Sorry to keep asking this, but I really need some inside info on the best of the best NBA blogs.

We all know this one is the best, but why?

Talented moderators? Yeah...

Informed bloggers? Yes.

Visitors from other planets? Quite a few. (Lets go C's, Butler, etc, etc, etc.). This has to be one of the signifiers of a good blog, that we absorb the contributions of hater riff raff and turn it into a positive experience for everyone.

But what else makes a good blog a good blog?

Self Regulation? I think so. The sure sign of a bad blog is bunch of uninformed kids hurling insults at each other 24/7.

What makes a blog different from a chat, one wonders? Editorials, I think.

So, Latimes Lakers blog, Forum Blue and Gold…what else?

Thanks guys,

Wes

maybe i should change my name to my american name fletcher in prattville. may be not. my services to reprecent you as los angeles times blogs lakers ceo keep me busy. no updates for right now on lakers guard sascha v. bill artest is attention starves. ok

ding how in prattville

Wes - don't know if you're still reading the last thread (Pau). Scroll to the bottom.

Okay,

I'm well known as a big fan of Artest and have shown a lot of interest in getting him.

But, I'm gonna just say this name change to Bill stuff is really fricking weird.

Artest, you want to do what?

If I just changed my name, everything would be better!

Dude, seriously...

If here were just joking, it'd be funny. If not, he's kind of an idiot.

Oh, Bill's his middle name (William). That's a lot less crazy.

Very helpful Dame M.

Thanks.

Wes

Pretty Close.... you're right, it's more of a forum than a traditional blog but the interactive nature of it is what's so appealing... it's defintely tapped into some kind of zeitgeist-mania that has eluded the other Times blogs... the question for the K-bros is whether there's a tipping point, time-management wise. Then again, they could always get some elves to help - no pay except for skittles and jolt.

If the Lakers gets Artest for Odom, it will be a huge change of direction in Lakers soft label tag.

Bynum, Gasol, Artest and Kobe should be the best starting four in the NBA. Period.

It also creates balance in the triangle offense and at the defensive end to have. Better than..

Bynum, Gaosl, Odom, Kobe..

The only way Odom will be a huge factor in LA if he stays, is if Odom plays off the bench as a back up PF and Ariza starts.

If Odom can accept not being in the starting five, still able to play long minutes with either Bynum at C or Gasol sliding at Center, Odom will be make the Lakers deep coming off the bench. But can Odom maintain a motivated high level of play? This is the question that needs an answer.

Either way is good for the Lakers. As long as you take out Vlad and Odom in the starting five next year and inject either Bynum/Artest or Bynum/Ariza will make the Lakers less softer.

Next TOPIC... Point Guard

who is the starting PG for the Los Angeles Lakers next year?

Derek Fisher is 34 yaers old next year. Is Farmar ready to take over the starting position. The way I see it Farmar has been very valuable coming off the bench, he is the ignitor, that makes the bench RUN and score lots of points, puts the pressure on the other team.

Lakers need a taller longer PG that can easily get the ball inside to either Pau or Bynum. Sun Yue would be perfect for this, but still too raw to come in NBA and start without heavy minutes on his belt.

Can Odom be the Starting PG for the Lakers? The floor won't get spread with Kobe only being the respectable shooter. But it also means less 3 point shooting and more slashing towards the basket with Ariza and Odom, creating more offensive rebound for Bynum and Gasol. Opposing team will be in foul trouble early everytime.

Sun Yue is a smaller, younger, more athletic version of Lamar Odom. If Sun can come in NBA ready together with Farmar and Fisher, the PG position will be more versatile and deeper. Sun could possibly be a better defender than Fisher and Farmar beacuse of his athleticism and length.

What ever happens, the addition of Bynum and Ariza means less playing time for Vlad and Luke, that alone is huge.

There should be some NBA teams needing a known shooter in Vlad at 5M, Mitch should be able to find trades in exchange for expiring contracts or draft picks. Young talent either Farmar and Sun, can be packaged with Luke, to get rid of bad contracts.

How about Luke, Vlad, Mihm and Farmar for expiring contract of Marbury and a draft pick. D'Antoni would love to have Farmar and Vlad for his running team. This free up a lot of cap space next year.

Kobe and Marbury... who is the star here?

MITCH K wake up and do something, even if the effect is not this year but for next.

We should give LO a run with Gasol/Bynum before making any rash decisions. IMO, Artest is not a good outside shooter --he's just a volume shooter that gets his stats by chucking a bunch of shots.

I'd rather the Lakers go for a guy like Kapono or Korver...too bad Houston picked up Brent Barry.

Also, can we bring CRITTER back yet? Memphis does NOT need another guard. They just drafted yet another ball handler in OJ Mayo.

Wes,

There is ESPN Blog, Celtics and Knicks being the popular or big hoop markets.

