Well, this is good news for the Lakers, as well as Lakers fan.

The on-again/off-again negotiations with Lamar Odom, the team’s free-agent forward, apparently are over, and he will stay with the club in a four-year deal potentially worth $33 million — if the Lakers pick up the fourth year, worth $6 million.

This means the Lakers have a real chance to defend their NBA championship — and could become the first to do so since the Lakers’ 2000-02 “three-peat.”

Without Lamar, the Lakers might not have had enough — unless Ron Artest turns into a better player than we expect he will be.

Now, the Lakers are back to having three “bigs” — Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Odom — to go with Artest at the small-forward spot, Kobe Bryant at the shooting guard spot and Derek Fisher at the point.

With Luke Walton, Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic, Shannon Brown — and Odom — coming off the bench, the Lakers have depth and experience and lots of options. They ought to be able to withstand an injury or two (as long as it isn’t Kobe) … and still contend for the title.

Three months ahead of the 2009-10 season, these are questions I’m interested in having answered:

1. Will Kobe’s decline begin to become more apparent? He doesn’t leap like he once did; he isn’t as explosive. But he knows the game better than ever. Eventually, physical decline overwhelms intellectual growth, in the world of sports. How far off is that day, for Kobe?

2. Is Artest the spent force that some suggest he is? Bill Simmons, the espn.com columnist who knows basketball far better than anything else, believes the Lakers would have been better off keeping Trevor Ariza and passing on Artest (though Simmons criticized Ariza last season for not being able to make contested three-pointers).

Here is Simmons’ analysis of Artest: “Here’s a classic case of someone hoodwinking the American public with a 10-year pattern of bizarre behavior that eventually immunized them to all future crazy Ron Artest stories and anecdotes, such as the fact that he’s wearing No. 37 to honor Michael Jackson because it’s the same number of weeks that “Thriller” led the charts (um, what?), or his recent revelation that he had been pining to play for the Lakers for two solid years. Artest told reporters that he wandered into the Lakers’ locker room to express that desire to a showering Kobe Bryant — right after L.A.’s bitter Game 6 thrashing in Boston in the 2008 Finals, no less — adding, ‘Yeah, I walked in the shower. I’m not a homosexual or nothing like that, but Kobe had no clothes on.’

“These anecdotes just bounce off people now. Artest is a benevolent crazy. Or so we think. Being around this nuttiness every day is a little different from merely hearing about the nuttiness in secondhand anecdotes. I know for a fact he routinely broke plays on offense and is still a handful behind the scenes, and the Rockets buried every 2008-09 story that would have made this patently clear. For instance, Artest routinely walked around in his underwear in public places: the Rockets’ team bus, hotels, you name it. People around the team barely flinched after a while. Before Game 7 of the Lakers series — only the biggest game of the entire season — they finally flinched.

“Here’s what happened: Artest missed the first two team buses (the ones for players, coaches and team personnel) from Houston’s hotel to the Staples Center and barely made the third and final bus, which was reserved for business staff, sponsors and friends of the team. These stunned people watched Artest sprint to the bus right before it left, jump on and take one of the remaining seats … yes, wearing only his underwear. Owner Leslie Alexander happened to be sitting on the bus and witnessed the whole thing. And you wonder why the Houston Rockets didn’t make any effort whatsoever to bring back Artest.

“(Note: If you want to make the ‘Kobe and Phil can keep him in check much like MJ and Phil kept Rodman in check’ argument, just remember Rodman was still a world-class defender and rebounder when Chicago acquired him. Artest is neither. If anything, his athleticism is slipping and he can’t defend quick small forwards anymore. So why even risk it? Wait, why am I complaining? Thank you for screwing up your title defense, Lakers!)”

3. Will Lamar mail in more than a few games as a sort of complaint about taking a salary cut (his last contract was worth $63 million over six years) in his prime, right after he helped the Lakers win a championship? Odom is infamous for dropping horrific games into the middle of the season. Will there be more of those as he gets older and, perhaps, more bitter?

Anyway, good day for the Lakers. Bringing back Lamar Odom really was Job 1 in the offseason. It took a while, but that job finally is finished.