Injuryville

Mention the word “injuries” around here and the Dodgers come out of hiding to be seen in public just long enough to say, “See! That’s the only thing keeping us from trading places with the Colorado Rockies! Well, that and team chemistry, and young prospects who produce in the clutch, and veteran players who have memorized the definition of the term ‘leadership,’ and a manager who can hold it together throughout September, and a 7-0 record in October and . . . hmm, you know, it’s says here our record in our last seven October games is 1-6. We must have had a bunch of injuries back then.”

Injuries have opened some interesting doors at USC and UCLA, where the Trojans have found a new theme for this season and the Bruins have found a new routine.

At USC, the predominant storyline has gone from “Are we the greatest team in college football history?” to “How’s John David Booty coming with his Heisman speech?” to “Stanford? Sure didn’t expect that” to “John David Booty? Or Mark Sanchez? Which quarterback would you want to start with the Holiday Bowl on the line?”

At UCLA, injuries, when taken in moderation, have confounded a lot of people, especially Cal fans and Bruins fans who think they should be allowed to text-message their own plays into the huddle whenever UCLA is faced with an inconsequential fourth-and-one situation in the third quarter. Ben Olsen’s injury has given way to continued rise of the Patrick Cowan Fan Club, which has its headquarters inside the Bruins’ locker room. Cowan’s popularity is based in that he gets results -- and that whenever he joins Olsen on the injured list, the result for UCLA is a home defeat against Notre Dame.

Then there’s Lamar Odom’s injury. In no way can this be considered even a mixed development for the Lakers, who don’t have enough good players to go around Kobe Bryant. (I seem to remember hearing Bryant saying something like that, at least once, maybe twice, during the summer). Now, the Lakers’ second-best player is expected to miss the team’s opener, and maybe the next three games as well, a stretch that includes games at Phoenix and at home against Utah.

Laker options at this point include watching Bryant set up an early-season assault on 82 or more points and / or wondering how to trade the untradeable as the defeats and the discontent begin to build a very different kind of pyramid.

christine.daniels@latimes.com