Chris Mihm and Kwame Brown going down with injuries earlier this season was the best thing that could happen to the Lakers. Andrew Bynum’s knee injury he suffered against their game against Memphis is possibly going to ruin their season.

After watching both the Colts and Cowboys ruin the NFL Playoffs for me, the day got much worse when Andrew Bynum landed awkwardly after trying to grab a rebound and clutched his knee in pain. My first reaction was much like the reaction of every other Laker fan: total shock. After he was helped off the court I sent a text message to talkhoops.net editor, Zach Harper, saying if the Lakers young center misses a significant amount of time, it could ruin the Lakers season. And like a lot of other Lakers fans, I was surprised that I actually said that. We were all taking him for granted and going along for the ride.

One day later, I’m sitting in the campus newspaper office and I get a text message from Zach telling me that he’s out eight weeks, which lead to me explaining to my friend Ellen why this was important. When she gave me that “who really cares about basketball” look, it lead to me saying “basketball is my fucking life,” and a subsequent conversation about using the “F-word” in class.

Since that text message, I’ve been border line depressed thinking about what this could mean for the Lakers season, and nothing I thought about was even remotely good. Say goodbye to first in the West, say goodbye to first in the Pacific, say goodbye to any kind of home court advantage, hell, worst case scenario, this could mean goodbye to the playoffs.

Eight weeks is a long time to maintain a pace you’ve set without your second option. Eight weeks from the official announcement is March 10th, and looking at their schedule, you see why I lack optimism.

The rest of this month, and all of next month is going to be brutal. This is definitely the toughest stretch of the Lakers schedule. As of right now, they are half a game ahead of Phoenix, who they play Thursday night, for first place in the Western conference with a 26-11 record. Andrew Bynum missing eight weeks wouldn’t be terrible if the Lakers were in the Eastern Conference, but they are only five games ahead of Utah, who, if the playoffs started today, would be watching at home, and only seven games ahead of Houston, who could probably make a run at any time this season with Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming in the middle.

After Thursday night’s match-up with Phoenix, they finish the rest of the month by playing five teams that made the playoffs last year, including trips to San Antonio, Dallas, and Detroit. The Detroit game is the first game of a nine game road trip that spans from Jan. 31st to February 13.

In February, they will play a total of three games at home, only a fourth of the amount of games they’ll be playing outside of the Staples Center. Lets say that Bynum does come back on time, his first five games will be against Toronto, then a four game road trip to New Orleans, Houston, Dallas and Utah.

With only five games separating the top spot in the Western Conference and no trip to the playoffs at all, there is much reason for concern, especially watching the Lakers role players defer to Kobe all game, running their offense like they did in the 2005-2006 season, the post Rudy-T season and the first year Kobe lead the league in scoring. If team chemistry is also going to sit out eight weeks, we could be looking at a seventh or eighth seed basketball team by Valentine’s Day.

For the Lakers to have a respectable record with the absence of Bynum, Brown is going to have to step up big, something he really hasn’t done much of in his career. We all know that he isn’t going to be putting up Bynum kind of numbers (just saying that phrase is still crazy to me, it’s crazy what a year and a little motivation can do for a kid), but he has to produce something. Team chemistry has to be maintained, and Kobe, now more than ever, has to keep his team motivated.

Phil Jackson is going to have to manage minutes so guys that are getting extended minutes because of Bynum’s absence aren’t burnt out by the time the playoffs roll around.

Photos Courtesy of cnn.net and tradekwame.com