In semi-related news, Melo is finally starting to live up to his potential.

We hear about the Lakers nonstop when they win, we hear about the Lakers when they lose. I think I just hate ESPN in general for the being the FOX news of sports media.

You mean to tell me that a coach who specializes in high octane, up tempo offense wasn't the best fit for a bunch of AARP players and Dwight Howard?

Phil Jackson's return in 3..2..1...

Somehow this is all Kobe's fault.

/rape

Lakers talk is boring

Here is a great useless bar stool argument:

"He's a guy I love as a basketball fan," (Mark) Jackson said. "To me, he's the third-best shooting guard to play the game. People think I'm crazy for saying that. And there's no disrespect to anybody else. The guy is a winner, he competes, he's an underrated passer, and we all know he can score the basketball."

And some trivia:

Only 5 players in NBA history have 1000+ steals and 1500+ blocks.

Gunny Highway: "He's a guy I love as a basketball fan," (Mark) Jackson said. "To me, he's the third-best shooting guard to play the game. People think I'm crazy for saying that. And there's no disrespect to anybody else. The guy is a winner, he competes, he's an underrated passer, and we all know he can score the basketball."

Bullshiat. Pistol Pete never had to flop.

EyeballKid: Gunny Highway: "He's a guy I love as a basketball fan," (Mark) Jackson said. "To me, he's the third-best shooting guard to play the game. People think I'm crazy for saying that. And there's no disrespect to anybody else. The guy is a winner, he competes, he's an underrated passer, and we all know he can score the basketball."

Bullshiat. Pistol Pete never had to flop.

He never won an NBA title either, did he?

Wait, bu but I thought the Knicks were going to suck because they didn't sign Lin? What happened?

hbk72777: Wait, bu but I thought the Knicks were going to suck because they didn't sign Lin? What happened?

JR Smith stopped partying?

Generation_D: He never won an NBA title either, did he?

So, Bill Cartwright was a better center than Patrick Ewing?
Luke Walton's a better forward than Karl Malone?


See, you win those championships as a team.

LA SUCKS!

you have pee hands: In semi-related news, Melo is finally starting to live up to his potential.

hes been living up to it all season. Hes playing at a higher level then he has ever played. And its all hustle. The guy hustles. Hes playing with a determination I've never seen him have.

All credit to Woodson. Coach of the year. For sure. He someone took this whole team and brought them together. Its really amazing.

David Stern working feverishly to save his legacy, er... the Lakers.

Outside of ESPN and the two die-hard Lakers fans, does anyone really care how the Lakers do? Sporting events in L.A. are just ways to get your face in Variety or TMZ.

Scorpitron is reduced to a thin red paste: David Stern working feverishly to save his legacy, er... the Lakers.

Yeah, Stern would never want the Knicks to do well.

vinnydoz007: All credit to Woodson. Coach of the year. For sure. He someone took this whole team and brought them together. Its really amazing

Why dont we hold off on handing out awards.

Melo MVP

FreakinB: hbk72777: Wait, bu but I thought the Knicks were going to suck because they didn't sign Lin? What happened?

Ray and the Geriatrics have actually been working out so far. I'm just as surprised as anyone. There have been few times when I've been happier to be wrong.

Also, I saw a stat somewhere that showed Melo's going iso less frequently. That has to be helping.

Go Team Balky Knees!

Seriously though, Jason Kidd is shooting better than he ever had in his career, and he's contributing 2 steals a game in limited time. I always respected the man but this has just been incredible.

Not even close to being the biggest LA story yesterday.

Gunny Highway: Scorpitron is reduced to a thin red paste: David Stern working feverishly to save his legacy, er... the Lakers.

Yeah, Stern would never want the Knicks to do well.



David Stern? The guy who said that his dream finals would be "Lakers vs. the Lakers"? He'd do anything to get the Lakers back into prominence. Anything.

you have pee hands: In semi-related news, Melo is finally starting to live up to his potential.

He may be one of our best international players. He always has a good year after the Olympics. He will forget how to play next year.

I'll just leave this here.


/Too bad we aren't playing the Lakers more at the start of the season before they get their schlitz together.
//Can't complain. Go Wars!

FriarReb98: I hat the Fakers as much as anyone, but really, this "let's have a thread every time they lose" shiat is getting old. Like older-than-Murtaugh old.

I'M NOT TOO OLD FOR THIS SHIAT!

EyeballKid: Generation_D: He never won an NBA title either, did he?

