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[thegoldenchild]

Other than the laker regulars lots of people are coming out of the woodworks with the dumbest statements.. let kobe go, let d12 walk.. shows that those so called laker fans arent real fans..

 

[CP1708]

Lakers shouldve kept Brown as coach.

*Banned*

 

[mrdozo]

*Banned*

You really think Brown would have done a worse job than D'Antoni?

D'antonis system is not for this roster. Lakers are older than the Suns were, as was Nash.

 

[Figured it out]

Trade Pau for Rudy now, don't know if money wise it works out but don't give a **** make it happen. Let the Gasols ride their careers out together

 

[westcoastsfinest]

Rudy Gay? Do it Mitch!

 

[thegoldenchild]

Trade Pau for Rudy now, don't know if money wise it works out but don't give a **** make it happen. Let the Gasols ride their careers out together

And how would rudy help out?? He's a 3.. we have plenty of players on that position. Kobe, metta, ebanks, jamison.. do we need another 3? And then create a hole at the 4?? Even if jordan hill becomes the starter he has no back uo and neither has d12. So unless we get another 4 or a solid back up 1 in return I think it is pointless.. even a back up 1 is kinda pointless. We just let djo go, we can let morris and blake and duhon go and get delonte west. So all we need is a solid 4 man..

 

[pmatic]

No. Just no.

 

[grandtheftbike]

makes zero sense for memphis to trade for gasol

 

[Figured it out]

And how would rudy help out?? He's a 3.. we have plenty of players on that position. Kobe, metta, ebanks, jamison.. do we need another 3? And then create a hole at the 4?? Even if jordan hill becomes the starter he has no back uo and neither has d12. So unless we get another 4 or a solid back up 1 in return I think it is pointless.. even a back up 1 is kinda pointless. We just let djo go, we can let morris and blake and duhon go and get delonte west. So all we need is a solid 4 man..

Jamison is bettered suited at the 4 and has no chance at checking any sf in the league though, Rudy would be a good fit in this up and down offense and could spread the floor better then Pau and any other Pf that's going to clog the paint. Every team has holes good coaching just has to determine who stays on the floor with who. I also highly doubt we get a solid player at Pau position if we get a solid player at all. Dude trade value is -100 at least with Memphis maybe Marc can say he wants to play with Pau

 

[pmatic]

Lakers' future depends on Nash

Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers may have won on the Internet on Monday, but they'll have to focus their attention now on something that's proven far more difficult: winning actual NBA games.

We don't have to couch this anymore: The Lakers are in trouble. Losers of three straight, they are 15-18 and haven't been above .500 since before Thanksgiving. Ten Western Conference teams boast better records, and Hollinger's Playoff Odds give the purple-and-gold squad just a 36.3 percent chance at making the playoffs in the stacked West.

In other words, the Lakers are more likely to miss the playoffs than make it. Such a scenario seemed absolutely preposterous just a few months ago when some folks, including Metta World Peace, envisioned a Lakers team challenging the 1995-96 Bulls' 72-10 regular season. Nostradamus, World Peace is not.

And those playoff odds? They don't even know about the Lakers' growing pile of injuries. The Lakers' odds are probably a bit worse than the one-in-three chance that they've been given by Hollinger's algorithm. Dwight Howard will miss at least a week because of a torn labrum in his right shoulder. Pau Gasol, who looked lost out there already, will miss at least two games with a concussion. To add insult to injury, Jordan Hill, the Lakers' third-string center, is also out at least a week with, yes, a slightly torn labrum in his hip.

It has come to the point that we've discovered another downside to not hiring Phil Jackson: At least he maybe could suit up to rescue the Lakers' depleted front line. Instead, the 6-foot-3 Mike D'Antoni will have no choice but to dust off Antawn Jamison and let him out of the doghouse after registering six straight DNP-CD's recently. Yes, the Lakers -- who are spending $42 million on Howard, Gasol and Hill this season -- likely will start Jamison and bench celebration artist Robert Sacre on Tuesday against the scorching-hot Houston Rockets, who sport a $51 million payroll and have won nine of their past 11 games.

Neither Jamison nor Sacre has logged a meaningful minute in almost a month, but they'll probably start alongside Steve Nash, Bryant and World Peace for the foreseeable future, with no legitimate backups of any sort. The foreseeable future looks pretty dire on the Lakers' schedule, too. Five of the next six opponents have at least a .500 record, including three reigning conference finalists (Spurs, Thunder and Heat).

The history of 15-18

Things could get much worse before it gets better. If the next six games play out as their records would suggest, the Lakers could be entering their Jan. 20 matchup in Toronto with a dreadful 16-23 record. Since 1996-97, only four of the 23 teams that started 16-23 eventually made the playoffs, according to NBA.com's StatsCube. So, you're saying there's a chance? Well, all four of those teams hailed from the traditionally Charmin-soft Eastern Conference.

