EL SEGUNDO – Mitch Kupchak was sitting in his office Friday morning when he took a long look at the dry erase board where he keeps an updated list of the team’s roster.
He grabbed the eraser, and pushed it over the name on the board that had caught his attention: Kobe Bryant.
“When I lifted the eraser,” Kupchak said, “the name was still there. I guess at a certain point, the marker just stays.”
At the start of his end-of-season news conference Friday, the Lakers general manager shared the anecdote, a fitting metaphor for an organization that now, two days after Bryant’s career ended with a 60-point garnish, had to begin the colossal task of moving on without him.