Zen And Mamba,

He said it today on ESPN Radio in his interview. The problem with the situation is that the Lakers basically don't want to be like the Milwakee Bucks when the trade Abdul Jabbar. Left with nothing.

Laker Truth,

>>>HAB, PLEASE tell me you're joking that the Spurs have comparable talent to the Lakers. You've got to be joking. You almost had me for a sec. That was a good one buddy.

No of course I am not saying Lakers have comparable talent to the Spurs.

I am saying that the Lakers have superior talent to the Spurs. Take Timmy and Kobe off their teams and what's left? (and the point is not that Timmy is better than Kobe, since Timmy was mostly a non-factor last night, although generally the best Center in the game is more valuable than the best off-guard)

You don't think Odom is worth more than either Ginobili or Parker on the open market? I think many GM's would give you both of them for LO.

Beyond Parker and Ginobili, Spurs don't really have any tradable pieces of any mention.

i would give up (and so would every gm) lamar for manu and tony

HAB,

No GM in the league would give you both Parker and Ginobili for Odom. Maybe 2 years ago (and that's a BIG MAYBE) but not today. Parker and Ginobili have both made all-star teams and have been key pieces of NBA champions (Ginobili nearly won the Finals MVP in 2005 and Parker won in 2007).

I would understand if you said the Spurs have less talent than the Suns, Mavs and Nuggets, but the Lakers? Please.

Kobe and Odom are the only guys who could start on the Spurs. Farmar, Turiaf an of course Bynum may eventually be very good players, but aren't all the way there yet. And all three are on their way to being very good players.

I heard what Phil said and I don't think there's going to be trade this season. And if there is, I don't think it happens before Dec. 15 and more likely is the trade deadline. I think we should play out the year and let the chips fall where they may. If by next year Kobe can't be convinced to stay, than I say we deal him.

Here's my note to Mr. Ted Green.

I understand what you're saying and it makes pefect sense. What doesn't make sense is that PJ already knows how to defend the Spurs offensive structure. He laid out the perfect defense over the last year and a half that allowed us to beat the Spurs during that time.

The guy literally threw away that game plan for what we saw last night. Before we starting beating the Spurs, over the last year and a half, the Lakers played the Spurs exactly like how we played them last night. We lost back then and we lost last night.

The question shouldn't be: "So I ask: Who is this defensive wizardry helping? C’mon, Phil. Like Dumbo, I’m all ears."

The question should be: Why did you abandon the game plan that has beaten the Spurs over the last year and a half? C’mon, Phil. Like Dumbo, I’m all ears.

The question remains: What are his motives?

mike

Greek Dude,

>>0 all stars for 2.

All stars are voted by fans. Fans notice players on the better teams. Put LO on the Spurs, and Parker and Ginobili on the Lakers, Spurs are still an elite team and LO is an all star, and Lakers are still mediocre and Parker and Ginobili are good role players on a mediocre team.

You don't see it, than you don't see it. Can't prove it one way or the other.

>>>i would give up (and so would every gm) lamar for manu and tony

I would give up Lamar for EITHER Manu Ginobili or Tony Parker. I'd give him up gleefully
for both of them.

the D

Since the best of the brain challenged players don't get much mic time, I'd have to go with Marbury, inspired by his "another level" interview some years back in the 1st round of the playoffs.

I get the feeling that man has stupid he hasn't even used yet... and given what we've seen lately, he may be about to unleash it on NYC.

I would give up Lamar for Duncan too

Zen-

I don't think it's an effort to be misleading. The last time I got a figure- and it's been a while- I think we were around 70K per month in unique hits. I could be off on that, though. But there isn't necessarily a correlation between hits and comments. We have a great, engaging audience on this site. Other sites might be well read, but not as heavily commented upon. So I don't think there's any effort to deceive. I would guess the total number of page views is higher.

BK

Xodus,

>>>Kobe and Odom are the only guys who could start on the Spurs.

You bring up a good point. If you combined the two rosters and had to make 1st and 2nd unit, Lakers would dominate both of them.

Timmy plays the 4, so Bynum or even friggin Kwame would start at the 5. They're both better than Oberto and Elson. Perhaps even Mihm. Kobe at the two. LO at the 3. Parker at 1.

