I hope you guys talk about Paul Pierce's alleged comments referring to Kobe. Paul Pierce was reported saying that he is the best player in the NBA.

Great, The Lakers stand "pat" again. Don't worry, we've got Radmanovic, Walton, Mihm and Odom to help maintain mediocrity!

>Great, The Lakers stand "pat" again. Don't worry,
>we've got Radmanovic, Walton, Mihm and Odom to
>help maintain mediocrity

That word....I don't think it means what you think it means.

Paul Pierce until this year has been a Celtic failure! Kobe has taken a bunch of scrubs to the playoffs and finals with little help over the last 4yrs barring the Rudy T tenure which until injuries to LO. CB, KB were on course to make playoffs and 45-49 wins! for those who take the effort go and check it out.
Even Phil Jackson said that he could see this team winning 50 plus games prior to all the injuries look at team win loss stat from December and Jan!

So Paul Pierce should stop the over the top declarations.
Until KG and RA showed up Boston was one of the worst teams in the league! That clown couldn't get his team in a weak Eastern Conference so all those who buy in to this crap are as blind as the bat that flys by day!

Phil made that statement during 05 season he had been fired and was in Australia vacationing at the time.

Paul Pierce could, would and should.

Paul Pierce has a championship and Finals MVP award as teh top guy on the team.

Plain and simple.

What you foos don't understand is that winning is about doing WHATEVER it takes to win, including swallowing some pride Mr. "I can get off at anytime" Bryant to get free agents to join in on the effort.

Pierce and Kobeef-Selfishman were in the same boat last summer. KG and Allen had power to go whereever they wanted. KG and Allen wisely picked playing with Pierce over Mr. Selfish.

Pierce, Allen and KG won a title. End of story.

Kobe gets to watch somebody else win titles while Kobeef wins nada.

hahaahahahhhahhaa

Still laughing at you whinners wine and whine away.

hahhaahhh

Foos.

Dude, get your facts straight, Boston was two wins away from a finals appearance in 2001.

Do you remember 2001? Those were the days when you Fakers had a real team led by Shack, not Kobe.

ahahahahhh

AK, BK your attention is requested fellows. the PP remarks should not go unanswered or undiscussed. granted the guy must have been drunk or stoned to say he is the best NBA player.

never

The context to Pierce question was concerning the Olympics and is Kobe the best player in the World, not just the NBA.

It was a question and answer on-line session and that is the verbatim quote from PP.

It hit all the Spanish papers the next day. One reporter clarified PP's statement, but in his words not PP's said. Pierce feels he's the best in the world, because like MJ proving he was the best in the playoffs, Pierce did as well, and Kobe didn't.

Which sounds better, Ali saying "I am the greatest" or Paul Pierce saying "I'm the best"?

Okay, so Luol Deng has re-signed with the Bulls - 6 years
for 71 million dollars. That averages out to a little under
12 million a year. That's a slight increase in the per-year
of the contract he was offered last season, so in his case
holding out probably did get him more money.

And note that he signed a contract with performance incentives
that could bring the deal up to 80 million.

LakerTom, if you're using deals like Bogut and Okafor
and Deng as examples of a baseline for a potential Bynum
contract, then you should note that two of the three of those
players accepted a deal with performance incentives. If
they are setting the standard for contracts for big men, then
performance incentives are the new trade kicker.

FatSam

What you are saying is good ON PAPER. but never underestimate the negative effect of bad coaching and philosophy of one Phil Jackson.

Phil Jackson destroys momentum consistently with his rotations and substitution patterns.

Ariza was healthy AGAINST BOSTON..........and Phil would'nt play him..........opting to continue playing a hapless Luke Walton

What makes you think Phil's coaching will change in regard to his coaching methods next year?

Doc Rivers outcoached Phil during the Finals and proved to be more energetic, inspiring, and smarter than Phil with his adjustments.

Never underestimate the arrogance and idiocy of Phil Jackson and it's effect on the Lakers.

Hello CRUE!!!

I may be butting into Utzworld's territory here, but I'm thanking the b-ball gods that Bill-ron signed with someone other than the Lakers - Amen to that! Now we can finally stop with the inane scenarios about how to get him & how much help he'd be - whew- what a relief.

On the other hand, Traylor??? Anyone with the nickname "Tractor" can NOT be a Laker - sorry, but we already had one wide load (Shaq) to deal with. C'mon FO - can't you do better than that?? Although we could use some back-up, I seriously don't think it's as urgent as some would believe. Standing pat for right now is not the worst thing in the world. Cupcake has time to see how camp and the first part of the season goes before we must make changes/additions/etc. (And yes, I believe he's back to being called Cupcake for letting Rony go - but that's just IMO....)

USA b-ball tomorrow - finally something to get excited about!

Love?

Not love. This place has bunch of hot aired individuals who act pious and pretend the Lakers are sooooo much better than everyone else.

I especially like reading the Kobeworshipers who act like Starlet Bryant is loved by everybody when, in fact, Kobe Bryant is the Barry Bonds of basketball.

Notice anybody knocking down Bonds' door?

See anybody knocking down teh Laker door to play side-by-side with Mr. Selfish?

"I can get off at anytime" --Kobe

>>>I don’t want to trade Lamar at this point

Okay, fair enough. So who do you get rid of next summer:
Kobe, Pau, Lamar or Drew?

Uh...you want my vote?

Although annoying as hell, I like the comment by Paul. He has swagger, and he backed up his statements by outplaying Kobe in both the regular season and in the championships last year.

We need players that can measure their nuts in public. I get so tired of Kobe being PC, Lamar stating the obvious, Fish being inspirational, Pau being a manlady.

