Inside the steal, er, deal of the year

So much for the notions that:

* Jerry Buss is saving for the estate tax bill his kids will face and won’t spend money anymore.

* Mitch Kupchak is a stiff.

* Kwame Brown never did anything for the Lakers.

* Minnesota Vice President Kevin McHale pulled off the worst trade of all time.

A lot of misconceptions went up in smoke in the time it took to announce the Lakers had acquired Pau Gasol for Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie and draft picks.

Or, in other words . . . who?

That’s two contracts, two picks in the 20s and one of the Lakers’ two promising young reserve point guards.

In comparison, the package McHale took for Kevin Garnett, which included Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes and a reviving Sebastian Telfair, looks like an All-Star team.

Of course, McHale was sending Garnett to his old team, the Celtics.

Memphis owner Michael Heisley, whose payroll-slashing mandate led to this “deal,” has no Laker connection but can have Buss’ suite when he visits from now on.

It must be a new day if everyone is giving their All-Star players to the Lakers and Celtics, but as Commissioner David Stern would say, “Mazel tov!”

“I think that the addition of Gasol makes the Lakers the most talented team in the NBA,” said ESPN’s level-headed Jeff Van Gundy.

“I think they could have fallen in the standings without Andrew Bynum and have been a sixth, seventh or eighth seed [or] possibly fallen into the lottery. . . .

“When Bynum comes back they have the most versatile front line in the NBA and the best closer in the game in Kobe Bryant.”

In 28 NBA cities, there’s reluctant admiration and/or consternation as the great preening purple-and-gold darling-of-La-La Land arises once more.

There’s utter dismay in Chicago, where Bulls fans were finally over not getting Bryant and focused on something doable, like Gasol.

As a Chicago Tribune headline put it:

Joke of a Deal . . . to Bulls

Gasol trade’s laughable terms make Bryant, the Lakers and the NBA happy

“Before the season, Bulls players indicated they were distracted by trade talk involving Bryant,” wrote the Tribune’s Sam Smith.

“Now that there’s unlikely to be any movement, will they play better?”

Scratch one rising power in the East. If you want to know what time it is in Chicago, blizzard or no blizzard, it’s baseball season!

Of course, being in the business of explaining everything, this is because . . . because . . .

Uh, stuff happens?

It’s actually because of the difficulty of moving big contracts in the salary cap era, which becomes even more difficult the longer a team puts it off.

Amazingly, the Lakers faced that very dilemma four months ago when Buss said he “would certainly listen” to offers for Bryant . . . who then proceeded to send his agent out to solicit some . . . which turned out to be laughable.

Laughable is the name of the game when teams put stars on the market, since everyone knows they wouldn’t do it unless there was a big problem.

The natural inclination is to recoil at the lowball offers . . . after which the star gets closer to the end of his contract and his value drops even more.

Nor are there any secrets.

Minnesota drew the process out for years, giving us more chances to write about it, until even we were getting tired of it.

A child could have figured out the Timberwolves’ dilemma (which is why we were all over this one).

Garnett was increasingly frustrated, venting periodically, although he remained true blue, or forest green, to the end.

The team got worse annually.

His contract was running out in 2009.

He wanted an extension.

Conclusion: Duh.

Finally realizing he was at an impasse, Minnesota owner Glen Taylor decided not to give KG $20 million a year to finish No. 12 with nobodies and it was time for action!

For his part, Heisley thought he had his team sold last season but his buyer, the Christian Laettner-Brian Davis group, turned out to be more like a comedy act.

With Heisley determined to slash costs, the long-anticipated deal for Gasol, his highest-paid player at $13.7 million although he was midway between a franchise player and a No. 2 option, was a foregone conclusion.

Lakers fans’ jubilation notwithstanding, their team will have transition issues with a front line that goes 7-0, 7-0 and 6-11, and Bynum out until March.

So they’re not a lock and may not even be a favorite in the playoffs against all the battle-tested West teams that have been together for years . . . this season.

The really good news for the Lakers was already unfolding. If Bynum keeps improving, as he has, and Bryant comes back to them, as he is, they’re back.

Last week Bryant called Bynum “the player I prayed for” but this deal seemed to remove the last doubt from Kobe’s mind.

In what amounted to a blanket apology for last summer’s week-long barrage, Bryant said, “It shows a level of commitment that I questioned over the summer. I have to take my hat off to Buss and Mitch. . . . Now it’s on us.”

That’s us, as in if they can’t do it this season, he thinks they can next season, not to mention the ones after that.

As Stern might say, “Don’t ever leave me again.”

mark.heisler@latimes.com