Second unit still has a Laker at the 5, a Laker at the 1 (Farmar or Fish), Manu at the 2, Bowen or Radman or Luke at the 3. Who at the 4? Ronny? Mihm? who do the Spurs have? Bonner?

Spurs would have 2 of the 5 in each unit at most.

BK,

I agree with that but I agree with Ted Green a whole lot more. The whole design was an absolute turn around from what we've done for the last year and a half against the Spurs.

My concern remains: What are PJ's motives?

mike

Mike T,

Do you have you own blog page elsewhere? If so, what's the URL?

"All stars are voted by fans"
-HAB

No, starters are. Which manu and tony werent. Reserves are voted by the coaches. Anyways, this is a rediculous argument. No one on earth would agree with you.

btw, what does HAB stand for?

C O N...spell it with me!

Moving on to tonight's game, I think it's time to start Socks. Dude's the only center out of the 3 playing like he gives a damn. Bring in Cake Boy Butterfingers in the middle of the game to establish his Mike T. worshiped Warrior Defensive Prowess. Heck, I'd even start Farmar at this point.

Y'all gonna shoot me for this, but Kobe/Bynum/Turiaf/Odom/Farmar is the new Showtime. In fact, this year's team can easily be split in 2 sections:Dudes Who Hustle and Dudes Who Don't. The starting 5 I mentioned, file under "Dudes Who Hustle." Win or lose, at least I cant trust them to keep on pounding! Add Fish to this list as well.

Dudes Who Dont: Cake Boy Butterfingers, Mihm, Cook, Mo Evans (yeah I said it!). Those 4 dudes can knock the wind out of your sails in 0.4 seconds with their level of lethargy!

Vlad & Sasha are somewhere beneath the 2 classes. They're prone to go back and forth (so is Odom, quiet as it's kept!).

Meanwhile, let's start planning our first Lakers Blog Game Watching Fiesta. I threw down the gauntlet yesterday - let's see who answers the call!

HAB,

You're still ignoring how good Parker and Ginobili are. Parker is a top 5 point guard an Ginobili could start on nearly every team in the league. And they have Bowen who's one of the best defenders in the league and Elson, while he isn't a great player, can get the job done. I agree the Spurs aren't the most talented team in the league, but you're selling them short. Most importantly, the Spurs are smart. Intelligence never gets mentioned as a talent because it's harder to see it on the court. Why do you think J-Kidd and Nash are still great despite their age? Because they're smart.

The Spurs are the smartest team in the league and in that sense, they are the most talente.

>>>There are two other All-Stars on the team with Duncan

Chicken or the egg.

P&G (no pun) joined an elite team and were nicely integrated into that elite team. If they got drafted by the Clips, they'd be considered nice role players, and get to snowboard in February every year. I bet they both could really carve it up.

I say chicken. Or the egg.

Something huge (which im sure has been pointed out already) was the ability of our D to rotate properly. Its one thing to help, its another to help from the angle that gives the cutter a wide open pass to the corner shooter. BOWEN WAS 6/6!!!! that shouldnt happen ever! the penetration and kick out killed us. plus they seemed to be pretty hot last night in the second half.

The rotation help D was horrible. luke, vlad, lamar kobe, everybody was reaching with their hands and not taking passing lanes. they were all trying to do to much and getting beat. Parker is going to get by his man more than a few times in a game, cuz its parker, but the team has to learn that they do not all have to collapse and have four guys in the paint on one guy like that.

Parker would drive, draw his man, bynum, guy to cover bynum guy, and usually the man in the corner would get caught creeping in. once that guy crept to far its an easy dish for a wide open three point shot. they collapsed way too much it was ridiculous and unnecessary.

HAB,

>>>You bring up a good point. If you combined the two rosters and had to make 1st and
>>>2nd unit, Lakers would dominate both of them.

Not quite.

>>>Timmy plays the 4, so Bynum or even friggin Kwame would start at the 5. They're
>>>both better than Oberto and Elson. Perhaps even Mihm. Kobe at the two. LO at the 3.
>>> Parker at 1.

