Strange atmosphere, this planet Houston

AK,

KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!

Wow. Dude, you are a dork. (I mean that in a very positive way.)

GO LAKERS!

It seemed clear after the season that Mitch was going to stand pat. I agree, why mess up a good thing? With Bynum and Ariza back and everyone else gaining experience in the triangle and with each other, we are favorites to win it all.
We shouldn't remake our whole team just because we got blown out by Boston in Game #6. If we'd messed with the chemistry too much this off-season we might not get that far. I figure we just need to add a third string center (in case Mihm can't cut it) and maybe a swing man/small forward who will sit on the bench in case of an emergency. I'm OK with Mbenga, Coby Karl and Mata-Real filling out the roster.

Can someone please tell me how the hell Houston is getting Artest for a Has been and a pick? I' mean how is this possible. I'm sure the Lakers could have offered more than this. The Maloofs hate us, that is for sure. They still traded him within the Western Conference. What does this do to the west? I:m still in shock and very upset.

CrzyFan

what an outstaning move by the rockets. not only they get Ron Artest (in my opinion the best defender in the NBA) they also get rid of an aging bobby jackson who absolutely brought them nothing. In Artest they bring in a veteran who can defend better than shane battier and who's also a better offensice player. the rockets can now trade battier (20m+ for the next 3 years contract) and get an offensive player who can come out off the bench and provide a much needed scoring boost.
hats off to the rockets management
this makes Houston a very dangerous team next season! wow

That was all it took? Dang...

From Steve Kerr over in Phoenix:

"I think it's a big deal to have Shaq for the whole year next season. We'll be able to establish our defense and what we're trying to accomplish in October rather than trying to do it on the fly in February. Hopefully with a full year under his belt Shaq can really make the adjustment. I thought he played well for us last year; unfortunately our season ended a little earlier than we had hoped, but we'll be better this year because of that experience and the fact that he'll have a training camp with us."

The Suns are going defense. With Shaq to clog the lane and Amare to provide the offensive punch this team can be scary, too.

Now you have Houston putting a vice grip on their 3 spot. Another player to watch in Houston is Joey Dorsey. This kid could be a Charles Barkley type player.

Watch out.

mike t.

If the Kings picked up Dorsey the deal wouldn't be that bad for the Kings.

mike t.

Although I wanted Artest, I wouldn't give up Lamar for him. I really don't know who will dominate this season, east or west. My gut feeling is that the Lakers are going to falter, and Kobe will suffer his first serious injury since the Shaq days. I hope to gawd I'm wrong.

This is going to be the most interesting NBA season in several years...

With Artest going to Houston, does this now mean that the Lakers will stand pat? The Lakers front office has been so ridiculously silent and circumspect, I almost wonder if a big shoe is going to drop without warning.

None of the Laker youngsters burned up Summer League, which could leave one to believe there may be some roster movement we don't anticipate.

IMHO, last season's roster could have benefited from one more seasoned veteran. Luke and Vlad are redundant in a way that offers no depth to the bench. Mihm must be considered a question mark until he proves otherwise in training camp. Viewed as a whole, the current roster only works IF -- let me repeat, IF -- everyone is healthy. In today's NBA, that's a huge "IF."

The Lakers got lucky last season when Bynum went down by being able to acquire Gasol. Even Mitch Kupchak doesn't believe there's a high probability that lightning will strike twice.

Something's up, Laker Nation. I just don't know what it is.

"It seemed clear after the season that Mitch was going to stand pat. I agree, why mess up a good thing?"

rdlee - you can't stand pat in this league. In order to get to the mountain top, you need to continuously get better. Mitch must think that having Bynum and Ariza healthy are tantamount to improvement. While I agree that getting Bynum back equals an addition, it remains to be seen if Gasol can be a championship calibre PF in the west, and I'm rather certain that Odom can't play the SF. He has to be the back-up PF. Time will tell. Losing Turiaf was not a good thing. In the meantime, our SF position is a glaring weakness, and pg is fragile. My gut instincts tell me that we won't have the same productivity at pg as we had last year. Unless we address at least one of these weaknesses, I am less than confident of a return trip to the finals.

