EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had every reason to be pleased after Thursday's noon PT trade deadline.

He pulled off the rare trifecta of shedding payroll while making his team younger and more talented at the same time through two deadline deals. But it was hard for Kupchak to look to the future without expressing a twinge of remorse over trading away a player who has been such an important part of the franchise's past.

The Lakers got the young point guard in Ramon Sessions they've been searching for since the eve of training camp when the Chris Paul trade fell through. But before L.A. could say hello to Sessions, it had to say goodbye to Derek Fisher.

The Lakers first traded Jason Kapono, Luke Walton and their 2012 first-round pick to Cleveland in exchange for Sessions and forward Christian Eyenga on Thursday. In a subsequent deal, they sent Fisher and the first-round pick acquired from Dallas in the Lamar Odom trade to Houston for center Jordan Hill.

While Sessions, 25, is much younger than the 37-year-old Fisher and undoubtedly in a better position to help the team moving forward, Kupchak admitted that trading away Fisher, the team's co-captain who was drafted by the franchise in 1996 and went on to win five championships with the Lakers, left him with reservations.

"I'm concerned, yes," Kupchak said in a news conference Thursday afternoon. "I'm not sure that it will translate into a team that performs any less ... but, you can't underestimate Derek's contribution from a chemistry point of view and on the court that he's given to this organization. It can't be underestimated, and you can't say that this team is going to wake up tomorrow and play as if he was never here."

Kupchak said that once the Lakers had a deal in place to obtain Sessions, whom the GM admitted the team has coveted since last season, he pursued the Houston trade to unload Fisher because it would not make sense -- rosterwise or financially -- to have four point guards with Sessions, Fisher, Steve Blake and rookie Darius Morris.

Kupchak said a consideration also was made regarding how awkward a potential transition would have been to keep Fisher and have him accept a supporting role behind Sessions after Fisher's years of starting.

"I know he would have been professional," Kupchak said. "Personally, I think it would have been a tough position to put a player like him in ... It's just hard to do."

Kupchak characterized the trades as "something that we did as an organization, trying to get younger and more athletic."

The Lakers informed Fisher of the trade through his representatives, and Kupchak said he has not spoken to the 16-year veteran directly yet. He also said he did not give Fisher a "heads up" that the trade was coming, but thought Fisher may have "caught wind of the rumor" several days ago.

"As you might imagine, this is pretty emotional for him today," Kupchak said. "We'll talk at the right time."