Except that Kwame and Lamar would be injured half the season each, and Mihm the
whole season. And since neither Kwame nor Mihm is that much better than Oberto,
Phil Popovich would start the guy who would give them continuity. so the starting
lineup would really be Parker, Bryant, Odom, Duncan, Oberto.

For the third to half of the season while Lamar Odom was injured, Bruce Bowen would
start at SF making it Kobe and four Spurs.

>>>Second unit still has a Laker at the 5, a Laker at the 1 (Farmar or Fish), Manu at
>>>the 2, Bowen or Radman or Luke at the 3. Who at the 4? Ronny? Mihm? who do the
>>>Spurs have? Bonner?

You'll note that both Jackson and Pop prefer to play veterans over rookies if the talent is
close, so the second string would be Fisher or Barry, Ginobili, Bowen, Turiaf, and Bynum. So about half and half Lakers and Spurs. When Odom was out and Bowen was starting,
Michael Finley would be the second string SF.

>>>Spurs would have 2 of the 5 in each unit at most.

Wrong. Lakers would have 2 of the 5 in each unit at most. More than likely 1 in 5 of
the starters while Lamar was out with his annual injury.

greek dude,

Yeah, I realized about the reserves as soon as I hit the "post" button. Still their reputation is build on the fact that they flourish in a particular system. If they got drafted by crappy teams and stayed there, they would not make a great impact to those teams, and would not make all stars.

My id is something that got stuck from another Laker board years ago. So are you really from Greece? Speak any Greek?

Oh yeah almost forgot.....what the hell was PJ thinking when he left bynum out for so damn long!!!

Are you serious man, get your head out from where the sun dont shine!!! Kwame stunk it up for us when he was in the game!! after about 4 mins he lost all the (i guess you can say) spark that he brought in the game. he needed to be subbed out at the 7 minute mark to let bynum get it. When we finally got down to around ten, kobe and bynum should have been inserted. i dont member if Kobe was already in or not, but they should have both been in.

I said it yesterday or the day before, but bynum actually having an offensive presence does so much for the triangle and makes the game so much easier for cutters and slashers going to the hoop, they just need to get him the damn ball. But phil would rather have Kwame and Luke in. instead of probably our strongest line up framar (cuz he had a great game last night) kobe, lamar, turiaf ( he might have been a lil off last night, but wasnt really given the chance) and Bynum.

Phil screwed us over last night by leaving Kwame in for i think the whole third quarter!! it was tiresome to watch, and the fourth almost painful

zen-

By that, I meant visitors. But like I said, I haven't asked for figures in a while. Honestly, we ask how we're doing, and if they say everything's fine we just keep going. We have an active enough audience to let us know when things are working, and when they're not- we're trying to bring video to the site, BTW. If we just played to "hits," we could get ourselves into trouble.

You're correct, though. 5000 hits isn't the same as 5000 unique visitors. Not to toot our own horns, though, but my understanding is the site is pretty well read.

BK

Mike-

No doubt, it's hard to look at what the Lakers did defensively last night and think anything but dark thoughts. There was absolutely no continuity and discipline on defense, and while I think you have to hold the players responsible, so to does the coaching staff have a huge role to play. For whatever reason, on Tuesday and last night, they couldn't solve the problem. I don't think it's a strategy thing- they've worked in practice over the last week on some of the issues that hurt last night- but a recognition problem. Not seeing the proper rotations, and not having the discipline to stay with their assignment. Either way, it's something they (as a team and coaching staff) have to fix.

I know we disagree on the "motives" of PJ, but in terms of evaluating the quality of the team's defensive performance, I imagine we are in fair agreement.

BK

Why has the coaching failed to get these guys to develop the discipline necessary to play effective D? Almost all of the Lakers who are in the current rotation have been here from 2-4 years at least. Last night looked like the first game of the preseason. How many times will they collapse on the penetrator and leave the shooters alone? 100? This is San Antonio, a team that they have faced dozens of times. They didn't know what the game plan was? Where is the development? Doesn't speak highly for Jackson or his staff.

What I meant was there are 5000 hits that I'm thinking are unique. We barely get 250 posts on a controversial day. The hits can't be the only posts. It has to be readers who don't post.

mike