Seriously sac queens,

They did not include Kenny Thomas in deal. Wow!! Anyways,
best thing for Lakers to do is trade Vlade and 2009 first round pick to houston for Shane. This is best and all possible deal for us. I think Houston will take it since it can not play Ttracy, Ron and Shane at same position and they need shooting power forward once Scola can take a break. Both have 3 years remaining and they get first round draft pick. For us, we have too much log jam at that position anyways and I think Shane is best defender we can have. Guy gives 100% day in day out and never stops playing defense.
Come on this is much better deal for us than getting Artest.

Some one brought up a valid point...Shane Battier is expendable to the rockets now. Why pay a guy 20mil+ when you've just picked up a guy who does all the same things better at a cheaper price. I don't know about y'all but I think I would try to swing an Ariza plus whoever makes the money work deal for Battier.

He's a proven lock down defender, can hit the open 3, and has a good attitude so he won't hurt the teams chemistry. If Houston does decide to keep both of them though they could be a major problem for us. Imagine Kobe having to face a double team from Artest and Battier!!!! Battier not an all-star but he's prolly just the player our team needs.

Seriously sac queens,

They did not include Kenny Thomas in deal. Wow!! Anyways,
best thing for Lakers to do is trade Vlade and 2009 first round pick to houston for Shane. This is best and all possible deal for us. I think Houston will take it since it can not play Ttracy, Ron and Shane at same position and they need shooting power forward once Scola can take a break. Both have 3 years remaining and they get first round draft pick. For us, we have too much log jam at that position anyways and I think Shane is best defender we can have. Guy gives 100% day in day out and never stops playing defense.
Come on this is much better deal for us than getting Artest.

Standing pat with our younger players IS getting better, especially with Bynum back and hopefully healthy. San Antonio won three of their titles by basically standing pat making a few minor tweaks. Even our threepeat didn't include major shake-ups. The year we made the biggest changes (Payton and Malone) didn't yield a title.
Everybody likes to talk trades in the off-season but the best trades are the ones NOT made (Kidd, JO, C-Webb, Gordon/Deng, Miles/Blake). About the only ones I'd be open to is for Josh Smith or Shane Battier but I doubt they will be moved.

Ron Artest to Houston?

We need to thank the Maloofs for screwing up the Rockets.

There is a reason why the Kings did not even talk to Ron about an extension.

There is a reason why they dumped him before camp.

There is a reason why NO team was offering the Kings anything of value for Ron and a reason why the Kings gave him away.

Houston made a rent-a-player deal. Ron will be an unrestricted FA and be gone. It will cost Houston in the end 2 picks for the 'try Ron Ron deal'.

My guess is Houston trades his expiring contract mid-season to save there season.

Ron Ron the Psycho
Will Ruin another team
He and Mike make two

rdlee

"San Antonio won three of their titles by basically standing pat making a few minor tweaks"

Exactly my point. Minor tweaks is all we need. I'm not suggesting a big trade, but we have weaknesses that Boston exposed. I would feel better if we addressed them. I'm going to tread lightly here, because I do think Mitch redeemed himself by the moves he did not make, then the Gasol deal. We are oh so close, and a minor tweak might make all the difference in the world.

I believe Donte Green was drafted with the pick the 1st of the 2 1st round picks that the Lakes sent to the Grizz for Pau....see, sometimes we need to put a name to the number or "commodity"....Sometimes late 1st rounders can be pretty good, so someday the "gift" of the Pau trade may not seem like such a freebie, not like the the obviously fixed McHale/Celtics deal...those players may eventually become equal, in "value", however it was the principal of how the deal was done. It was done with the purpose of Kevin McHale making the deal to aid a team that he does not work for. That deal IMHO reeked of corruption and decepton, however, no one stepped forward to do anything about it. That is the deal that the Popovich proposed trade committee should scrutinize, but they don't need to, because it's so obvious. Maybe McHale and Ainge should both get a 1 year suspension and draft picks taken away from those teams, like McHale got for his Joe Smith under the table agreement. Those are just general thoughts, I had to put out. Look, all these blogs are starting to talk about Pau's holes in his game. Stop it, be positive. Hey, I like his game, and I think if used right we will have a team that is a big "machine" (which happens to have a little "machine" (shi shi) as one of its parts).

Tom, the way I think is disjointed I know, sorry to those who want thesis quality writings. By the way, where's Ding Ho and Kevin Ding??? I didn't see a blog by ding or an article by Kevin recently....vacation? Just reachin still....Chinese restuarants, fast food,....what do you want to talk about next, cars? After the earthquake when I was finsihing my tires, I found that one of my tires has bulges, I had hit a pothole too hard, so there goes $300 plus....

