Plaschke and Simmers represent the worst of the LA Times. These guys are rarely objective and instead focus on hyper criticism in an effort to get the fans riled up because they think it will help them sell more papers.

I'm not saying every single writer has to be pro-LA, but these guys are so anti-anything-LA that it is difficult to separate objective analysis from their usual banter.

Heissler, on the other hand, is much more balanced and objetive.

Plaschke is the Mike T. of the LA Times. Never has nothing to say unless waves are made...and ready to lambaste and playa-hate the home team at a moment's notice. Plaschke should move to Detroit and write for the Pistons...and take his love child Mike T. so he can (STALK) profess his undying love for Kwame now and forever more!

Plaschke is missing that a large factor in contracts (after money) is respect, or the perception of respect.

How many times have we heard that a player's not feeling wanted affected his choice of team when he became a free agent?

Mitch did absolutely the right thing. Andrew and his agent could have harbored feelings of disrespect if the Lakers didn't sign him now, which could potentially have factored in negotiations a year later.

Remember that in the League, it's not just about money, it's about the respect shown to the player, too.

Well if Plaschke's against it, it must be a good deal!

Simers and Plaschke should both leave L.A. and move to Alaska.

Amazing Happens,

"Remember that in the League, it's not just about money, it's about the respect shown to the player, too."

You are sooooo correct, and it's the one thing I find distasteful about the NBA.

Not only can a 21 year old kid who has accomplished NOTHING demand more money for a year than most will earn in a lifetime, but they EXPECT to have their butts kissed while they are getting it.

I am NOT talking about AB here specifically, just the entertainment business in general. Look at the array of screwed up malcontents that populate the movie and music scenes.

Yes I kwow there are many exceptions to this rule; DFish is the first that comes to mind, so save the flames.

Just in general, with half the world barely getting enough to eat, I find the arrogance a bit distasteful.

I think signing Bynum now is a good thing.

No one really talked about European teams swooping him up. Couldn't they have given him a much better deal? They seem to have more money to throw at players than the NBA does these days AND the rules of restricted free agency don't apply to them! I know Bynum's style doesn't scream Europe, but he seems to be the type of big man that some clubs over there would want.

http://tinyurl.com/5t4fy7
"I hired Phil because he was a brilliant defensive coach."

Most of the article is about Krause and how he became yet another victim of PJs mind games ... the quote above was the most interesting one to me though, nice to know PJ has his roots in defense ...

Amazing_Happens,

>>>>>Plaschke is missing that a large factor in contracts (after money) is
>>>>>respect, or the perception of respect.

>>>>>How many times have we heard that a player's not feeling wanted
>>>>>affected his choice of team when he became a free agent?

>>>>>Mitch did absolutely the right thing. Andrew and his agent could have
>>>>>harbored feelings of disrespect if the Lakers didn't sign him now,
>>>>>which could potentially have factored in negotiations a year later.

>>>>>Remember that in the League, it's not just about money,
>>>>>it's about the respect shown to the player, too.

Excellent points. We are fortunate that Mitch seems to understand how important it is to show proper respect to players during negotiation and that Andrew seems to be a young man with all of the right attitudes and priorities who wanted to remain a Laker. That is why I was always confident that a deal for an extension would be reached before Oct 31.

As I have said before, I am sure that Mitch appealed to Drew and his agent to do a deal that would leave enough money on the table to keep the team together. That is a valid argument that I am sure would resonate with Drew and it avoids the risk of alienating or insulting the player by denigrating his value. It is the same argument that Mitch will use to convince Kobe to opt out and resign a more cap-friendly long term contract and Lamar to settle for far less to remain a Laker once his contract expires at the end of this year.

I do agree with AK and other posters that the deal does mitigate the risk to the Lakers by limiting their guaranteed exposure to 3 years. And I do believe it is a fair deal for all parties. As to the question of why the Lakers agreed to the deal, I still stand by my position that the Lakers wanted to make absolutely sure that Drew would remain in purple and gold. The ONLY way to do that was to sign him to the extension. Allowing Drew to become a free agent, even restricted, was too great a risk for the Lakers to take.

