Thanks for the link Kbros!

GASOL STILL HAPPILY IN SHOCK…

by John Denton for HoopsWorld

http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=7518

“This is not how to endear yourself to your new teammates: In a lighter moment following a recent morning practice, Pau Gasol won the Los Angeles Lakers halfcourt-shot contest (and $100 from each player) by hitting nothing but net on his first try. "And I won the 3-point shooting contest too with the big men," Gasol crowed happily.”

Wow, maybe Pau has greater range on his shot than we thought! Excellent article.

Tom

Repost. Sorry

Nemaia Faletogo, #4, Happydaze, LakerTom, 805LakerLove,:

What an international line up of bloggers. Filipino-Chinese here lived in Spain, NYC, Manila and now LA.

Played HS ball but wasn't that good. 5'8" PG but more of a bruiser mentality. (Football) Played for Pasadena City and Glendale City (Red Shirted) as a free safety.

2004 December Herniated 3 disks in my neck (Karo Parisyan Muay Thai Partner under Gokor's Grappling Sambo-Judo-Jiu-jitsu) Didn't get surgery done coz of the discouragement of Friends in the Medical Field and chat room for cervical spine injuries.

2006 October Torn Hip Labrum, minor and not surgery worthy. Doing Duck walks with dumbbells.

2007 Torn Labrum and Rotator Cuff. (Throwing a left hook at someone 6'3" for a Grappling defense video) video. Got Frozen Shoulder in the process. Had debriment done to clear scar tissue and healing at a snails pace.

Nice to see a lot of former athletes on this site. Though I will say, a lot of intelligent bloggers for a non athletes. Great input for the most part of this blog.....

I love this group....

Guys,

I have to disagree about the MVP for Kobe talk.

No matter what I feel the media will not reward him. Before the excuse for not voting for him was the fact the Lakers couldnt get far enough in the playoffs therefore he didnt deserve it (remember Im not saying this the media was/is).

Now I bet they will say that because he as help (Gasol/Bynum) he is not the real MVP and will not vote for him.

Im not trying to be negative, but the track record speaks for itself, he cannot win no matter what he does. I will go on record and say that he will not win it ever due to media bias.

Hello all,

I just read the Mike Bresnahan's Q&A. I didn't realize it and I don't know if anybody's ever posted this before.

The net result of the Shaq trade was:
Lamar Odom
Jordan Farmar
Pau Gasol < Kwame Brown < Caron Butler

I knew about about Caron=Pau but I didn't know that the pick included in the trade resulted in Jordan Farmar....not a bad trade at all looking back now. Kupcake's looking like a genius even in what was his most criticized move ever. He got more back in a trade than practically every Superstar that was ever traded.

Bynumite,

It's not exactly true.

For Shaq we got:
Farmar
Lamar
Caron

We then ADDED Chutky Atkins to Caron to get Kwame.

We then ADDED our #1 draft pick of 07 to Kwame, plus the rights to Marc Gasol plus TWO first round picks to get Gasol.

To say that we got Farmar, Lamar, and Gasol for Shaq is simply not being fair.... we had to add some players in there to wind up with that.

So, it's like this:
Chutky Atkins, Marc Gasol, Javaris Crittenton, two first round picks, and Shaquille O'Neal for:
Farmar
Lamar
Gasol.

What's sick is that we may have been able to avoid Kwame all together and still have a way to get Gasol. We would have just needed the expiring contract somewhere. Then, we'd have Caron playing the 3.

Jon K.

Thanks man!

Best,

Man it sucks to go 2 days without a game..I know its great for the players though...

No news today...Cant wait until tomorrow

Nemaia Faletogo

What systems have you trained in?

justanothermambafan,

That was great!

GO LAKERS!

Island_Gamer

Don't you think B-Ball is perfect for quick fix and long remedy attention disorders? I mean it's so instantly gratifying, it's amazing. But to watch the whole game is a reprieve . I guess that's just how we spell relief, L-A-K-E-R-S.

Larry Bird in the pressure cooker.

Today Bird had to give a press conference. Things are not well in Indiana. The big problem is that Jermaine O'Neal isn't playing and yet he takes up a third of their salary cap.

http://www.nba.com/pacers/news/bird_080222.html

The reporters had the nerve to ask if Jermaine would opt out. As though Jermaine is into charity... you know, let his team out from under the rock...

Bird's response:
You mean as far as opting out? Come on. Actually, he hasn't talked to me about it but I assume that he will not opt out.

I love Jermaine and I did meet him in Vegas at the Mirage last August, but wow, I'm glad we didn't ship Bynum out for him. I'm also glad we didn't ship Kwame out either, because it brought us Gasol, and I don't see Jermaine doing anything more than what Gasol is doing.

But the point of the post is that Bird is jerk and he held out for so long that now he's hung out to dry.

Here's a little gem for Fire32 and his Dones from a local Phoenix paper:

"BONUS SHOTS

How ironic is it that the Lakers likely never would have made the move to get Pau Gasol if Andrew Bynum and Trevor Ariza hadn't gone down with injuries? What initially looked like a plus for the Suns may turn out to be what ultimately destroys them."

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/109640

This reminds me of Joseph's admonishment of his brothers after they left him for dead and bowed down to him in reverence...

"What you intended for evil, God has used for good"

Word.

Jon K - I have ulterior motives - I'm trying to become the first "Haiku of the Week" winner...
AK? BK? You guys paying attention?? LOL

GO LAKERS - Can't wait until tomorrow!

