Blog Posts For Tag: Lakers

I like everyone else was excited by the possibility of watching the Los Angeles Lakers and the Cleveland Cavaliers play in the NBA Finals. I relished the thought of watching LeBron James and Kobe Bryant do battle, I wanted to believe that this would be the passing of the torch from one MVP to another, and I wanted to see two players who were unstoppable defile the other team at will as the competitive stakes were raised. That reality is no more, the series will remain a hypothetical one, but I have just glimpsed into the future and seen something far more interesting, the transformation of the gentle giant into the beast whose hunger will devour all in his path.

I am very excited to watch the Los Angeles Lakers and the Cleveland Cavaliers play in the NBA Finals. I want to watch Kobe and LeBron do battle. I want to see if this is the season James is able to bring home a championship to the much maligned Cleveland sports scene or if Kobe is able to prove that he could win a title in tinsel town without the Big Diesel. The only problem is that I have to wait for two months of meaningless prologue to dispense before I get to see the seven game series.

Teams like the Cleveland Cavaliers are having terrific seasons. The Boston Celtics, second in the Eastern Conference, have clinched a place in the playoffs and the Los Angeles Lakers are blowing away the competition despite the now annual Andrew Bynum late season injury. About this time fans can choose to focus on the playoffs or the lottery, and this year everyone would rather be focusing on the playoffs.

The class is just not that great this year. Only one player, Blake Griffin is considered a sure thing, and only two others are considered worth exploring. These two are Greg Monroe, a freshman power forward from Georgetown, and Rick Rubio, a young guard playing in Spain.

The NBA is in trouble. It looks more and more like a lockout will ruin any progress the NBA has made to win back fans that they alienated the last time the league went into lockout mode in 1998. Fans lost 928 games, the league lost all of the goodwil Michael Jordan helped secure, and players lost of $500 million dollars. In 2011, after the collective bargainings talks fail and this strike inevitably happens, I think fans should intervene as the owners rape the players association and demand some changes.

Not much happened this time around at the trade deadline as the league has moved on from the Boston Celtics title run in 2008 and has moved onto the practice of making trades in the hopes of acquiring expiring contracts and not talent.

Holy Freakin’ Basketball Jebus!!! LeBron James went for 52 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds on Wednesday night in a 107-102 win for the Cleveland Cavaliers over the New York Knicks. He had the most points in a triple double since the days when men’s athletic shorts ended just below the balls and when the circus act known as the ABA merged with the NBA. He proved again that he might be the greatest single force in the league and possibly professional basketball history.

They have not chosen the reserves yet and the Eastern Conference has no coach, but the starters have been chosen and speculation over the NBA All Star Game on February 15, 2009 has already begun.

Christmas has to be David Stern’s favorite holiday. Baseball only has its fanatical fans counting down the days until pitchers and catchers report to their Florida or Arizona home (40 days). Football does not have any bowl games and the NFL does not dominate with a useless Detroit Lions game (their biggest game of the season is this Sunday, let’s here it, hell no 16 losses in a row).

I have come to the conclusion that no matter what Donnie Walsh and Mike D’Antoni do this season for the New York Knicks, the mere existence of Stephon Marbury will confound them this season.

Yesterday I rambled on about the return of the NBA and the emerging talents and up and coming teams in the Eastern Conference. Today I am going to try and drill it into sports fans heads again, basketball is worth watching. Not March Madness basketball with a few hundred players under the age of 22 who will never see a professional court in their lifetime. No, real-life NBA basketball in the post-Jordan (Bulls era please) is again well worth everyone’s attention.

As the first quarter of the NBA season approaches I am shocked by how little I apparently understand about professional basketball. I was sure there was simply too much talent, length, and ego in the Lakers front court for the team to run a cohesive offense. At 14-1, Los Angeles has completely made me disregard my prediction. I though I was being intelligent. I looked at the roster, looked at the names, and saw the heights. I over thought it and I was wrong.

The Los Angeles Lakers may be overwhelming favorites in Hollywood to repeat as Western Conference champions, but the Western Conference is so deep that to say anyone is an outright favorite is foolish. There is another problem too. That problem is height.

The Lakers are too tall. The court at the Staples Center is the same around the league and people who get excited about having Lamar Odom, Andrew Bynum, and Pau Gasol starting in the front court forget that they have to fit on the court. One of the basic principles of an offense is spacing. When the front court has two 7 footers and one guy who is 6 foot 10 the issue of court space becomes apparent.

If you still have a problem imagining why this situation would be a problem, just think about trying to play 5 on 5 basketball on a driveway when you were in high school. The game gets clunky because nobody can move and rebounds end becoming excuses to beat each other up.

The Lakers have a few options. They could put Odom on the bench or they could trade Odom. Gasol was never a center and his deficiencies were exposed no matter how many points he put up. Bynum is thus the only option to start. Odom may not be so keen to accept to a relegation to the bench to start the game though. The Lakers could probably swing some sort of a deal that could benefit both sides with Odom’s expiring contract and all around talent.
 

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