Brown to ease his way back in

Now that Kwame Brown is back, who will be the Lakers’ starting center down the stretch?

Don’t look to Coach Phil Jackson for an answer. Even he isn’t sure.

“I’m going to play with that a little bit,” he said.

Brown is a better defensive presence as far as muscling opposing centers and playing sharper screen-and-roll defense. Andrew Bynum has better shot-blocking ability and a more dependable offensive game.

It eventually will come down to team-by-team matchups, Jackson said, although Brown wouldn’t mind easing into things a bit.

“That’s what I’m hoping, that my body will get used to the pounding again and I can stop being a spectator and get out there and play,” he said. “Right now I wouldn’t be able to start.”

Soon, though, he might get his old job back. He had started 17 games before suffering a severely sprained ankle Dec. 31.

“Everybody’s done a great job, even Andrew for being such a young guy to hold the fort down like he has,” Brown said. “Hopefully I can come in and just pick up where I left off. I know how to play and seal up that paint a little bit.”

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Not long ago, Aaron McKie looked around the locker room, saw a glut of young Lakers guards, and glumly summed up his tenuous spot on the Lakers’ roster.

“The fat lady is warming up her pipes,” he said back in October.

There was a chance he would be waived before the season opener to make room for J.R. Pinnock or Devin Green, and he was again a candidate to be waived when the Lakers tried to sign Chris Webber in January.

But McKie has been the first guard off the Lakers’ bench the last two games.

It’s that time of the year for Jackson, who craves veteran leadership and has put McKie, 34, and Shammond Williams, 31, into the rotation ahead of Jordan Farmar, 20, and Sasha Vujacic, 22. McKie had played only five minutes all season and was surprised the call finally came.

“When you get this late in the season, you’ve pretty much got your lineup set,” McKie said. “Out of luck or chance or circumstance, whatever you want to call it, I’m getting an opportunity to play.”

McKie has never been much of a scorer although Jackson isn’t necessarily looking for offense from him.

“Aaron has a reputation as a defensive stop guy,” he said. “We’ve been kind of waiting to see if he’s capable of coming back and filling that role that we had hoped he’d fill last year.”

McKie signed a two-year, $5-million deal with the Lakers after being waived by Philadelphia in August 2005.

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mike.bresnahan@latimes.com