Joke of the day: "hahahahahhahahaa".....that's my impersonation of let's go c's....oh, by the way I have to do it while dreaming of Sasha....

Solomon Islands July 28th - 6.0 Magnitude, nobody knew and nobody cared.
Chino Hills July 29th - 5.4 Magnitude, everyone was concerned and everyone is scared of the big one.
It's all about location, location, location!

Rick Friedman,

"The Lakers front office has been so ridiculously silent and circumspect".

I will change one word from that phrase: Circumcized. Yes, indeed they let Posey got away, Artest got away w/o planting a mole of communication that he should have opted out, Okafor was not even an alternative, Matt Barnes moved to Suns for a measly veterans minimum so the Front Office has been newly circumscized by the turn of events. All they got back is Sasha at 5M. Will they stand pat? I think so there are no more worthy of signinga as a defensive mentality player. Perhaps, that's the story of next season STAND PAT Kobe's healthy again, LO will play his best on his contract year, Pau will have preseason training and Bynum will have two strong knees.

Mike T,

Yea that's it! The Lakers made the finals this year because they were "too soft".. Teams rarely make the finals two years in a row so your prediction is lame.

Being "soft" is not the Laker's problem..I've told you this all a long. The Lakers played defense too and it will only get better.

The Lakers problem is a 3rd scorer..Someone who can score at will.

Kwame Brown is all damm muscle and he couldnt take us out of the first round..But you won't answer that comment will you?

Kwame Brown sucks. If the Lakers had Ginobli or a 3rd scorer like that, we would have won it all!

If the Lakers are too soft, then all the other teams besides Boston are too soft too! The Lakers can't beat anyone except Boston right now,

>>>Or how about Houston keeps Battier and then they have
>>>either Artest or Battier to be on the court all the time
>>>when Kobe is on the court.

And meanwhile Bynum outplays their center and 6'11" Lamar
Odom and 7 foot Gasol make mincemeat of their 6'6" to 6'9"
"power forwards"...

Oh, and by the way, think about these numbers...

56, 70, 56
57, 48, 55
47, 71, 66

That's the number of games that Artest, Yao, and McGrady
have played in over the last three seasons.

Anyone want to give odds on who goes down first? Or
maybe the odds that each of the 3 plays more than 60
games? How bout the odds that all 3 are healthy during
the playoffs?

I'm not sure if this has already been brought up but this is what Paul Pierce said when asked if Kobe's the best player in the world.

"I don't think Kobe is the best player. I'm the best player. There's a line that separates having confidence and being conceited. I don't cross that line but I have a lot of confidence in myself."

Kobe's conceited?!

GO LAKERS!!!

Insomnia sucks. I'm still working on the sonnet (what? who cares? I do) but here's a Limerick

Twas once a man named Teniente
His pasta? He likes it el dente
His longings have salves
In a man with stout calves
He dreams of being with Kwame, en flagrante.

IT IS ALL ABOUT THE LOVE

GO LAKERS

Ajay and other fellow lakers fans,

the lakers cannot trade their 09 1st rd drft choice. The lakers need to have a first round choice for at least every other year and we gave up the 08 and 10 1st rd choices for gasol. The lakers would have to give up mihm and vlad to houston for a straight up trade but i don't thing the money would still match for just those 2. Also i doubt that houston would even trade Shane becuase artest will be a free agent next year and could sign with another team then they would be out 2 great defenders with nothing of value in return. I think that most us are spoiled with the gasol trade and think that we can always make a trade that one sided and thats just not going to be the case

"San Antonio won three of their titles by basically standing pat making a few minor tweaks"

Exactly my point. Minor tweaks is all we need. I'm not suggesting a big trade, but we have weaknesses that Boston exposed. I would feel better if we addressed them. I'm going to tread lightly here, because I do think Mitch redeemed himself by the moves he did not make, then the Gasol deal. We are oh so close, and a minor tweak might make all the difference in the world.

Posted by: Lincoln Laker | July 29, 2008 at 10:01 PM

Yes, BUT, we didn't win a title. The last team to win a title after losing in a Finals the previous year was a long time ago, the 1985 Lakers.

Usually the idea is "if ain't broke, don't fix it." In our case, it's broken by definition since we lost.