Plaschke ignored the other option that Drew would have had if no extension were signed and he ended up harboring bad feelings about the Lakers, which was to just accept the Lakers qualifying offer and play out the year to join LeBron the following summer as an unrestricted free agent. That is what David Lee was probably referring to when he stated that “there would be consequences” if Drew were not signed to an extension.

That is, of course, just my take and personal opinion on the issue of Drew’s extension. All that really matters at this point in time is that Drew is now signed and will remain a Laker. That is what all Lakers fans should celebrate and be grateful for.

Tom

John Hollinger over at ESPN gets what Plaschke doesn't.

"Today is the deadline for contract extensions, and the one whopper that came down was center Andrew Bynum's four-year, $57 million deal with the Lakers, the last year of which isn't guaranteed. This struck me as a rather sensible bargain, given the likelihood that somebody was going to massively overpay Bynum as a restricted free agent next summer and force L.A. to match an Elton Brand-sized contract.

Instead, they'll pay him the dough, but just for a little while. As a veteran coach told me a couple years ago, it's not the dollars with which teams makes mistakes, it's the years. It's imperative to keep Bynum while L.A.'s championship window is open; paying him for an uncertain future beyond that is not. The Lakers accomplish both with this deal."

I don't always agree with Hollinger (for instance, today he also predicted Gasol, Vujacic and Fisher would all have down years this year) but I usually do, and I certainly agree with him in looking at Bynum's deal.

By signiong Bynum now and saving some money allows us some wiggle room next year. Depending on how this year ends up we'll need to make decisions on Ariza, Odom, and maybe Kobe. Best case scenario would be for Kobe to opt out and resign for a longer contract but with less yearly cap damage. This would allow us to resign all the key ingredients for a potential back to back championship.

Andy

hello everyone....

I like the bynum deal worked out for btoh sides. Hope he is able 2 stay healthy

Hobbit,

this post is for this post I'll respond the previous thread another post.

The Triangle offense is an equal opportunity offense to find open shots and lets guys play to their strengths such as Trevor being a slasher and Derek getting wide open jump shots.

Trevor's game is like you said: slashing. Therefore the Triangle's purpose if he was playing in the starting 5 is to get it to his main strengths and slash. The 2nd Unit doesn't play the triangle instead doing a fast offense ala Minute Men. That means not having to really create your own shots since you can do the "moving without the ball" technique more so than the Triangle offense which passes and cuts are dictated by movement the opponent. Jordan has good penetration and looks to create and Trevor and Sasha at times benefit tons from his creativity. That is what the offense the 2nd unit does. Trevor benefits from the offense but if the offense isn't working, how could he be effective if he cannot create on his own? (I noticed when he didn't have a play maker he is almost non existent on offense just like when he paired up with Derek, he tried to create on his own but was ineffective, I'm hoping as his career goes on he could create on his own instead of relying on Jordan or Kobe)

Trevor takes full advantage of the offense with Jordan and with Sasha back even will be more effective (since teams will have to respect Sasha's shooting). However take away Jordan and the passes that he receives from him and what will he do to score?

-blitz

Faith (and others who may be wondering),

Ironically, BK has a post about to go through about the deal, but for my two cents...

I have to admit, news of the extension surprised me. In part because this wasn't a "DEFCON 1" situation, but mostly because Team Bynum was giving the impression of heels dug in on the maximum amount of dollars (or pretty damn close) and years. There's absolutely no way the Lakers would have agreed to those conditions, which is why I didn't expect anything to happen. This particular deal didn't seem like it was even being talked about, much less in the works.

But as for the deal itself, I think it was a very reasonable compromise. Assuming Drew plays the way everyone hopes/thinks he can, the Lakers likely saved themselves some considerable cash matching what would have been a longer, more expensive offer sheet. Beyond the money, they also lessened their risk of commitment, should Bynum prove a bust (which I don't see happening) or keep getting hurt (which unfortunately is less certain).

