I’ve been away. I may have mentioned that.

The last time I was at Staples Center probably was 2009.  Games 1 and 2 of the NBA Finals.

The Nokia Theater was complete, before the jump to Abu Dhabi later that year. But I don’t remember much of anything around it. Most of the rest of the entertainment complex known as L.A. Live was not there. Pretty sure.

Also, the last time I was at Staples … the Lakers were an elite basketball team.

You can imagine my confusion.

In 2014, L.A. Live appears to be a huge, glowing success and the Lakers are a big, depressing failure.

Saw it first-hand tonight.

Did this from the fan perspective. Paid for tickets, and all. (How do all y’all do that? Pay $100-plus to watch a regular-season game?)

We arrived early enough, and found Lot C, and went straight to the bright lights of L.A. Live.

It was jumpin’. People everywhere. And maybe it wasn’t just because the Lakers were going to play an hour later.

We walked past a pizza shop crawling with people. Line out the door. We walked in the Wolfgang Puck place, were told it was a 40-minute wait to sit, and that was not going to work. We saw the skating rink, with the giant Christmas tree in the middle.

We were beginning to wonder if dinner would happen, in that shiny new retail sprawl, when Leah had an idea. Or a memory.

The Wolfgang Puck place in the 54-story Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

How she knew about it, I have no idea. It’s not like it has any noticeable signage on the outside.

You walk into the hotel lobby, cross over to the other side, get one of the concierge crew to give directions, take a left into a hall, then a right into another hall, a turn past maybe a secondary lobby, another right to the bank of elevators — and press the button for the 24th floor.

Which is where the WP24 is located.

It has a Chinese-themed menu and a great view of downtown Los Angeles, looking north, and we were able to get an unobstructed view. It is impressive enough just to look at for a while, almost not paying attention to the resto.

We had four appetizers, a drink apiece, decided it was classy and well-run, and it was time to get to the event across the street.

Leah went off to see Horrible Bosses II and Marvin and I crossed the street for the Lakers game with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

We sat in the first row directly over the tunnel that leads to the press room. I saw a few reporters I recognized. But not like the old days (of, maybe, six years ago). Instead of reporters from 10 publications, it was maybe three or four. Empty space in the primary press area.

And the Lakers. I confess I had seen only two or three of them play. Kobe Bryant, of course. Carlos Boozer. Nick Young. That’s it.

The Wolves were almost utterly foreign to me. Mo Williams. Chase Budinger. Thaddeus Young, I must have seen play.

Two guys I was particularly interested in seeing were point guards Jeremy Lin and Ricky Rubio, but Rubio was out with an injury and Mo Williams started in his place, and off we went.

The Lakers led throughout. This was a team they ought to beat. Rubio out, young guys, on the road, 3-9 record.

But the Lakers could never shake them, for a couple of reasons.

–The 36-year-old Kobe cannot be bothered to cover anyone. In the first half, his man was quite alone, well past the three-point arc. Several easy baskets ensued. A rabid fan to our right shouted, “That’s your man, Kobe!” Still, every time he went to the line, a few delusionary fans chanted, “MVP!” He did make a reverse jam on a breakaway, which is impressive for a 36YO man with a stitched up Achilles, but …

–The second reason was Lin’s inability to cover anyone. He did some interesting things on offense; showed some ingenuity getting to the basket. He had trouble from three (2-for-7). But he had real trouble on defense. Zach LaVine, the rookie from UCLA, destroyed him. The kid had 28, most of it with Lin trying to keep up. Lin also checked Mo a bit, and the former Cavalier scored 25.

The game was chaotic. Neither side executed well. Points game easily. Too easily. The Lakers shot 53.9 percent; the Wolves shot 57 percent.

With about two minutes left came a madcap spell of the ball richocheting from one end to the other. Missed shot, offensive rebound, missed shot, bad pass, everyone back the other way, loose ball, other way … and in the middle of it I remember thinking, “Whoever gets the basket out of this is going to win …”  It ended with Mo Williams making a layup to tie.

Kobe missed a pair of free throws seconds later (crushing) but made a high-degree-of-difficulty jumper from eight feet to tie with five seconds left. Flip Saunders timeout. Thaddeus Young backed down Nick Young, shot and missed but got a sketchy foul call. Missed the first, made the second, with 2.8 seconds left.

I thought they should run Kobe as a decoy and let Nick Young have the last shot. He had scored 11 points in the quarter and was feelin’ it. But it went to Kobe, of course. He caught it behind the arc, straight out from the basket, and got a decent look, but it was long and a bit left as the horn sounded, and it ended with the Wolves winning 120-119.

It was the kind of game a bad team loses, and the Lakers were that team. It dropped them to last in the Western Conference standings, at 3-13 to Minny’s 4-10.

Thing is, the Wolves will get Rubio back, and a couple of other hurt guys, but these Lakers are the Lakers, with no reinforcements on the way, and they are interesting to watch, in the sense of watching a train wreck, but they are not good. At all.

But there always is L.A. Live, across the street.