To comment on Close to Absolute Truth post, about our blog, nobody really knew the meaning of blog, not even google but it just popped up and as a combination of two words: Web Log in short, Blog. Every institution provided their own rules but it like our professional athletes, it follows what the participants want that the advertisers cater. What is the use of a blog if there are no posters or bloggers? then no advertising dollars. To interpret it is a forum, we go back to Roman times wherein there is formal moderator and rules imposed on speakers. In the modern times like professional associations like Rotary, Lions and our US Congress, they follow to Roberts' Rules of Order. This is not possible because we are all anonymous and no physical presence therefore, it is not really a forum. In a way, our Lakers Blog is a combination of both, the K-Bros joined the foray, let posters log their comments even if it is not within the subject thread (like this one) provided it's related with the Lakers. There are news, arguments, affirmation or negation or neutral. From time to time, there are emotional outburst, it spills into politics and religion which are just the facts of life when fellow Laker fans converse. To the blogs of other sites where they correct the grammar, limit the discussion, limit the words posted, scold posters like what talk radio announcers do, grade bloggers, interpret the 1st amendment rights w/o a law degree, I find it boring, intrusive and parochial, not fitted for global acceptance. It doesn't challenge the level of intelligence of a Laker fan. We are not perfect in this site, we commit typos, missed some words or sentences, grammatical errors and illogical reasoning etc. Well this is not a literary class but just free wheeling discussion. Some people could hardly write English well but they try their best to express their passion about the Lakers. Hey, that's LA, everybody is welcome including the visitors. We take the gist of what is being said and take it from there.

With regards to suggestion on the new name of Ron or Bill, he should add the monicker, "slick Willie" to associate to a refined but sensual Statesman. He automatically becomes a bonafide LA citizen, if referred as Slick Willie Artest. LOL!

First of all it's not a name change. He's asking that people start
calling him by his middle name. Ronald William Artest --
thus he wants them to call him Bill Artest instead of Ron Artest.

I know several people who go by their middle name, and in fact
I know several people who as adults started asking people to call
them by their middle name instead of their first name. Nothing
too unusual about that. The guy is not changing his name to
something wacky like Bison Dele or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The only bit of wackiness is that he thinks that people will
forget about his past transgressions just because the papers
are calling him Bill Artest instead of Ron Artest. For people
new to the game, he may be right. But for anyone who's been
watching for a few years, the shell game won't work.

Wasabi,

>>>IMO, Artest is not a good outside shooter --he's just a
>>>volume shooter that gets his stats by chucking a bunch
>>>of shots.

Artest hit 38% of his 3-point shots last season. Although not
great, that's pretty good -- the same as Posey, who everyone
is hyping as such a great outside shooter -- and higher than
Kyle Korver, Mike Bibby, Jordan Farmar, Steven Jackson,
Michael Redd, or a bunch of other guys who are noted as
outside shooters.

Compared to Radmanovic's 41% shooting from 3, Artest is
just okay.

Compared to Lamar Odom's 27%, Artest is a HUGE
improvement.

Fatty,

I thought Kobe changed his number because it was like a declaration of the 2nd phase of his career, to start over...and also because he was a huge fan of Jack Bauer and the show "24"...I have MikeyD's book "7 seconds or less".....bought it for like $2.00 on Amazon....it makes for a great coffee table coaster.....can you recap what you were alluding to.

humanomaly

"I still think Kobe's 8 to 24 has something to do with D'antoni's mocking of him in the book, "7 seconds..." and less about wanting to start a new life"

You can see, I did say it was about wanting to start a new life. What Kobe did, drew a lot of speculation as to why. But I threw a twist into it that I said is unsubstantiated and not provable, just a feeling I had.

I haven't read the book in spite of AK's recommend. But at the time, articles and comments here mentioned several derogatory thoughts D'Antoni had about Kobe. So I couldn't direct you to specific pages nor specific comments D'Antoni had. My memory is not that good. Age and Scotch abuse might have something to do with that.

But I was thinking, if you took your number to honor someone that you idolized as a youngster. Then when that person spoke about you in a seriously derogatory way. You surely wouldn't be too happy to want and continue to honor that person, right?

But like I said, i have no proof, and the book was published AFTER Kobe applied for the number change.

Long Time Laker Fan

Kareem a 'wacky' name change?

You just offended the millions of Muslim readers that come here everyday. lol

What's wacky is I started here as jfatty, then went to Fatty, then Fairweather Fatty, and now back to Fatty. I even have Laker Tom confused and Edwin wanting to call me just Fat.

Posted by: Staples 24 | July 12, 2008 at 11:20 AM

I really enjoyed your comment. Very thought provoking.

Sun Yue would be an interesting project for sure.

Artest can play. No argument about that. He could help the Lakers more than Odom, especially if Bynum comes back healthy and his previous form. I would do an Odom for Artest but also taking on Kenny Thomas or also giving up Famar would be an extremely foolish move. Famar is their only legitimate back up guard, and potential starting guard. Adding Kenny Thomas would add an additional garbage contract adding to Walton and Vlade's. That's almost an additional $20 million a year for the next two year at least.

Are lakers trying to get Garbanzo from spain?

He is a real softie. We dont want another muffin cake.

IM IN NO GARBO BANDWAGON

1. Don't trade Odom for the psychopath.

2. Can anyone tell me anything beyond the numbers regarding Coby Karl and Joey Crawford's play in Summer League?

GO LAKERS!

