatever trades they were considering, Kupchak, without addressing Rooks specifically, said:

“Maybe, maybe not. Once again, we’re not going to jump the gun to get a deal done. We’d like to proceed and play a couple games and see how things play out. Then we might look at some things, if, in fact, we had some things we were considering in the first place.�

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O’Neal will miss a chance to play in Orlando for the first time as a visitor--and Magic fans will miss the chance to vent their feelings in person about his decision to leave. The game will be played anyway, on March 23. . . . Kobe Bryant had a bonus clause in his shoe deal with Adidas for winning the slam dunk title. The amount is not known, but he got $20,000 from the league for the victory, not bad for someone who originally said he did not want to compete.