Pre-season Notes

First, and most important, Kobe Bryant's hyper-extended knee suffered in Tuesday night's pre-season game in San Diego against Charlotte is fine and he is expected to play in tonight's pre-season game, also against Charlotte.

Sasha Vujacic, who suffered a foot injury early in training camp, is expected to see a foot specialist to determine his availability for the final two pre-season games before next Tuesday's opening night game against Portland.

The Lakers waived 2008 second round draft pick Joe Crawford, and C.J. Giles yesterday, trimming the roster down to the required 15. All indications are Coby Karl has made the opening night roster.

As of today, the roster is as follows:

Forwards: Trevor Ariza, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Josh Powell, Valdimir Radmanovic, Luke Walton and Sun Yue.
Guards: Kobe Bryant, Jordan Farmar, Derek Fisher, Coby Karl and Sasha Vujacic.
Centers: Andrew Bynum, DJ Mbenga and Chris Mihm.

A Ho-Hum Draft

With the 58th pick in the 2008 NBA Draft, the Los Angeles Lakers select...

Joe Crawford? Ok. I don't know anything about him, have never seen him play before, and didn't even know who he was before last night. And still, he'll probably never wear a Laker uniform.

The Lakers waited all night to finally get a chance to make some noise, if only just for the sake of having their name heard. They traded their first rounder, the 27th pick overall, to Memphis in the Pau Gasol trade back in February. With the pick, Memphis selected Donte Green, whose rights they shipped off to Houston in exchange for the rights to big man Darrell Arthur.

I'm pretty sure Mitch Kupchak would still do the Gasol trade a hundred times over.