This could happen to anybody, right?

When the Lakers left New York on Saturday morning to travel to Toronto, Bynum missed the team flight and was forced to pay for his own travel to Canada.

Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said that Bynum would be fined — he wouldn’t disclose the amount — and that paying his own way was another way of punishment for the young center.

Jackson said Bynum placed his bags outside his hotel room in New York for the designated time for pickups, but perhaps fell back to sleep.

“His bags made it to Toronto, but he didn’t,” Jackson said, smiling. “So obviously he got up and put his bags outside the door and something happened between there and the bus, like going back to sleep again, or whatever. … He’s all right. A rookie mistake you would call it, even though he’s not a rookie. There’s a standard fine for it. He paid his own plane fare.”

I’m going to give Bynum a pass on this one, simply because something like this is one of my biggest fears.  I can’t even imagine the pit in his stomach and the “ohhhh shit!” feeling Bynum must have had when he woke up and saw the time on his alarm clock.  The worst thing to do when you need to be someplace on time is to go back to sleep for a small nap before getting up for good.

I still have dreams about sleeping in and missing exams, and I constantly dread having an appearance in court (I’m a lawyer, sorry) and sleeping through it for some reason.  It terrifies me.  So I’m not going to criticize Bynum one little bit for this one – I say everyone is entitled to a free pass just once.  If it can happen to Bynum, well…

[LA Times]