"This thinking"? You brought up someone averaging 30 ppg. I was just addressing your false point. In a perfect world, Kobe would take less shots and average about 22 ppg while Nash acted more as a distributor to Pau & Howard. But since he's concerned about the scoring title, that won't happen. Earl Clark, Jodie Meeks & Antawn Jamison have no business in anyone's rotation. If Clark keeps up the production, take him off that list. Odom, Barnes, Butler and Green are veterans who have been around the block and still have some juice left. Even more importantly, they have the third best player in the NBA at PG, CP3. You conveniently don't mention that. And, no, Nash ain't CP3. Not even close. Bottom line: Kobe is a player whose flaws hurt his team a lot. There are a truckload of negatives. But his positives are a truckload and a half. You vastly overestimate the offensive firepower of the other Lakers players.
Stupid Dwight, he cost them the game. Gasol increased his trade value and Earl Clarke playing solid of late. Kobe took a ridiculous amount of shots.
More from the LA Times. Let the good times roll! http://www.latimes.com/sports/laker...-place-team-20130120,0,329248.story?track=rss Lakers paying almost $130 million for 12th-place team By Eric Pincus January 20, 2013, 6:42 p.m. As detailed by HOOPSWORLD.com, the Lakers currently have $99,893,231 in payroll this season. With a record of 17-22 (12th place in the Western Conference), the Lakers will pay $29,586,231 in luxury taxes. All told, the Lakers' $129,479,462 payroll is easily the highest in the league. No other team is at $100 million. The Miami Heat is just under the $97-million mark (including tax), but they're coming off an NBA championship. The Lakers pay three players (Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol) a total of $66.4 million, more than 15 teams pay for their entire rosters. Next season, the Lakers have "just" $68.1 million in payroll, but if the team re-signs Howard at $20.5 million, that number jumps quickly to $88.6 million. That's based on six players under contract; the payroll would still need to climb with the salary of at least seven more players. Complicating matters, the league institutes a "graduated tax" next season. A $100-million payroll would trigger in the neighborhood of $73 million in taxes for a total of $173 million. The Lakers are at nearly $130 million and they're not a playoff team. Are they going to be appreciably better next year at $173 million?
This is where you are wrong. Odom, Barnes, Butler, and Green are serviceable NBA players, nothing more, and the same can be said of Clark, Meeks, Jamison, and Hill (when healthy). Now the Clippers also have Bledsoe and Crawford so their bench is obviously superior, but the Lakers have a more talented starting five to offset that. Yet the Clippers are a far more productive team than the Lakers. The reason is not talent, but chemistry. And a big part of chemistry is simply sharing the ball and making every player feel like he's a part of the team. Kobe-led teams don't work this way because Kobe takes 3x as many shots as the next guy. I'm glad you brought up CP3. Most people would argue that Kobe is individually on par with CP3 (maybe a bit worse, maybe a bit better). Certainly his stats are better. But if you were to swap Kobe and CP3, even though you'd now have two PGs and no SGs on the Lakers, the Lakers would be soooo much better. Part of that is that CP3 would be getting the other Lakers the ball, but the other part is the addition by subtraction by immediately taking out the guy who is stunting the Laker offense by forcing it to be perimeter oriented. In fact, if you were to just add CP3 to the Lakers but keep Kobe, they wouldn't even improve that much because there is still only one basketball. Nash is not as good as CP3 but he's not nearly as bad as people are making him out to be either. He is just a guy who needs to run the offense and that is never going to happen as long as Kobe is on the team. Nash has taken teams far worse than the Lakers to much better records. If you look at what he had in 2006, it was basically Marion and a bunch of journeymen (guys like Bell, Diaw, Barbosa, Thomas) and he took them to the Pacific division crown and the WCF (beating Kobe's Lakers along the way BTW). There's no reason to think Nash couldn't do a lot better with the current team but he just can't play his game as long as Kobe needs his shots.
