Lakers begin preparing for new season with memories of the last one still fresh

Los Angeles Times—September 25, 2010

The Lakers open training camp with much of the talk focused on how Andrew Bynum is doing after off-season surgery.

The Lakers began training camp without their 22-year-old 7-footer, who said he wouldn't be back for two more months, a timetable that continued to shift for the worse in the eyes of Lakers fans, well beyond the Oct. 26 opener against the Houston Rockets at Staples Center.

"I see more toward the end of November," Bynum said. "The doctors are telling me this could be somewhere around there."

Bynum said he would need four more weeks of rehabilitating his knee before he could even get on the court.

The way the Lakers explain it, Bynum's personal doctor, New York-based David Altchek of Hospital for Special Surgery, planned to cut away or shave a piece of torn cartilage in Bynum's right knee. But upon beginning the procedure, he decided instead to sew up the tear, requiring a longer recovery period in return for better long-term stability in the area.

This story originally appeared at latimes.com.