I want a damn thug on this LA team, and so does Phil Jackson.

Adonal Foyle can rebound and block. He's a big guy. I read his bio from Wikipedia. He sounds pretty intelligent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adonal_Foyle

GO LAKERS!

Troy is an even kieled individual. The only one residing on this blog.

Fine line between confidence and arrogance.

To be honest with eveyones, the Finals MVP could have gone to KG, Pierce or Allen. Pierce seemed the most fitting since he's Mr. Celtic.

No "haha" out of respect for Mr. Troy.

I'm not a proponent of trading LO, I think he's highly underrated. But if we were to get rid of him, I would go after the Hawks' Josh Smith. I know that he's got a history of being mercurial but he'd be much easier for PJ to coach than Ron Ron. He wasn't the first banana in ATL (Joe Johnson was) and he'd be okay being the second/third guy in LA. He'd get more respect from LA FO because they'd actually pay him (not the 14 mill that we give LO but maybe 10-11 in a sign and trade deal) and he'd be playing with a chip on his shoulder to prove his worth.

For some of you this may seem to be ridiculous, but I bet that's because you've seen so few of his games due to him playing on a mediocre east coast team. But the fact is that he was pivotal in the Hawks almost beating the C's and taking them to seven games.

If anybody saw this series they'd know that, yeah, JJ was on fire in ATL but if it wasn't for Josh Smith stepping up into KG's face and refusing to back down (which then inspired Zaza freaking Pachulia to do it later in the series) set a fire under his team.

In a lot of ways he's very similar to LO, 6'9'', lefty, streaky outside shooter, but the cool thing about his game is he plays insane help D (not as good as LO one on one, remember LO shutting down Marion in 06) and has already spent a lot of time at the 3 guarding other 3s so that wouldn't be a worry. And he's young so he could be around our young core JF-AB-TA for a while.

It'd be a risky move, I think. But if we are so dead set on beating the C's and making a toughness move, I believe this would be the best we could imagine.

Hey JR,

Finals MVP baby!!!!

hahahahahahhh

But Pierce is nowhere near Kobe's level.

Finals MVP baby!!!!

"Where is Kobe" --Boston fans during historic 40-point blowout

"You're not Jordan" --Boston fans right before winning the championship.

ahhahaahahhahahh

Idiot.

"Guess who Phil was referring to when he made this statement. I don't think it was the tough as nails Kobe, or the stalwart Fish, or the braindead yet bangin Lamar, or the in your face Sasha.

I wonder who Phil was truly referring to when he lamented, in public, about how the Lakers lost because they weren't "tough" enough".

TROY

That's the $64,000 question......isn't it? I think you may be giving Phil too much credit because I don't think Phil knows.

One of the side effects of arrogance is to never look to self as being part of the problem. Phil looks to CAST blame juxtaposed to ACCEPTING blame. I.E. Phil stated he was glad the Lakers didn't have the lead in game 5 because THEY wouldn't know what to do with it.

WRONG PHIL..........PHIL proved that HE couldn't COACH a team with a big lead. Never making any adjustments in game 4 in the second half and then of course blowing another lead in game 5 with the lineup of Mihm (who hadn't played in 2 years) Walton, Vuicic, and Farmar all in the game at the same time. Phil stated after that mindfart that "WE' will not try that lineup again.

When Phil reacted emotionally after game 6 he spoke the truth about what the Lakers needed and thus for the first time adding clarity, definition and a criteria by which Laker management could be judged.

Normally Phil stays away from defining anything publicly because if it doesn't work he doesn't want to be called on it.

This time Phil let the cat out of the bag about the Laker needs. But if you judge the Lakers' actions thus far this summer in accord with the criteria Phil gave for improving.............What are the Lakers doing?

Do THEY even know?

Long Time,

>>>>>If they are setting the standard for contracts for big men, then
>>>>>performance incentives are the new trade kicker.

You could be right but incentives are still the desert and not the meat of the deal. Nobody is going to accept them as a straight dollar trade off. In other words, I offer $70M and you counter with $60M + $10M incentives. They might give it 25% credit at most. Say $67.5M + $10M incentives. JMHO.

:-)

Tom

Finally Andrew Bynum is healthy and hopefully he can come back to the same form he had prior to his injury but Thar still doesn't do much to the Lakers weak bench its time for the Lakers to get rid of their over paid dead weight Luke Walton and free up more cap and not to mention important minutes for guys like Trevor Ariza .

FatSam

What you are saying is good ON PAPER. but never underestimate the negative effect of bad coaching and philosophy of one Phil Jackson.

Phil Jackson destroys momentum consistently with his rotations and substitution patterns.

Ariza was healthy AGAINST BOSTON..........and Phil would'nt play him..........opting to continue playing a hapless Luke Walton

What makes you think Phil's coaching will change in regard to his coaching methods next year?

Doc Rivers outcoached Phil during the Finals and proved to be more energetic, inspiring, and smarter than Phil with his adjustments.

Never underestimate the arrogance and idiocy of Phil Jackson and it's effect on the Lakers.

Posted by: pfunk36 | July 30, 2008 at 01:03 PM

=========================
I agree completely with you pfunk36.

We did have defensive players in Ira and Mbenga and in short spurts would have helped. But PJ did not use them and inserted Luke. Boston went on runs when ever Luke came in.

I also say don't forget the Stearns bets had a big hand in this.

The is for all of you,guy's you know that the Lakers, they give chance to the Celtics because the comisioner does not want to look bad, for al the coment the referi, make about all fix games.

The Celtics they are not, the real Champions.

Sorry Celtics fanzz you Just need to say Thank you Lakers for Yuo Help.
Thank you Koby also.

We all Know the Koby is the Best Player of the world.