Do risks remain? Sure,and that's unavoidable in sports. But three seasons isn't very long and if Drew doesn't pan out, they can treat this as a 14 mil expiring deal to trade away heading into the 2011 season. Realistically speaking, the Lakers did a pretty good job softening the "what if's."

As for Team Bynum, they land a very nice pay day and the ability to land a longer deal when Drew has theoretically proven himself beyond the shadow of a doubt before even entering his prime. Plus, they get this over and done, which I got a sense Bynum wanted. We're talking about a pretty low key, unassuming kid who never seemed particularly comfortable talking about this situation. Or even all that obsessed with it. Take this passage from Mike Bresnahan's article about the deal.

"At the end of the day, Andrew told his agent, 'I want to get a deal done. I want to be a Laker,' " said Bynum's brother, Corey Thomas. "I believe he's a max basketball player and his agent thinks so too. But the way Kobe has led this team the past two years, why would Andrew want to go anywhere else?

"There's something very, very special about this team and I think he felt, 'Hey, why fight over five or six million dollars when you could have five championship rings?' "

Obviously, this may be syllabus material for "Saying the right things 101." But I can also believe this is almost verbatim what Drew told David Lee. Not that 5-6 mil is anything to sneeze at, but either way, Drew's future grandkids, much less "grandpa" himself, walk away set for life. I imagine Drew was relieved everyone could go into "Solomon" mode, find a nice solution, and move on.

In terms of how the deal affects the Lakers down the road, it obviously lessens their flexibility when it comes signing other players. Then again, they basically had none to begin with, so it's a moot point. But in terms of true core players, the only immediate question marks are Ariza (repped by Lee, so maybe that'll work in the Lakers' favor), LO (whose situation would have been determined by pay cut willingness no matter what). Everyone else is under contract for a little while. Most importantly, assuming Kobe remains on board (and I'd be stunned if he didn't), the Lakers will have a formidable big three locked up for some time. That's never a bad thing.

AK

The L.A. Times used to have SUCH great sports coverage. Now it's star writers are a couple of hacks.

They should let the Kamenetsky Brothers write more articles.

GO LAKERS!

AK,

Thanks for the insider information.

It warms my heart to know that Andrew Bynum forced his evil agent into compromise for the good of the Lakers.

GO LAKERS!

dave m,

>>>Re: Marion - we don't need him and I sincerely hope we
>>>don't try and trade for him. Nothing against him as a
>>>player but I just can't see him fitting in with our
>>>team-oriented play.

At the start of the summer I would have leapt at an Odom for
Marion deal. But with improvements in Rad's defense and
Ariza's offense, I'm now with you.

If I were the Lakers, I wouldn't mess with this team at LEAST
until the trade deadline, and maybe not at all. As they stand
right now, I think they're the best, deepest, most versatile team
in the NBA. Though the trade-deadline trades I talked about
might help keep more of the core team together for the future,
sometimes it's best to focus on the present first and worry about
the future later.

This post Hobbit is from you last post from last night.

PJ wanted Odom at SF because he wanted him to be a playmaker. That is why on offense Odom was supposed to be the PG, Derek shifted towards a traditional SG role, and Kobe to a more SF role which he could attack. Because though of the glut at SF and Odom's play making, PJ opted Lamar to be more 6th man to get more role players involved. Because of this shift he tried different strategies like Trevor and Derek back to the PG role but that have to makde Kobe be more perimeter wise (since Trevor's main strengths is slashing) which he could do but is lower FG% shots especially since Kobe prefers to create his own shots (if he was aiming to score rather when he is doing the playmaking). That is why Radman started and hence opened up the lane for Kobe to penetrate more. Gasol does the same thing with Bynum since Bynum is more on the block guy Gasol does more mid range game which helps open up Bynum on his post ups to discourage double teams.

I agree on 2 of the reasons you gave why Radman started in that Kobe was SG (he prefers SF to attack) and that Radman has a better jump shooting. Defense was the theme in training camp and the new defense that PJ is using helps hide Radman's disadvantage at defending (1-2-2 trap zone) and actually plays up to his strengths of trapping and rotating over. Trevor's big strengths at help defense is reading the passing lanes like Jordan. If this was the old defense of man to man defense then Trevor would be a stronger possibility at starting. The defense we have helps Radman tons at defense and allows more of his focus on offense.

