Will the Lakers still be a championship team next year?

Next season would be 2010-2011.
Learn to list season's correctly.

Anyways, What needs to be said here? Heading into the playoffs all anyone heard was the Kobe was old. He was losing his edge. Blah. Blah. Blah. Forget that the guy played with a jacked up finger despite a stellar start to the season before that injury. Forget that he played with a hurt knee. Once he got it drained, he was back to his usual dominant self. Offseason knee maintenance and Kobe will be back to Kobe.

The added depth to the Laker bench this season may help ever so slightly to reduce the wear and tear on Kobe. One hopes that the newcomers will help the team to maintain leads and allow for a few more minutes rest per game for No. 24. Regardless, Kobe is ready for another long run and a second three-peat. He doesn't need the Three Heat for motivation. He doesn't need a last stand with Phil for motivation. Of course, none of that hurts the cause...

 

Its still a beyond foolish comparison. Jordan on the Wizards was in his 40's and coming outta retirement. Kobe's coming off hand surgery and finals MVP. U gotta be kidding

 

:grin:
Kobe must have zoned out.

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True enough, but Pau is the one they have and I don't see that changing.

 

2010-2011 = this season
2012-2012 = next season

Don't be dense.

 

Fixed

Lol....speaking of dense

 

Really you kobe sack rider?


What happened all those years before Pau Gasol arrived?

The lakers were contenders? Easily??

 

SLURP ~ SLURP ~ SLURP

 

I doubt they had enough assets to trade Shaq without losing some valuable pieces. Shaq earned 20M last year, how could they match the salary?

 

What the... why is Kobe even doing that?

I got a nice chuckle out of it, though.

 

By the way, nice word for word copy-paste of DancingBarry's post from Lakersground.net.

Gay.

http://www.google.com/m/url?client=...MQFjAB&usg=AFQjCNE1MCNCTe2qKJwXsFNNbx6pdmKFNA

 

LOL owned!

 

how do you prove that ?

As long as this core---Kobe + (Pau, Bynum, Odom, Artest)---stays intact, they will be in the Finals almost every year. with this combination, no opposition can afford to D up on the inside players nor Kobe. pick your poison

 

A Lakers with a 75% Kobe is still probably better than anyone except the Heat, Celts or Orlando. It would be a big surprise if they are not WC conference champions because there are no other elite WC teams (unless one of the two I late mention emerges).

But NBA champions, nah. It took all they had to beat Boston and a late injury to Perkins and home court was needed. Boston is better, and the Heat should be better than Boston anyway. So the Lakers as NBA champions, no. The only way I see it is by Gasol and Bynum just destroying their opponents, and I don't think they will be that much better than Boston's group or Bosh/Haslem/Z/Anthony, unless Bosh proves much weaker than we all thought and Gasol is a full notch better.

I will say I think something suffering from the Lakers is their overall athleticism. They are big, but not athletic and aging. Fisher is 36. Blake is 30 and major athletic downgrade from Farmar. Artest does not have quick feet any more. Kobe isn't as athletic as he was. Barnes and Brown are athletic, but they will be way down in the rotation players because of the jump shooting inconsistency. In terms of their primary rotation in the 1-2-3 spots, quite lacking in quickness and foot speed.

If there is a team in the West to take advantage of that, I really think it will be OKC (obvious choice) or Portland (my darkhorse, who always plays the Lakers tough, and if they can finally stay healthy). I just don't see any other WC team being able to maybe change the balance by being strong (athletic, young) in areas the Lakers are weaker.

 

The Lakers are still the favorites until or unless they get dethroned.

They had a great offseason strengthening their bench to make their second unit stronger than Minnesota's starting lineup.

Also Miami is very weak up front (Bosh=vag), the Lakers would pound them there. Nobody on the Cheat can stop Kobe either. And the Heat lack of an NBA-caliber PG could hurt their chances.


And it is quite obvious which team has the coaching edge as well.

 

WTF do you mean "how do I prove that?"

This is a freaking discussion forum. If you, me or anyone else could "prove" things before they even happen we would be insanely rich and wouldn't be wasting our time typing up things on the internetz.

 

The Cheat? How clever, if only they had actually cheated in some way.

The Lakers are one team against which the lack of a quality point guard will not at all hurt Miami. Derek Fisher is a total scrub and Blake is no better than the Miami point guards. Fisher will continue to make a name for himself by playing like crap for at least 45 minutes of every game and then occasionally hitting a big shot (that wouldn't have been necessary if he hadn't sucked all game before that) to show how "clutch" he is.

 

Don't forget the flopping and grabbing and cheap elbows and forearms, not that they aren't effective tactics for him.

I really think the Lakers made a mistake with the Farmar-Blake switch. They gain a bit of more consistent distance shooting and discipline, but loose a lot in finishing, athleticism and ability to fastbreak for easy baskets. Not to mention Farmar is 7 years younger. I won't argue Farmar is better than Blake, I think overall they are about equal--but the uptempo 2nd unit (Farmar, Brown, Odom at the 4)--isn't the change of pace it was with Blake there.

If there is a Cheat it has to be the Lakers with their sweetheart trades. One can call the Heat the Tool or Biatch, but Cheat doesn't make sense.

 

PJ has never really trusted Farmar. Their relationship never got to what it needed to be. Farmar had a 0% chance of coming back. I know Farmar wasn't very good, but I think PJ had something personal against him. Nothing to back that up; just a hunch.

 

Miami will be champs unless LBJ quits again. Even if he does, they still have plenty to get it done.