LAKERS: DRAFTING FOR THE LONG RUN.

Byline: ROSS SILER Staff Writer

EL SEGUNDO -- With the No. 26 pick in Wednesday's NBA draft, Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak will be looking for the player, in his words, with the ``best chance to play in this league for eight to 10 years.''

That player likely will be a ball-handling guard, with Kupchak saying he felt the Lakers were ``one guard short'' last season after Laron Profit ruptured an Achilles tendon in December.

But Kupchak also will have realistic expectations for what a player picked near the end of the first round could contribute to a Phil Jackson-coached team as a rookie.

``It's unlikely in this day and age that the 26th pick is going to play a lot for you next year,'' Kupchak said Monday.

Kupchak said the Lakers would like to move up in the draft, but questioned the feasibility of doing so. In the meantime, they contribute to feel the reverberations from last year's draft, when they took high school center Andrew Bynum with the No. 10 pick.

Bynum played in only 46 of 82 regular-season games as a rookie, still an unknown quantity in the eyes of most.

But Kupchak made clear that Bynum's future is with the Lakers, even as other teams continue to inquire about him. Kupchak was asked about his statement last June that Bynum would have been a top three pick in this draft had he played a year at Connecticut.

It was the assessment Kupchak got from a Big East coach last year and a hypothetical question now.

``Based on the number of calls I've gotten about him in the last four weeks,'' Kupchak said Monday, ``I'd have to believe that there's a really high demand for a player like that.''

Both Kupchak and Jackson remarked that Bynum looked a little older after they had gone a couple weeks this summer without seeing him. Bynum won't turn 19 until Oct. 27, but should celebrate his birthday with the Lakers.

``We're not going to trade Andrew,'' said Kupchak, who shared the same message with Bynum and his agent. ``We're very happy with his progress.''

The Lakers, meanwhile, must consider the consequences of adding another young player in this draft. They had four rookies on the roster last season, plus guard Smush Parker, considered a rookie by Jackson given his limited NBA resume.

``There's something that's not really good about having a lot of talent that's very young,'' Kupchak said, ``because they all kind of have the same mind-set.''

The list of guards who could be available at No. 26 includes Temple's Mardy Collins, Michigan State's Maurice Ager, Texas' P.J. Tucker, Miami's Guillermo Diaz, UCLA's Jordan Farmar and Rutgers' Quincy Douby.

Another consideration for the Lakers comes in the NBA Development League franchise they will run next season. As the first NBA team to do so, the Lakers have their own farm team, in effect, and could draft strictly based on potential.

The Lakers have auditioned between 70 and 80 players, Kupchak said, with Jackson having attended most of the workouts.

The Lakers' first-round pick came from Miami as part of the Shaquille O'Neal trade. Their own pick (No. 21) went to Boston in the Gary Payton trade, then to Atlanta, and now belongs to Phoenix.

With O'Neal winning his first championship in Miami, Kupchak was asked about that trade again Monday. His answer: ``We would not do anything differently today than we did two years ago regarding the Shaquille O'Neal trade.''

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