Brian Shaw, who many thought was the heir apparent to Phil Jackson, says he found out that he didn’t get the Laker head coaching job by hearing the news on TV.

Shaw, in an interview with Andy and Brian Kamenetzky on “The Mason & Ireland Show” on 710 ESPN Radio on Friday, said he first learned that Mike Brown had been hired as the Lakers coach during a television interview with Brown on ESPN at halftime of Game 5 of the Western Conference finals.

“I wasn’t really told anything,” said Shaw, who had the public backing of players Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher, among others, to take over for Jackson. “Unfortunately, I found about not getting the job and who was hired for the job on ESPN. I didn’t really talk to anyone for about three weeks after that.”

Just this week, Shaw was hired by the Indiana Pacers to be their associate head coach. He will work alongside Pacers coach Frank Vogel, a man he knows from their days on the Lakers staff together during the 2005-06 season.

Well, it’s good to see Shaw land on his feet, but…ouch. The Laker organization seems to be transforming under showrunner Jim Buss. Given the role he played in back-to-back championships, it seems like the franchise could at the very least notify Shaw of the decision before the news broke on ESPN.

Stay classy, L.A.

Kobe has a few nice moments in the quarter, but the best thing about the video is the energy of the crowd when they realize that he’s going to play.

Kobe Bryant decides to play in the exhibition game between UAAP-NCAA All-Stars vs. Smart Gilas Philippines ; 8-minute quarter.

Roland Lazenby of HoopsHype says that with Jim Buss’ emergence in basketball operations, Andrew Bynum is the centerpiece of the Laker franchise.

Fans will discover they’re witnessing the new Lakers, the ones run by Jim Buss and built to cater in every facet to seven-footer Andrew Bynum, a nice enough 23-year-old kid with a dubious medical past and an even more suspect future.

Yes, aging star Kobe Bryant will still be a part of the equation, but he was put on notice over the summer when Jim Buss hired new coach Mike Brown without so much as a brief discussion with Bryant.

The message is clear: Brown is Bynum’s coach, and the team belongs to the young center as well.

Why did the Lakers hire Brown?

As for offense, Bynum has long made noise that he wants to be more of a priority. Brown was hired after touting his experience as an assistant coach with San Antonio’s big guns team that featured Tim Duncan on offense.

Bryant said little publicly after Brown’s hiring, but he did make it clear that he and Pau Gasol would remain the first two options in the Lakers offense.

Bynum “will have to fall in line,” Bryant has been quoted as saying.

There is trouble brewing in L.A. if the younger Buss wants to feature Bynum over Bryant and Gasol. Kobe does not look like he’s prepared to go quietly into the dark night, and the Lakers will be his team as long as he’s putting on the jersey.

But it appears that instead of trading Bynum for another piece to the championship puzzle, the Lakers are going to build around him. This would be fine if he didn’t have a long, troublesome history of injury, but he does. Can a franchise really depend on those knees?

Worst case scenario is that the Lakers hold onto Bynum and he has more knee trouble after Kobe and Gasol’s age drastically impacts their productivity. The Lakers could be in for some lean years, especially if they recommit to Bynum after his contract expires. But the Lakers are one of the league’s two marquee franchises (along with the Knicks), so it shouldn’t be too difficult to reload, assuming the new salary cap rules allow it.

Even before the final buzzer sounded in the Mavs’ Game 4 sweep, fans and pundits alike were talking about what the Lakers do now that their quest for a three-peat is over.

We (think we) know this: Phil Jackson won’t be coaching the Lakers next season.

The first step is to find a coach that meets Kobe Bryant’s approval, because he’s still the centerpiece of the franchise. Brian Shaw’s name has been mentioned, but I’m sure there will be other candidates.

Magic Johnson suggested recently that the team would need to be “blown up,” and said that Kobe is the only untouchable player on the roster. So the Lakers could trade Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol or Lamar Odom, or some combination of the three. Someone might also be interested in Steve Blake and/or Shannon Brown, but that’s about it in terms of trade chips.

Below is the payroll situation for the Lakers, which I downloaded from ShamSports, a great site that is always on top of the financials for every NBA franchise.

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Short answer: No. But they’re on life support.

With Game 1 already in the bag, the Mavericks had very little to lose on Wednesday night. Boosted by the Lakers’ dreadful three-point shooting (2-for-20, 10%), and some nifty play from J.J. Barea (12 points, four assists in 17 minutes), Dallas is leaving L.A. with a 2-0 lead on the defending champs.

Barea’s line does not tell the whole story. In the first nine minutes of the fourth quarter, he had six points and two assists, but literally took over the game offensively for the Mavs. None of the Laker guards (Derek Fisher, Steve Blake or Shannon Brown) could stay with him on the countless ball screens that the Mavs ran during that span. He got into the lane at will and either made the runner/layup or found the open man for the easy attempt. What’s worse — the Lakers couldn’t punish him on the other end of the court because none of those aforementioned guards is a capable post player.

Of course, the Mavs wouldn’t be up 2-0 without Dirk Nowitzki. He scored 24 points on 9-of-16 shooting and hit a series of awkward shots, including a three-point play from 18-feet with 2:50 to play to give Dallas a 13-point lead.

But back to the Lakers, who looked completely out of sorts on Wednesday night. As far as I can tell, they have three major issues in this series:

1. Guard play
Steve Blake (0-5 3PT, two turnovers) was dreadful Wednesday night. He missed all of his shots and had two crucial turnovers in the fourth quarter that enabled the Mavs to expand their lead. Derek Fisher (2-for-7, four points) and Shannon Brown (3-for-4, six points) didn’t do much either. Most importantly, none of these guys could stop J.J. Barea’s game-changing penetration in the fourth quarter.

2. Overconfidence
For years, the Lakers have been able to “turn it on” at will. At the end of the third quarter, Steve Kerr said that he overheard Lamar Odom talking to someone in the crowd about how the Lakers would win the game (at that point L.A. was down six) and then he proceeds to go 1-for-6 in the final period. Kobe did his best to carry his team, but he’s not capable of single-handedly outscoring the Mavs anymore, especially when they’re hitting their shots.

3. Three-point shooting
The Lakers went 2-for-20 from long range and the first make wasn’t until the 2:43 mark in the fourth quarter. In Game 1, they went 5-for-19 (26%), which is better, but that’s not saying much. They’re going to have to start knocking down some shots to draw the Mavs’ defense out of the lane. Right now Dallas is simply crowding the Laker bigs inside. Andrew Bynum (8-for-11, 18 points) doesn’t seem to mind, but Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom are having trouble putting the ball in the basket.

Let’s not forget that these are the champs and they are perfectly capable of winning two games on the road to even up this series. In fact, it might do this team some good to get away from an unsupportive Laker crowd which is clearly too spoiled to realize that its team desperately needs its support. Instead, Laker fans are booing Pau Gasol, who was instrumental in the last two championships. That behavior is befuddling considering what he has meant to the organization over the last three years.

Game 3 is in Dallas on Friday night. Obviously, this is a ‘must-win’ for L.A., but the Mavs would do well to treat it as a Game 7. There is blood in the water and the last thing Dallas needs to do is give this Laker team some confidence.