Despite winning their 16th NBA Championship the Lakers had no choice than to make changes to their 2009-10 roster.

Farmar, Mbenga, Powell and Morrison all left via free agency, but the Lakers got some interesting replacements in Steve Blake, Theo Ratliff and Matt Barnes while they were also able to retain free agents Derek Fisher and Shannon Brown. All of that without spending too much money.

The changes did nothing but make the roster stronger while all the players from the core group, those who saw more minutes last season, are under contract. The list includes D-Fish, Kobe, Pau, Bynum, Artest, Odom, Sasha, Brown and Walton.

With the improved roster added to the fact that Phil Jackson decided to coach for one more year, the Lakers are in good position to go for the three-peat without worrying about Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh joining forces in the East.

Rumors
Feb 9: Reports say the Lakers were in conversations with Denver trying to trade Carmelo Anthony for Andrew Bynum... but the Lakers deny it and in fact it would make no sense. Despite all Bynum struggles and injuries such a trade would reduce the frontcourt size, hurting this year's championship hopes. Not to mention that adding a star like Anthony would have big salary implications in the future for a team that is currently way over the salary cap. So this trade is very unlikely. The trade deadline is Feb. 24.----

Derek Fisher stays, Steve Blake is the new backup point guard and the Lakers wanted to bring Raja Bell to complete the backcourt but since Bell signed with Utah the Lakers are again trying to bring Shannon Brown back. (Aug. 5 update: Brown will stay). / Including Fisher and Brown, the arrival of Barnes and Ratliff and the two draft picks Devin Ebanks and Derrick Caracter, the Lakers have 14 players under contract, which means the roster is complete and ready to go, so there won't be more changes... For the preseason games the Lakers invited Trey Johnson and Drew Naymick. Although some believed one of them could have made the final roster, the Lakers waived them. Rumors archive

Steve Blake
With many backcourt players leaving (Farmar) or about to do it (Fisher and Brown), the Lakers first deal done was with point guard Steve Blake, who agreed to a 4-year $16-million contract. Blake, 30, is a pass-first player with a nice three-point touch. Last season he averaged 7.3 points and 4.8 assists while shooting 39.5% from 3-point range in 80 games splitting time with the Clippers and the Trail Blazers. He is a good defender on the ball, with strong mentality and although he does nothing fancy or spectacular he's a solid player that will be an excellent backup for Derek Fisher.

Matt Barnes
Free agent forward from Orlando, Barnes decided to sign a two-year $3.6 million deal with the Lakers (with a player option for the second year) instead of a more lucrative contract offered from the Lebron-less Cavaliers.

He averaged 8.8 points and 5.5 rebounds in his one season in Orlando where drew attention with his confrontation with Kobe Bryant that included pretending to throw an inbounds pass directly at Kobe's face, among mutual elbows and trash talking.

Theo Ratliff
The 37 year-old big man joined the Lakers for the 2010-11 season with a one-year deal worth the veterans' minimum of $1.35 million.

Ratliff has played for 8 teams in 15 NBA seasons with career averages of 7.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.5 blocks.

He is a defensive specialist, was a key part of the 76ers' team that lost to the Lakers in the 2001 Finals and led the league in blocks per game in 2001, 2003 and 2004.

Joe Smith
The 6-10, 225 lbs. veteran power forward arrived from New Jersey in the Sasha Vujacic trade. He's 35 and has played for 11 teams in his 15 NBA seasons after being selected with the top pick in 1995.

Smith is making $1.4 million this season, has a decent mid-range jump shot and will be providing a handful of minutes of rest to the frontcourt regulars. He averaged 9.3 minutes, 3 points and 2.5 rebounds a game last season playing for the Hawks.

Trey Johnson
A surprising addition for the Lakers' final regular season game, Johnson, who played 5 preseason games for L.A., went straight from the Development League to the NBA playoffs. He was called to replace Steve Blake who missed some games with chicken pox.

The 6-5 guard/forward has spent the last 4 seasons playing for the Bakersfield Jam of the D-League, with brief interrupitions to play 4 games with Cleveland in 2009 and a couple of 10-day contracts with Toronto this season. In the D-League he has averaged 20.7 points, 4.7 assists and 3.8 rebounds in 36.0 minutes, including a league second-best 25.5 points per game this year.

Phil Jackson
Once again Jackson, who turns 65 in September, took his time to decide whether he would come back as the Lakers coach. After the usual medical tests and saying he was "leaning towards retiring" he decided to go for his 12th championship and the 4th three-peat of his career in what will most surely be his last coaching season.

And he returned in style: "I got a message from on high … that said, 'Phil, you've got to come back, there is a need to fulfill the prophecy. You know 12 is a holy number and 11 (championships) just doesn't fill that...'
"So I listened to my doctors and watched the sunrise and the sunset a few times and voila, I'm back."

There's still no information about how much he will earn but probably he will take a minor pay cut from the $12 million he made in 2009-10.

Derek Fisher
He was the Lakers top free agent priority and after 12 days of negotiations D-Fish accepted a 3-year contract believed to be worth about $10.5 million, including a player option in the third year.

Other than Kobe, he's the only member of the 2000-2001-2002 three-peat still with the team and proved in the 2010 playoffs how valuable he is for this team, holding his ground against the NBA's top point guards.

Fisher talked with the Heat who offered him the starting job alongside Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh but he decided to stay with the Lakers: "At the end of the day, there's one person I could not turn away from, Kobe Bryant asked me to stay but supported whatever decision I made. He and I have played together for 11 seasons, came into the league together as kids, and he has been loyal to me even when others had doubts. We have won five championships together."

Brian Shaw
Three times champion as a player and 2 as an assistant, Shaw was the main candidate for the coaching position in Cleveland. But with Jackson's retirement still not decided he chose to withdraw his name from the Cavs' list (Cleveland hired Byron Scott, Lakers glory and top candidate to replace Jackson).

Now Shaw positioned himself as the natural successor when Jackson indeed retires, most probably when the 2010-2011 NBA season ends.

Shannon Brown
The high-flying guard officially opted out of a contract that would have paid him $2.15 million in 2010-11, making him an unrestricted free agent.

After weeks of negotiations and evaluating the market he decided to sign a new 2-year deal worth about $4.6 million with a player option in the second year.

Last season Brown averaged career highs of 8.1 points, 2.3 rebounds, 1.3 assists and 20.7 minutes.

2nd round: On the same trade that brought Gasol to L.A. and sent the 2010 first round pick to the Grizzlies the Lakers received Memphis' second round pick which turned out to be the 43rd. overall. They used it to select Devin Ebanks, a 6-foot-9 athletic small forward out of West Virginia known as a defensive specialist.

Ebanks, 20, played two seasons for the Mountaineers, averaging 11.2 points, 7.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 69 games and helped the team reach the Final Four for the first time in 50 years while a sophomore. The Lakers like his defensive versatility and hope he can a back up for Ron Artest and Luke Walton

2nd round: with their own second round pick, the 58th overall, the Lakers took Derrick Caracter.

He's a 6-foot-9 forward with a decent shooting range that spent two seasons at Louisville before transferring to UTEP. Caracter was named to the All-Conference USA Second Team after averaging 14 points and eight rebounds as a junior, and ranked 16th in the country in field goal percentage (56.7 percent).

Both Ebanks and Caracter showed their potential in the summer league where they basically earned their places in the 2010-11 roster,

1st round: the Lakers 2010 first-round pick, which turned out to be the 28th, was sent to Memphis in the Pau Gasol trade on Feb 10, 2008. With this pick the Grizzlies selected Greivis Vasquez a point guard from Maryland.