Real Deal

Feed keeps dying.

Denver wants draft picks, expiring contracts and young talent. Dallas can't offer all of that. It's really out of the question, unless they trade Dirk...and at that point, I don't see why Melo would sign that extension.

Okay, WTF...Kobe is getting hacked. Come on.

This game has that doomsday feel all over it already. Seems like the entire team is disconnected from each other, and Ron hates Phil Jackson's guts.

Someone please hit Al Davis in the head with a shovel.

For one, when I say Kobe wasn't at fault for anything, you know what I meant. No player has a perfect game, not even if their stats read 100% FG, 25/5/5. What does that even mean? Bryant doesn't have free reign to go into an iso every single time he touches the ball. Gasol is not playing the way he should be playing, and if he doesn't, the triangle isn't set up properly, and Kobe ends up being the one responsible for creating everything AND scoring the most points. You say you know the offense, so I don't see why I would even have to post that. The rest of your post, it just sounds like you're ragging on him for the threes that he's been taking. If he doesn't take them and doesn't try to go for the kill, we lose games. We are 10-2 when Bryant shoots 40% or better from three (and all but two of those 12 games had 5+ attempts). In games where he doesn't make a single three, we are 9-2. I really doubt it matters. The problem is running the triangle, and our defense as a whole. Players don't want to get into position. Ron just wants to shoot the ball (and he can't even do that), same goes for Fisher, Gasol doesn't want to play in the post, Odom is too inconsistent throughout the game, Brown is one-dimensional, Barnes is an overrated defender and gets his points off o-boards or random spot-ups, Blake is nowhere to be found, and the only two guys that are trying to run the system out there are Kobe and Drew. So do I expect Kobe to ditch the triangle and try to take over games? Most definitely, and it works in spurts...but when the players don't respond to it, and people start making ridiculous assumptions that it "doesn't get them into rhythm," they don't realize that those guys were never in a rhythm to begin with. Yeah, Kobe is not at the peak of his prime anymore. He wasn't last season, either, but it still worked out. The difference between this season and last? Kobe played 39 MPG last season. This one, he's at 33 MPG, which is a half a quarter less. His numbers are seeing a slight decrease, but when you consider six minutes less, you can factor in the 1/2 assist, 1/2 board, and two points less he's putting up. If he was shooting 39% from the floor, you'd have a point about how much worse he's doing...but he's not doing much different from the way he played last season, not at all.

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The article is spot-on, sad to say it. The funny thing is, people always poke at Jackson when he calls out other players and coaches, but they always dismiss what he says about his own team.

The game was in single digits because of him. If he takes a three, it's everyone else's job to get on the glass or get back on defense (with him), instead of standing around and not doing a damn thing, like they've done all season long. If Phil thinks it's smart to have Artest and Fisher in the same five with Kobe and two bigs (two that can't run back), so be it...but that's Phil's fault. We are slow. ANY missed shot will lead to a potential fast break opportunity for the other team, doesn't matter if it's a two or a three. It's been that way since November. If we're going to run this course again (like we do every year, for some odd reason), we might as well end it with saying that Kobe is the worst player on the team, statistically, because his +/- statistic says so...and we're done with the Lakers, first-round exit, and we'll start talking about the Spurs.

Under 30 points? You do realize he could've had over 30 if he wasn't so interested in getting everyone else involved in the first half, right? Then, when Phil flips back into his other personality, he wants Kobe to cool off and start getting others involved again, in the 4th. Nothing is working right now. I don't blame Kobe for that. It's not about being a homer, because I've said that Bryant has been a problem in some of our games (do a post search), but he was not the problem in this game. It's about watching it and knowing why our offense sucks. Sounds like you keep falling back into that statistical analysis mode. If you did that over the last two seasons, you would be safe in saying that the Lakers wouldn't win their championships. Bryant isn't going to grab 10 boards because he has Gasol, Odom and Drew all crashing the glass. Assists are a two-way street, and the Lakers weren't hitting ANYTHING all night long, open or not. You want him to score 30? Ask Phil. He's the one throwing out the unnecessary statements, then retracting them a day later because it makes him look stupid. You talk about Kobe going away from what was working...Kobe mode, attacking the rim or hitting two-point jumpers? Yeah, that's something you would eventually say DOESN'T work, because it doesn't seem to get his teammates involved, and because (according to you) Bryant is slowing down. So, someone is going to have to make up their mind. You (or anyone) can't expect Bryant to turn it on and off, going against Phil, sensing when the team isn't able to perform, still racking up triple-doubles and forcing his teammates to knock down the wide open shots they don't make, forcing Gasol to actually post up for a change, and having to come over and do something about Conley as he makes Fisher look like the worst defensive player in the NBA.