I hope you did not compare Trevor to Peja. Peja is one of the best sharp shooters in the NBA. He doesn't need to be spot up shooter although it makes him even more better thanks to CP3. Peja has long created his own jump shot since his Sacramento King days. Trevor's jump shots are mainly set up by penetration and kick. He has yet to play a full season of creating his own 3 point shooting. Lamar like you said can create his own jump shot. Is it good as Peja's? Heck no. Best Lamar got was 37.2%. Radman also creates his own jump shots and has done it tons of times already last year and not to mention hitting buzzer beating 3 points against the Kings twice. That's why I don't have Trevor to be a great 3 point shooter because they are set up. Neither do I count Lamar as a great 3 point shooter but he can create his own 3 point shot, something Trevor hasn't shown he could do. Here is what I would rank the shooters:

1) Peja (Great shooter, can create on his own)
2) Radman (Great shooter, can create on his own, Peja simply better than him)
3) Lamar (Solid shooter, can create but not to the effect of Peja or Radman)
4) Trevor (Solid Shooter, hasn't show to create his own jump shot instead relying on penetration)

I trust Derek too. And like I said, you have to "look" at the statistics more carefully and see the factors as to "why" he scored like that. During years 2 and 3 of the three peat: Derek played heavy minutes and had Shaq and Kobe to help him get open opportunities. As a result he shot 40% in those years and in 2002-2003. When we picked up Payton Derek was forced into the bench and shot 29% since he had to do the playmaking for less talented guys and had less open opportunities to score from downtown.

When he went to Golden State to run the offense he couldn't find the opportunities to shoot as much as he did like he was with the Lakers and the Warriors had to get Baron Davis to their playmaking and forced Derek to be a 6th man shooting specialist. When Davis got injured it was Monte Ellis that did the playmaking and Derek at least got some open opportunities to shoot.

When he went to Utah, the Jazz had him play SG because he was a shooting specialist and could spread the offense for the Utah offense. Unfortunately Derek was going to be guarded by bigger SG players and when they had to kick the ball out to him he was shooting against bigger players and less of shots went in.

He comes back to the Lakers and look what happens? He gets 40% shooting again just like he did during his first tenure. That is why you must break down the statistics to make it more fact instead of just saying "all those lies and statistics" and dismissing it entirely.

Again: Trevor is getting his opportunities mainly on being spot up shooter. When he creates his own shots. all the better. Lamar has an edge because he creates his own shots and has shown he could be a spot shooter (not as good as Sasha or Radman) better than Trevor and has show he could shoot it decently at 37.2% at SF. PF he shoots less from the perimeter and it distorts the number since he only does it at random times and Lamar doesn't do it enough to get in groove (which is all the better since he is not settling for perimeter shots which are a lower FG%).

"1. He's the best defensive SF we have and defense
seems to be important this year.
2. His outside shooting is better than Lamar's.
3. *I* believe Lamar is to slow to play against the
quicker SF's in the league."

1) Trevor is a defender but remember we are playing zone defense which negates many disadvantages of poor defense (not all). That's how it seems Radman is playing good defense when in fact the zone is helping out his weakness. While any defensive skill is a plus, it isn't as important as other things that must be brought to the table.
2) No. When he creates his own shots, then I will say Trevor is a better outside shooter. He has not yet created his own shot to show he is a better jump shooter.
3) Same as point 1. The 1-2-2 trapping zone defense negates many of the personal defense weaknesses since it is specifically designed to protect against penetration and interior passing and forcing perimeter shots by help defense in terms of rotating and trapping. If you are concerned for quickness, then Radman should have already been burned by Al Thorton had we defended the old way.

Trevor has a specific role that is to help defend perimeter plays like Ginobili and Pierce and to lure them into trapping unless Kobe is doing that.

"BTW, if I have read you right ....

your criteria for a starter is:

be able to create your own shot.
be a 40% shooter
be a lock down defender."