At this point, almost anybody playin wit current kobe on current lakers will be made useless no matter how good they is, they could sign prime jordan right now and kobe wouldnt give him da ball. Kobe be sick in da head
I give up. If you want to believe the Lakers would be better off without Kobe, enjoy swimming in delusion. You don't dislike him any more than I do. The difference is your feelings have thrown your reasoning off a cliff. The combination of a being old, injured, having no depth and a radical in-season coaching change to the wrong guy have skewered the Lakers. Kobe is a part of the problem, but the Lakers would be a toothless tiger without him.
I just don't see why it's so hard to believe that a team with a top-notch distriubutor, the best rebounder/defender in the NBA, a versatile post-bigman, and a bunch of serviceable role-players couldn't be at least .500, especially when each of those pieces has done more with less on other teams. The only reason this can't work is chemistry, and a big part of chemistry is when players are forced into roles they aren't comfortable with because they have to accommodate a shot-jacking diva.
clippy, I'll waste one more post: Lakers will get it going and start winning. It's just a matter of time. Probably end up 7th or 8th, no higher. I have to believe D'Antoni and Pau will kiss and make up at some point. Otherwise they should give Pau away for a PF who likes to shoot from the perimeter. The riddle of playing Pau & Dwight together and both being productive on a regular basis may not be solvable. Maybe D'Antoni isn't at fault because Dwight's offensive skillset just doesn't allow room for another big man to operate. Oh, I forgot: It's actually Kobe's fault.
D'Antoni is running a terrible system for the personnel, but part of the problem is that he is handcuffed by having a ball-dominant SG in an offense that's designed for a ball-dominant PG (since there's no way Kobe is going to sacrifice his numbers for the team). There's no reason that Dwight & Pau can't work together since Bynum & Pau did just fine. The key is making sure that the offense is initiated through them, as it was in the triangle or would be if Nash was truly leading the team. Pau is a fantastic passer for a bigman and if he touched the ball more, the offense would run much more smoothly since he could kick out, lob to Dwight, or score on a variety of post moves. But when you watch the games, he's basically an afterthough and way too many possessions end with Kobe jacking up a shot for 20+ feet. The Lakers may sneak into the playoffs but it's only because all of the teams in the 6-12 range are struggling. All of these teams ill get killed by any of the top three seeds.
cmon minny has also a lot of injuries nevermind they have a better score than lakers... even with half of their stars they should be top 4 team in wc ON PAPER... if you took kobe they would have +10 wins...baskteball is a team game.period.
wouldnt a rudy gay trade to LA make sense for them? if they could pawn gasol off to someone who had something the grizzlies wanted, they could get away with playing mwp and gay at the forward spots at times. His length and athleticism could really help them, i cant really think of a better fit for him out there on the trade market.
No, they need 3pt shooters to spread the floor, and only one ball dominant guy (D'antoni wants it to be Nash b/c he is their playmaker). If you add Gay into the mix, those 3 are ball dominant guys (Gay, Kobe, Nash). And Gay isn't a great 3pt shooter. I think they're stuck with this team for this year, and most likely next. What D'antoni and Kobe need to do is they both have to be flexible. D'antoni needs to throw away his stupid system and adjust to his players. That's what great coaches do. And Kobe needs to lessen his shots and become more of a playmaker/defender. It's really that simple. There's no magic wand here. They are all great players, but they just need to make sacrifices individually for the sake of the team (like other super-teams). While Nash/Pau/Howard have made offensive sacrifices (and struggle while doing so), but Kobe hasn't one bit (and that's why the others are struggling offensively). Everyone has to be in tune on the sacrifices.
Even an 8th seed would take a monumental run. After 40 games 17-23, with 42 games left? There are already 3 teams in the west with 30+ wins, there's 3 more with 25+ wins at the half way point. This Team is not going 30-12 from hear on out.
it's quite simple, actually. they are three games out of the 8th seed. last week they were 4.5 games out of the 8th seed. Wolves, Rockets, Blazers all went on 5+ losing streaks. there is no X number of wins to get into the playoffs. it's going to be less than 47
41-41 (24-18 from now on) probably gets the Lakers 8th seed, which is what they are competing for. Nothing monumental about that. Forget the top 6.
