"Basketball reasons."
Few other phrases irk Lakers fans like that one.
"Paul Pierce wheelchair" might come close, along with "Deee-troit basss-ket-balll" and, for the slightly older generation, "sweltering Boston Garden."
But the two words uttered by then NBA Commissioner David Stern, through a league spokesman, bother Lakers followers more than any in these free-fallin' days of history-making.
They were the reason supplied for vetoing the Lakers' trade for All-Star point guard Chris Paul in December 2011, the one that sent Lamar Odom into a tailspin, Pau Gasol into continual glance-over-shoulder mode and the franchise into a slow, steady, shocking decline.