Tim-4-Show,

Let's try to break this down in a false mathematic system. 1 to 10 point rating.

They Got:

Chutky Atkins +2
Marc Gasol +3
Javaris Crittenton +5
two first round picks +5
Shaquille O'Neal +8
Kwame Brown -2
Caron Butler +7

We Got:
Farmar +6
Lamar +7
Gasol +9

(Points awarded based upon post-trade--past, present and potential future contributions weighed against salary)

Which Means....

They Got:

+28

We Got:

+22

"They Got" the better end of the trade.

Tim-4-Show, I'd like to see your interpretation of the numbers.

GO LAKERS!

805LakerLove,

Wow, I made your Lakerblog fantasy backcourt! I'm flattered, but I'm probably no where near Nemaia's skill and talent level. All state is all state, gotta respect that. I got a coach's award once, but I was no where near All-State/County/City anything.

For some reason, Charles and Nemaia, I imagine you guys are bruisers and would be tough to play against. Basketball as a hobby and more recently, MMA guys? If we ever put a blog game together, I'm on your squad!

#4

#4,

“A bunch of point guards analyzing the point guardless triangle....weird.

You missed a great debate from the early days of the blog as to the importance of a true point guard in the Triangle Offense, which was the offense that I played in high school.

Roland Lazenby, long time confidant of Tex Winter and friend of the blog finally resolved the debate with the observation that the Triangle doesn’t require a true point guard but a true point guard can make it run more smoothly and efficiently and give the team an advantage offensively in transition, which Tex has long advocated the Lakers do.

As we all know now, Phil finally relented and tweaked the Triangle Offense this year to allow the team, especially Farmar, to push the ball in transition to pick up some easy points. While we aren’t hoisting up a shot in 7 seconds like the Suns used to do (haha), we definitely look to push the ball and the pace after every rebound, which is another area in which I think Lamar can flourish playing small or power forward.

At any rate, their definitely is a strong point guard contingent in the blog, most of whom are thrilled to have Smush exiled and Fisher and Farmar playing so well. With Sun Yue in the wings, I think the Lakers will be set at the point guard position for years.

Tom

Shaq trade:

Don't forget to add in Grants 48 million that cash strapped the Lakers

BYNUMITE,

In addition to Odom, Farmar, and Gasol, you could easily argue that Bynum too was a product of the Shaq deal. For sure Mitch factored in the chance to get a top 10 draft pick as a result of the trade.

So the true final haul, IMHO, is Bynum, Odom, Farmar, and Gasol.

Tom

805LAKERLOVE,

Everybody is slightly misremembering what actually happened to precipitate the trade. It was not just Andrew Bynum getting injured that triggered the trade but also how horribly Kwame Brown played, totally screwing up and single-handedly wrecking the team’s chances to play well or win. Had Kwame played well, Phil would have stupidly and doggedly probably vetoed trading Kwame.

The one thing that still doesn’t taste good when I swallow is Mitch’s claim that we wouldn’t have made the trade and weren’t even looking to trade until Andrew got hurt. I have, like many of us, apologized to Mitch for many of my derogatory comments but this was a trade that we had to make whether Andrew got hurt or Kwame was playing great. Championships today more than ever are about a triumvirate of superstars.

Tom

You missed a great debate from the early days of the blog as to the importance of a true point guard in the Triangle Offense, which was the offense that I played in high school.

Roland Lazenby, long time confidant of Tex Winter and friend of the blog finally resolved the debate with the observation that the Triangle doesn’t require a true point guard but a true point guard can make it run more smoothly and efficiently and give the team an advantage offensively in transition, which Tex has long advocated the Lakers do.

As we all know now, Phil finally relented and tweaked the Triangle Offense this year to allow the team, especially Farmar, to push the ball in transition to pick up some easy points. While we aren’t hoisting up a shot in 7 seconds like the Suns used to do (haha), we definitely look to push the ball and the pace after every rebound, which is another area in which I think Lamar can flourish playing small or power forward.

At any rate, their definitely is a strong point guard contingent in the blog, most of whom are thrilled to have Smush exiled and Fisher and Farmar playing so well. With Sun Yue in the wings, I think the Lakers will be set at the point guard position for years.

Tom

#4

you played against K.J, pretty sweat bro

K.J went to schools near where I'm from, so I fallowed him to Phoenix.

Oh and if charles ( the coolest kid in class) was ever on your team in a pick up game. I would gladly be on the other team, he's got me on the MMA, but as for B ball i would make him say my name FYYYYUHHHHHH32.

I UNDERSTAND WHY YOU HATE US

zen:

"Man it sucks to go 2 days without a game.."

Rejoice! Games Saturday and Sunday nights.

I've come to love back-to-backs. They're great now that we can win them. Hell, I'd be for back-to-back-to-backs. And I will bet you Kobe would be, too. LOL.

Tom

A.K

Last night I asked for a purple/gold answer on, as a laker fan did you hate the SUNS

with no reply I guess thats a yes

well I ask now for a professional answer, Do you think SHAQ hurts the SUNS more than helps them?

jon k..

think of it this way..

you could trade kobe for 100 smush parkers..

kobe - 10

smush - 1
x 100

.. in the end its 100 vs 10, but remember only 5 players can be on the court at one time... :)

to further my point above.. just think fantasy basketball.. the #1 player in the league is usually never traded for even two top 25 players... the overall production of those two will eclipse the production of the top player, but to play those two you're going to have to bench someone already on your roster.