So, Bill Cartwright was a better center than Patrick Ewing?
Luke Walton's a better forward than Karl Malone?


See, you win those championships as a team.

Is the name of the game Basketball or 1v1 ? I'm sure Maravich could smoke most players 1 on 1. But his game was less useful at putting a winning team on the floor. Not all his fault, blame his GMs. But same thing with Ewing, when a star is good enough that ownership ignores the rest of the team, look what happens.

Jordan had to threaten to quit, LeBron did quit/change teams. No one guy is great enough to win a title on his own. Even if he can shoot 44 a night while wearing crappy chuck taylors.

So in a way it IS his fault. All those points amount to .. nothing .. just points. So if you celebrate points he's a hero, if you watch the game to see how talent forms into a title team... he's pretty much irrelevant.

Generation_D: EyeballKid: Generation_D: He never won an NBA title either, did he?

So, Bill Cartwright was a better center than Patrick Ewing?
Luke Walton's a better forward than Karl Malone?


See, you win those championships as a team.

Is the name of the game Basketball or 1v1 ? I'm sure Maravich could smoke most players 1 on 1. But his game was less useful at putting a winning team on the floor. Not all his fault, blame his GMs. But same thing with Ewing, when a star is good enough that ownership ignores the rest of the team, look what happens.

Jordan had to threaten to quit, LeBron did quit/change teams. No one guy is great enough to win a title on his own. Even if he can shoot 44 a night while wearing crappy chuck taylors.

So in a way it IS his fault. All those points amount to .. nothing .. just points. So if you celebrate points he's a hero, if you watch the game to see how talent forms into a title team... he's pretty much irrelevant.

Same argument against Marino in the NFL, btw. Passing stats in isolation don't win titles. Marino for whatever reason all those years had Shula as coach and never once put a title team together. It was always hey look at me 4000 yards. And an early playoffs exit again and again.

If you regularly make the title game, or regularly make it close then miss thats one thing. But these isolated lone stars who put up great numbers on mediocre teams never impress me that much. At some point where's the will to win, where's the desire to do more than play and amass stats? If you have all this talent and its been a few years, you either need to have a long talk with ownership, or you need to demand a trade to someone who is close and needs your skills set.

If all you do is sit around doing your "job" then your job clearly wasn't to win, it was just to play. That isnt interesting to me. I want to watch guys try to win.

Barkley I admire, he wanted to win. They just couldn't beat MJ and Scottie and yes, Bill Cartwright. All of whom to some extent subsumed their individual talent in order to make a better team. Barkley and Drexler and Gary Payton and Kemp and Stockton and Malone all were trying to win.

Ewing? One man show, big man in NYC, never even made it to the finals except the 2 years Jordan sat out, and even that required a Hue Hollins referee assist on Scottie Pippen to make it happen.

Quick, who was the other star on the Ewing Knicks. Starks? My point exactly. Lone man acts never win it all, and you have to question a player who is content to keep being the one-man act. I do anyway, you might just like watching guys score points all night regardless of whether or not it wins titles.

Generation_D: EyeballKid: Generation_D: He never won an NBA title either, did he?

So, Bill Cartwright was a better center than Patrick Ewing?
Luke Walton's a better forward than Karl Malone?


See, you win those championships as a team.

Is the name of the game Basketball or 1v1 ? I'm sure Maravich could smoke most players 1 on 1. But his game was less useful at putting a winning team on the floor. Not all his fault, blame his GMs. But same thing with Ewing, when a star is good enough that ownership ignores the rest of the team, look what happens.

Jordan had to threaten to quit, LeBron did quit/change teams. No one guy is great enough to win a title on his own. Even if he can shoot 44 a night while wearing crappy chuck taylors.

So in a way it IS his fault. All those points amount to .. nothing .. just points. So if you celebrate points he's a hero, if you watch the game to see how talent forms into a title team... he's pretty much irrelevant.

Right, but then you can't say somebody's a better player in a shooting position, as Jackson says about D-Wade, using his winning championships with a team, as part of the justification. Maravich did what he did with an albatross of a godawful Hawks team around his neck every game, the same way nobody would ever argue Jerome Bettis was a better running back than Barry Sanders was. And, back to my central point, Maravich didn't have to flop to achieve, unlike Dwyane "OW MY EYE" Wade. He's a top 10 guard, that argument can be made. But not top 3.

EyeballKid: "OW MY EYE"

You would know.

