Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted that the Lakers aren’t planning to trade Andrew Bynum, even for Carmelo Anthony.

NY will work trade on its terms but knows it can get Melo in free agency. Anyway, Jim Buss has made it clear within org: Bynum is staying.

If I were a Laker fan (which I’m not), I’d be furious about the position that Buss is taking here. Furious.

I get it — Bynum is a good player when he’s healthy. But over the past four seasons, including the postseason, he has missed 172 of the Lakers’ 395 games (43.5%) due to issues with his knees. There are a few things I’ve learned about knee injuries over the years: 1) knee problems aren’t good for basketball players, 2) knee problems aren’t good for seven-footers and 3) knee problems don’t usually just go away.

The Lakers almost always finish games with Pau Gasol at center and Lamar Odom at small forward. So they’re unwilling to trade an injury-prone player (that they don’t even play in crunch time) for a 26-year-old, five time All-NBA performer?

Are they nuts?

The only — and I mean only — reason I can see for this inflexibility would be that the Lakers are expecting to see the Celtics again in the Finals. If healthy, Bynum would certainly help battle Shaq and Kendrick Perkins down low. But there are a few problems with this thinking: 1) the Lakers aren’t playing all that well right now and could use some new blood, 2) they will face stiff competition from the Spurs, Mavs and Thunder just to get out of the West, and 3) there’s a good chance that the Celtics don’t make the Finals, and the Lakers will instead face the Heat, the Bulls or even the Magic.

If it’s the Heat or Bulls, wouldn’t the Lakers much rather have Carmelo than Bynum? What about the Spurs, Mavs and Thunder? None of those teams have a true center that only Bynum could defend (unless you count Tim Duncan, whom I think Gasol could handle in a pinch). If the Lakers need another big man, I’m sure the Nuggets would include Nene or Chris Andersen at a reasonable price.

Of course, the Nuggets may not even want Bynum at this point, though if the Wilson Chandler/Corey Brewer package is the best offer they’re getting, I would think any package including Bynum would be better. There are rumors floating around that Carmelo’s camp leaked the supposed Nuggets/Lakers talks to get the Knicks to panic a little and up their offer. Someone close to Carmelo even said that he’d definitely re-up with the Lakers if he was traded there.

Hmmm…methinks there’s some gamesmanship afoot.

Regardless, if the Lakers can get a five-time All-NBA performer at the expense of a seven-footer with bad knees who doesn’t even finish games, I think they should do it.

To quote Kobe from a few years ago, “Are you kidding me? Ship his ass out.“