I'm not sure if anyone actually thinks that, but when you start to consider the roles they have and the draft spots, Fields is probably second in the rookie race right now.

I need one person for each, or one person running both. It's a staff position, so you'll have to stay consistent and do a good job. This person has to be a dedicated member, no previous bans, with at least one full year under your belt. You'll be expected to... 1) run our Facebook page by posting NBA and site news on it, as well as finding fans for our page and telling those current "fans" to invite others 2) run our Twitter account by finding more basketball fans on Twitter, and possibly using #FF (Follow Fridays) to get large accounts to return the favor and promote our Twitter I've set up a feed that dumps our NBA topics into the Twitter account, so you won't have to mess with any of that. If you're interested, let me know. It's an important position. The idea is to recruit through these two social networking sites, so you could become very important for our future.

Wall has been disappointing so far, when you compare him to Griffin...and then, next to Fields, who was a second-rounder with lower expectations? I'm not too shocked at the way he's playing now (Fields), but when the season started, I was amazed to see him out there playing like a top three rook.

http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/news/story?id=5985885

I'm sorry, but I looked at the entire picture, not just the numbers. I've seen Bryant launch 3-4 threes when the team was down by 20, four minutes left, just to make a miracle happen. Would you walk into a topic, later on, and say he had poor shot selection throughout the entire game? That would probably be your conclusion, since you didn't watch it. One or two of those threes were probably considered poor shot selection. The rest were just fine. Because he shot well everywhere else (and did get to the rim), I don't see how anyone can say he was at fault for anything in this specific game.

Kobe will probably land in the top three when his career is over, probably #3.

Weird. I only saw one Lakers fan post in this topic before your post.

How many of them were open threes? And, five of his six misses were in the second half of the game, AND three of those five were in the third. He didn't take any bad shots in the first half of the game, and the Lakers were losing big. In the third, when he shot 6-11, three of those misses were threes...and I don't care because if it wasn't for him going nuts, we would've been blown out by 30+ points. So, two threes in the fourth quarter (both misses) were bad shots? Both happened when we were down 18 points. I don't like playing the boxscore poster. Those threes weren't necessarily bad shots. Two in the first half (one that he made), three misses in the third when he was the ONLY player doing ANYTHING for our team, and two misses in the fourth when the game was out of reach. I don't see the problem.

Copy and paste the code below, filling in the blanks. All correct answers get you five points. No late entries accepted. If you don't turn yours in by the tip-off of the first game, you miss out, no exceptions. Wednesday, January 5th LA Lakers @ Phoenix (ESPN) Winner: Leading rebounder: Thursday, January 6th Oklahoma City @ Dallas (TNT) Winner: Leading passer: Denver @ Sacramento (TNT) Winner: Player with the most threes made: Friday, January 7th Houston @ Orlando (ESPN) Winner: Leading scorer: New York @ Phoenix (ESPN) Winner: Player with the most turnovers: Saturday, January 8th Philadelphia @ Detroit Winner: Leading rebounder: Boston @ Chicago Winner: Leading passer:

And, yes Kyle...Marc knows how to defend Pau, probably better than anyone else in the league, it seems.

Now you know why I questioned you. It's easy to say he took bad shots just by looking at his three-point percentage (because that's what you brought up), but the rest weren't.

If Wallace didn't play, who were the two defending Wade and LeBron? I'm assuming S-Jax was on James.

Read more here... http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/news/story?id=5984788

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