The thing about getting the Artest deal done quickly is it betters our chance of landing Posey as well.

That would be nice, Kobe with those two.

Wes

Long Time,

>>>>>First of all it's not a name change. He's asking that people start
>>>>>calling him by his middle name. Ronald William Artest --
>>>>>thus he wants them to call him Bill Artest instead of Ron Artest.

I don’t know, Long Time. When you’ve been called Ron all your life and suddenly ask everybody to start calling you Bill, I think that qualifies as a name change.

>>>>>I know several people who go by their middle name, and in fact
>>>>>I know several people who as adults started asking people to call
>>>>>them by their middle name instead of their first name. Nothing
>>>>>too unusual about that. The guy is not changing his name to
>>>>>something wacky like Bison Dele or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Most of the bloggers are probably too young to remember the flurry of black athletes converting to Islam and changing their name, led by the great Muhammad Ali and evolving into the black power salute in the 1968 Olympics. Give Ron Artest, eh Bill, his due. Names are important.

>>>>>The only bit of wackiness is that he thinks that people will
>>>>>forget about his past transgressions just because the papers
>>>>>are calling him Bill Artest instead of Ron Artest. For people
>>>>>new to the game, he may be right. But for anyone who's been
>>>>>watching for a few years, the shell game won't work.

Bill Artest’s problem (wow, who’s that) is Google. What he really needs to do is change his surname, too. Neither will just adding another syllable and hyphenating his last name. He needs a fresh name that Google will not connect to the old Ron Artest. LOL. What a weird egg.

Tom

Can someone please explain to me why Sun Yue is not playing in summeer league? Is he committed to the China team?

Pretty close to the Absolute Truth,

>>>>>This isn't actually a blog. It's a Lakers forum with really bad thread formatting.
>>>>>It would be nice if it were actually moderated like a blog, but it seems they prefer
>>>>>the chaos that is the current format.

But chaos is the way the world works now that Google has supplanted Microsoft, the search function has replaced organization and structure, and digital email has replaced hard copy letters. Throw in text messaging, desktop search, and SMS alerts to make sure we are multi-tasking.

>>>>>On a blog, people leave comments. Here, people post spam and have arguments
>>>>>and conversations back and forth, which is what happens in a forum and not a blog.
>>>>>It's just that they don't format the page to look like a forum
>>>>>and continue to call it a blog so it's misleading.

This blog is really more of a virtual community where people meet to read and converse about anything related to the Lakers. It is actually more akin to a social networking site like MySpace or FaceBook but without the rules and rigid structure and focused on the Lakers. AK and BK have instinctively keep the blog free flowing and easy to use and learned on the fly what works and what doesn’t, just as most of us who post here regularly have – well, at least most of us.

Have any of you been to Obama’s website. It is fascinating how this guy from FaceBook has revolutionized political networking and fund raising by emulating FaceBook’s simple tools that make it easy for people to network online. supporters to build networks of potential donors, volunteers, and resources. Just as social networks for business such as LinkedIn have emerged, it is inevitable that social networks for sports fans will soon follow.

Tom

There was a post a while back about some player who we once had but traded ...... I think it was Cheikh Samb...(for Mo Evans???)

Artest is a case...he's got the Lakers blogs focused on him...he wants to be called by his middle name (good thing his middle name isn't Jason Williams)...

Interesting piece of trivia, Elton Brand, Brad Miller and Ron Artest were all on the Bulls together at one time...the clock probably stopped at 4:20.........

Long Time,

>>>>> There's no way I would EVER have proposed a
>>>>>Gasol for Kwame trade. And if anyone else would have proposed
>>>>>it, I would have mocked them mercilessly... shows how much I know.

Nobody saw that coming, including all of the other general managers. I thought it was just a joke when I first heard the news. Then when I heard the deal, I was SURE it was just a joke. Still, Memphis will come out of the deal looking good in the end because of Marc Gasol, who would be a lottery pick in this year’s draft. Funny, that he spent some time in Memphis living with big brother Pau a few years ago. How ironic, as the song goes.

Since Mitch never does anything we expect and since every trade he makes is a surprise, it’s a testament to our perseverance that we make any trade proposals at all. I can almost say Mitch laughing as he reads the blog and saying, you know what, these guys want Artest too badly. I’m not going to make that trade just so they don’t think they can influence me. LOL.

I don’t know whether the Kings would really trade Miller but he is definitely going to go by the end of next year as Petrie has lined his contracts up to expire so he can go after a big free agent. But the Kings can’t be happy at a guy who has now been busted for pot three times and will have to sit out the first 5 games of next season. The opinion on Sacto talk radio was they should go with Spenser Hawes anyway since Miller will be gone in 2 years and they are rebuilding.

Bottom line, the Kings want to free up as much salary cap space as possible and the trade would save them Miller’s 2nd year or over $12M, which is a lot of money and really helps the Kings get closer to their objective for 2009/10. And they would be a better team with Lamar et al. What, oh hell, that’s just Mitch laughing as he crosses my trade proposal off his list. LOL.

Tom