EyeballKid: Generation_D: EyeballKid: Generation_D: He never won an NBA title either, did he?

So, Bill Cartwright was a better center than Patrick Ewing?
Luke Walton's a better forward than Karl Malone?


See, you win those championships as a team.

Is the name of the game Basketball or 1v1 ? I'm sure Maravich could smoke most players 1 on 1. But his game was less useful at putting a winning team on the floor. Not all his fault, blame his GMs. But same thing with Ewing, when a star is good enough that ownership ignores the rest of the team, look what happens.

Jordan had to threaten to quit, LeBron did quit/change teams. No one guy is great enough to win a title on his own. Even if he can shoot 44 a night while wearing crappy chuck taylors.

So in a way it IS his fault. All those points amount to .. nothing .. just points. So if you celebrate points he's a hero, if you watch the game to see how talent forms into a title team... he's pretty much irrelevant.

Right, but then you can't say somebody's a better player in a shooting position, as Jackson says about D-Wade, using his winning championships with a team, as part of the justification. Maravich did what he did with an albatross of a godawful Hawks team around his neck every game, the same way nobody would ever argue Jerome Bettis was a better running back than Barry Sanders was. And, back to my central point, Maravich didn't have to flop to achieve, unlike Dwyane "OW MY EYE" Wade. He's a top 10 guard, that argument can be made. But not top 3.

This discussion needs more beer and less internet. I'll concede whatever it was you're saying, cause we aren't that far off in agreeing, but at the end of the day Wade is only doing what the league allows him to do, blame the league for creating a climate where flopping by stars is encouraged and rewarded.

Meanwhile the Clippers are in command in the Pacific

akuma976: We hear about the Lakers nonstop when they win, we hear about the Lakers when they lose. I think I just hate ESPN in general for the being the FOX news of sports media.

Don't strain yourself reaching for stupid.

MugzyBrown: Your big center can't play pick and roll and needs the offense to run through him.

Your big SG needs the ball in his hands to create off the dribble

Your big PG, when he plays, needs the ball in his hands to create open shots

Nobody on the team is a real catch & shoot player.

The only real fit is Nash and Pau, but they're both getting pretty old.

Kobe can be catch and shoot. He needs to be for Nash to work the offense

bhcompy: Meanwhile the Clippers are in command in the Pacific

1 game lead over the Warriors is being in command?

I love reading these Lakerhater threads.

You can almost vicariously feel the rectal trauma.

Free Radical: Somehow this is all Kobe's fault.

/rape



I'm glad somebody addressed this.

IAmRight: lakrfool: I love reading these Lakerhater threads.

You can almost vicariously feel the rectal trauma.

You love the feeling of rectal trauma?

Almost.

IAmRight: lakrfool: I love reading these Lakerhater threads.

You can almost vicariously feel the rectal trauma.

You love the feeling of rectal trauma?

LOL!

I'm not throwing a handful of dirt on the Lakers this season until Nash & Gasol are healthy, & D12 is 100%. Losing all these games to teams you should beat sucks, but I would rather it happen in Nov/Dec than Apr/May...take your lumps early on, & hit your stride when it's 'winning time.'

lakrfool: IAmRight: lakrfool: I love reading these Lakerhater threads.

You can almost vicariously feel the rectal trauma.

You love the feeling of rectal trauma?

Almost.



"Go on..."

splat the whale: IAmRight: lakrfool: I love reading these Lakerhater threads.

You can almost vicariously feel the rectal trauma.

You love the feeling of rectal trauma?

LOL!

Yeah, I pretty much walked right into that one...

/+1 IAmRight

So nice to see another Lakers Superteam crash and burn. I guess they forgot that year when they brought in Karl Malone and Company for their last all star starting five.

hbk72777: Wait, bu but I thought the Knicks were going to suck because they didn't sign Lin? What happened?

Nobody thought that Raymond Fatton and a retirement mode Kidd was going to play as well as they are. In fact, not even the most die-hard Knicks fans thought that the entire team were going to play as well as they had this year. So don't act like you always had the grand knowledge that the Knicks were going to let Lin walk and go 17-5. Odds are you had thought the Knicks would be mediocre again this season just like the rest of us.

skinink: So nice to see another Lakers Superteam crash and burn. I guess they forgot that year when they brought in Karl Malone and Company for their last all star starting five.

Going to the Finals is crashing & burning?

Those are some mightly high standards you got there...