/ STAFF WRITER
EL SEGUNDO – It was the first new day since Mamba Out, and players milled about in the Lakers practice gym, bouncing from one station to another, posing for official photos, snapping selfies, pausing for interviews.
It all made for a pretty routine media day, the rite of fall that announces the arrival of a new season, except for the palpable absence of someone who had not missed one of these in 20 years.
Then someone called out, he yelled a name, and the two syllables echoed through the gymnasium that had heard them thousands of times before.