I saw this on FakeGM forum, where it says Lakers might go after Ron Ron with their MLE this off season. If they do get him, then this league is ****ing rigged. They get Ron and Gasol for like peanuts.
The lakers were one of the top teams in the west before the Gasol trade. Had Bynum stayed healthy then they would have not needed to make the trade and would have been fine with Bynum. Since when is Gasol this great superstar player??? He's a solid fit for them, but people act like the lakers would be awful without him - it is their way of taking credit away from the MVP! Kobe carries this team - Gasol is merely a role player.
Bynum can't score or pass like gasol, and the lakers are not a good defensive team. I think gasol is much better fit than bynum.
yeh a role player that can get you 20 and 10, and even bust out for the occasional 30+ points in a playoff game.
Uh yeah, and the Rockets would have won the championship IF Yao had stayed healthy. But he didn't. So talking about the Lakers IF Bynum hadn't gone down makes no sense at all. They picked up Pau after his injury and that rescued their season. Simple as that! Who said Gasol was "this great superstar player"? Nobody. But he has been the major difference-maker in the Lakers season. Without him, Kobe has to carry the world on his shoulders for the 2nd half of the season (which he wouldn't have done) and Odom would have continued to struggle as a 2nd fiddle (which he isn't good at). Pau took a tremendous amount of pressure off both guys. Without him, I don't think the Lakers make the playoffs. I agree Bynum was coming into his own. I've been a big cheerleader for him the last 2 seasons. Without a good inside post player like Pau or Bynum, the Lakers are dead in the watter. Without Bynum's injury, Pau wouldn't have been a season-saver for the Lakers. Consider this: What if Pau had been given to the Rockets instead of the Lakers? IMO, we would be right where they are now: Hosting the Western Conference Finals.
New Orleans blew their chances... To me this WCF series should be the NBA Finals. These two clubs have combined for 6 of the last 8 titles. I wonder if there will be an Horry hit on the MVP? Who gets the calls wins.
I wonder if David Stern will advise the refs to call the games very tightly against the Spurs and Pistons. The league can't afford another Finals matchup with those two teams. Hell, it can't afford the Spurs in Finals period.
That was the best final for the past decade at least! Seven games; overtime; Horry's miracles; Manu playing out of his mind - Detroit's starting 5 NEVER quitting. You liked watching the Lakers dismantle the Nets or the Sixers? You liked watching the Cavs get rolled? Lakers Detroit was no ballet! Ugh indeed.
good post. don't understand where people got the concept from that a spurs-pistons finals will be boring. media bias?
Spurs vs Pistons finals will be a rating nightmare, actually any finals with Spurs in it is a nightmare for TV rating. If this case indeed happens, I will defnitely skip the entire Finals.
Game 5 of the '05 Finals was a classic, no doubt. But the first 4 games were all blowouts, Game 6 was controlled by the Pistons, and Game 7 had the Spurs running away with it in the 4th quarter. The other reason the Spurs are a ratings nightmare is because they're BORING!!! Even the Nets series in '03 that went 6 games was borderline unwatchable.
for the last 10 years or so, lakers' opponents when they're 3-peating indy philly nj spurs' opponents of their 4 titles ny nj detroit cleveland with the lakers-detroit and mavs-heat finals in b/w. now tell me why only those involving spurs are different and "boring". the ratings were low because the media bias led people to think it would be boring. same goes to, for example, a shaq-td comparison. td's style is considered by many - "boring". now how's shaq different and less "boring"? all shaq did in his hey days was to bulldoze opponents (often getting away with a foul) for a dunk (and occasionally a hook) and then to miss ft's while cursing. someone please tell me, too, that the style of the current celtics is indeed - entertaining?
at this point spurs all the way man. i hope they drill the lakers into submission with horry hitting another top of the arc 3 to win a game at the buzzer at staples. I wonder if they will be chanting his name in the same way they did 6 years ago.
Why anyone in the world besides a select few in the NBA offices worry or care about television ratings is beyond me.
Because it is more fun to watch a series that other people are watching than to watch one that most people are apathetic about.
More power to you, I suppose. I could care less whether I'm one of 100 million people watching or if I'm one of only five watching -- whether I enjoy it is dependent on the teams and quality of basketball on the floor.