The lights at Staples Center still burned through the night.
Kobe and O'Neal's special training had continued from dusk until the early hours of the morning.
Sweat soaked the entire training court and thoroughly ignited the Lakers' hunger for a championship.
Watching their two cores display such extreme discipline, no one in the team's management dared to slack off in the slightest.
While the players desperately honed themselves on the court, management had to desperately plan beyond it.
This was the Lakers' offseason consensus, and their only way out of a desperate situation.
The team was still pursuing the three reinforcement targets they had originally settled on with everything they had.
But the competition in the free-agent market was far fiercer than management had anticipated.
Adrian Griffin's value continued to rise, with several playoff teams making offers.
Many quality defensive 3-and-D players had been snapped up early by strong teams, making them far harder to sign.
In particular, the trade value of the young, promising wing Devean George had been thoroughly inflated by the market.
Several teams had offered quality assets, and the Lakers' assets held no advantage at all.
Forcing through a deal would inevitably mortgage future draft picks and disrupt the team's long-term construction plans.
After weighing the pros and cons, Lakers management decisively gave up on blindly chasing him.
Rather than wasting resources in cutthroat competition over popular players, they would be better off watching for holes in the market and picking up bargains to strengthen the roster.
The Chicago Bulls, who had completely fallen apart after Jordan's departure, became their best point of attack.
With Michael Jordan officially announcing his move to the Knicks, the Bulls Dynasty Forum had completely come to an end.
The core group that had once created the legend of six championships