Missing a lot of EASY jumpers early... but I'm fairly confident that they can get any shot they want against this Lakers defense.
It was describing the "changing of the guards of the Rockets from last year"... using the Royal changing of the guards at Buckingham. Kinda cheesy... but kinda funny as well.
Lamar Odom is such a mismatch for most NBA teams... I can't believe the Lakers brass was dumb enough to not force Kobe to stop jacking up shots over double teams, and get this guy invovled more.
I think they are afraid that Odom will become what Shaq was...a force of his own that makes Kobe uncomfortable since people won't believe it's "his" team. After what Odom did last year in Miami, it's amazing how Kobe ignores him as if he were MoTaylor or something.
Kobe should not have that much power... and frankly, what is Lakers management so afraid of? He can't leave as a FA, and it would be a PR nightmare for him if he publicly demanded a trade just because he thought Lamar Odom was becoming too much of a "force". Secretly, I think this was one of the issues that Rudy could not understand... the Lakers' front office constant kissing of Kobe's a$$.
Who needs T-Mac, we have Bobby Sura. Yao is D-ing up, Mihm tried the shake and bake and Yao applied the rope a' dope.
Well, he got "sympathy" out of all his public crying appearences... which is absurd, but that's why he got out of that pretty much unscathed (although companies refuse to come close to him right now for endorsements). He's got a lot on his plate right now on that LA team... frankly, he may eventually pull a "t-mac" and just quietly do well on a bad team, and then when the time is right... get a trade.
nice, old hubie just talked about how there was little interior D with yao out, and Deke blocks the next shot. ps sura is playing awesome out there
A positive sign- I've seen a couple plays in the first quarter that Yao used to get fouls called, where the offensive player would just jump into him. I think Yao may be finally acquiring some defensive respect from the officials. We're up 10, and not even playing particularly well by our standards. That should tell us how far we've come.
