Michael Ventre

The NBA season is in full swing, and the most intriguing plotlines have played out — Allen Iverson comes back, Greg Oden's hurt again, the Suns have come back to Earth and Twitter fines continue to pile up like the national debt.

But there is one narrative that is mysteriously missing: The Lakers aren’t sagging under the weight of their own recently forged bling. In fact, inexplicably, they’re doing just what a team should do if it wants to repeat as champions.

Didn’t they get the memo?

The Lakers are 16-3 entering Wednesday night’s contest against the Utah Jazz. They have won nine in a row. They were without Pau Gasol for the first 11 games of the season. They were working notorious nutbag Ron Artest into their mix, which can sometimes be like dropping Mentos into a bottle of Diet Coke. They had a veteran point guard (Derek Fisher) who was one year older. They had a young center (Andrew Bynum) who had become known more for being on the injured list than the active roster.

And yet, so far, the Lakers haven’t veered off course.

It’s early yet. So far the schedule has been home-heavy — only four road games so far, but kudos are still in order. There is no inner turmoil, no lack of passion, no major injuries. The road to a repeat appears so far to be without sinkholes.

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These 2009-10 Lakers knew that winning it all again would require some improvement. So they waved goodbye to Trevor Ariza, a promising young swingman who is now the leading scorer for the Houston Rockets, and replaced him with Artest. So far, Artest’s only major gaffe is showing up on Jimmy Kimmel in his underwear. As far as a fit on the team, he is as good as advertised as a defender, and is also averaging 12 points, five rebounds and four assists a game.

Beyond that there were no major roster tremors, other than the drama around the re-signing of Lamar Odom. The Lakers knew that if they wanted to win another ring, they would have to generate the insatiable lust for power that enabled them to capture it last year. A championship run is such a psychological minefield that teams usually fail to repeat because they can’t recapture the ravenous hunger that carried them there.

It’s way, way, way too early to say the Lakers have attained the proper mental state necessary to plow through the schedule toward another Larry O’Brien Trophy. What often happens with defending champions is that they come smoking out of the gate in order to prove to themselves and to the world that they have the fuel needed to repeat. Then they run out of fuel. A lengthy march to the title and a quick “back to work” order in October tends to catch up with NBA athletes.

That’s where veteran leadership comes in.