No you have NOT read me right so I'm sorry if you mis read me. What I listed there was the things you over rate Trevor. For a starter, you must have a specific role within the offense and defense. Kobe is the main perimeter stopper of the starters when he guards man to man. What is Trevor's role if Kobe has that assignment? (Kobe always wants the toughest perimeter assignment unless it is a point guard or he has to play against defense specialist like Bowen which he could spare his energy on the offense).

Why PJ's original plan was to start Lamar at SF before thinking of a 6th man (before Radman did): Was to be the playmaker and to play the point guard to let Derek focus more on perimeter shooting and Kobe on attacking the basket more. Trevor is no playmaker and Lamar loves being the team guy rather than the Go to guy which would have suited him more. Radman has a role and that role is being the 3 point threat since Derek is playing the PG role. Trevor's role is to help guard perimeter defenders. As a bench role player, he does that well since the bench has a defensive guy plus playing with Jordan allows him to play to his strengths and allows more opportunities for him in spot up 3 point shooting rather than as a starter with Derek, Kobe, Pau, Bynum.

That's why I like Trevor as bench guy since it allows him to develop more with more opportunities to create chemistry with Jordan and Sasha who are most likely to be starters in the future and play up to his strengths. Lamar would have more than willing to sacrifice his statistics if he could do more play making and helping the team.

That's why I ask not to over rate players. That shouldn't mean I consider them "bad players". Trevor is playing to his strengths as a role player. That doesn't mean he is a full time starter (like you campaigned for in the past). That doesn't mean he is a great shooter who can create his own shots (though I believe he will in the future just not this season).

-blitz

ex,

Thanks for the link to the John Wooden article. I grew up watching the Bruins win all their national championships and worshipped coach Wooden. From Hazzard and Goodrich through Alcinder and Walton, there will never again be a domination of college basketball like UCLA in the Wooden years. They were to college basketball what the Celtics under Red Auerbach were to pro-basketball. Dynasties that will never again be replicated.

I had the wonderful fortune of meeting John in person twice when my son attended his basketball camps in San Diego. Talk about a gracious and caring person. My son was very undersized (I lied about his age to get him into the camp the first year) but John had sort of adopted him and given him special treatment, including a special award for effort and sportsmanship. One of the proudest moments of my life.

Once a Bruin, always a Bruin.

Tom

Long Time,

>>>>>If he did, then he failed on that appeal. Barring something
>>>>>catastrophic like Kobe leaving for Europe next summer, or Buss
>>>>>changing his mind and agreeing to spend over 100 million on
>>>>>salaries, Lamar will not be with the team next year one way or another.

I don’t agree with that interpretation. Whatever arguments Mitch used when negotiating with Drew and his agent accomplished two major objectives. First, it did not alienate or disrespect Drew or his value as a player. Second, it convinced Drew to advise his agent to make the deal because he wanted to remain a Laker.

If you noticed, this is the same way that the Sasha negotiations went, with the player telling his agent to make a deal because he wanted to stay with the Lakers. I will be very interested to hear details of the negotiations from Mitch’s side because I am sure that arguments he used with both Sasha and Drew were based on the team’s overall salary cap and luxury tax situation rather than on either player’s value on the market. It is the clearly the best, safest, and most effective negotiating position for the Lakers to take.

While I suspect that Mitch will try and get Kobe and Lamar to follow, I agree that it is questionable whether Lamar can survive in the end because the Lakers will really be in stratospheric realms as far as their salary. What Mitch is trying to do is to get everybody to sacrifice to keep the team together, which may as you say be an impossible task. Remember though that nobody, even Jerry Buss, knows how high he will allow the Lakers salary and luxury tax expense to go, especially if we win a championship and look poised to win many more.

The best that Mitch can do at this point is try and get some money back on every personnel deal he cuts in the hopes that it will help keep the team together. He might not be successful enough to save Lamar, but he might gain enough to keep Farmar or Ariza or Mihm in the fold. That is why I consider the strategy successful. After all, it saved the Lakers $2M to $3M per year for 3 or 4 years, not even counting luxury taxes.

Tom