But right now, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, the Lakers are 15-18 with essentially half their payroll in street clothes. Of the 22 teams that started out 15-18 since 1996-97, they eventually finished with a win percentage that roughly equates to a 40-42 record.

However, there is a precedent for digging out of a hole this deep and punching a ticket to the playoffs. The 2002-03 Lakers started out 13-20 before going 37-12 the rest of the way and reaching the conference semifinals before Tim Duncan and the eventual champion Spurs sent Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal packing.

But that particular Lakers playoff rally included a healthy big man in O'Neal. After missing the first 12 games because of toe surgery, O'Neal recovered and immediately got back to his dominant ways, registering 27.5 points and 11.1 rebounds per game that season and finishing fifth in the MVP voting. It's almost impossible to imagine Howard, balky back, torn labrum and all, even sniffing the MVP discussion, and that's before we consider the possibility that he undergoes shoulder surgery (though the team and Howard are denying that surgery is necessary, for now).

Nash to the rescue?

The reality is that the Lakers' season likely will hinge on a player who just recently suffered a broken leg: Nash. We know what we're going to get with Bryant. The 34-year-old has served as the Lakers' offensive metronome this season as the NBA's scoring leader. Bryant is off to the most efficient shooting campaign of his career (59.2 true shooting percentage), but despite Bryant's gaudy point totals, it hasn't changed the Lakers' fortunes much.

But Nash? His team needs his basketball magic more than ever. Nash salvaged the Phoenix Suns' season in 2011-12, leading a lukewarm roster to a respectable .500 record in the West, largely the same Phoenix cast that currently sports the second-worst record in the conference at 12-23 with Goran Dragic leading the way.

Nash should see a much greater role in the next coming week as Howard and Gasol recover from their respective injuries. But you have to wonder whether he's healthy enough to shoulder the burden. Calling him 80 percent seems generous, and he looks to have lost what little explosiveness he has left at age 38. That's what you'd expect from a near 40-year-old recovering from a broken left fibula.

It's been painful at times to watch this edition of Nash. After running a pick-and-roll with Gasol in the first quarter of Sunday's Denver loss, Nash drove into the lane, found some space and lifted off his gimpy left leg for a fadeaway 8-footer -- a shot he normally makes in his sleep. He left it about a foot short.

It's probably a combination of Nash's health and the congested spacing with Gasol and Howard, but Nash hasn't penetrated to the rim nearly as much as last season. Nash has taken only nine field goal attempts in the restricted area this season, according to NBA.com's advanced stats tool, and has missed four of them. If we add up his "basket attacks" by combining his restricted-area attempts and his free throw attempts, Nash's numbers have been cut in half in the early going (4.2 last season to 2.0 this season).

It's extremely early to make conclusive judgment calls on Nash's tenure in Lakers land. After all, he's played in just nine games. But it's going to get much more difficult to run the pick-and-roll, the bread-and-butter of D'Antoni's offense, if Jamison or (gulp) Sacre are the ones setting the screens, not Howard and Gasol. Nash recorded nine turnovers in his past two games, and that rate likely will only climb when defenses start doubling Nash before he can even turn the corner.

To be clear, Nash thrives on his crafty and unpredictable moves in the lane, not his athleticism, but if he can't even get into the paint, much of his improvisational value will be compromised. The loss of Howard and Gasol will require a stronger focus on scoring from Nash. If you thought the Lakers needed to score a gazillion points to cover up their hemorrhaging defense before, just wait until you see Jamison and Sacre try to execute a successful defensive rotation out there.

Where the Lakers go from here

There's no doubt that Nash has done an admirable job after missing almost seven weeks with a broken leg; he's shooting a Nashian .529/.409/1.000 in the field goal, 3-point and free throw columns while dishing out 9.7 assists per 36 minutes. But what's Nash going to look like without an effective roll man? Howard could be out anywhere from a week to four months, depending on the severity of his torn labrum and whether he undergoes surgery. Gasol is slated to miss at least two games, but concussions are inherently tricky to gauge, and he may be forced to sit out longer.

The Lakers have missed the playoffs only once in the past 15 seasons, and they'll need some heroic efforts from Bryant and Nash in the short term to avoid that recently unthinkable fate. We know Bryant is capable of picking up the slack (he may go for 82 Tuesday night), but Nash is less than a month away from his 39th birthday and he's scored more than 20 points in just one of his past 34 games in an NBA uniform.

Fair or not, if Nash doesn't raise his game in the next couple of weeks, the Lakers may have no choice but to trade a battered Gasol for 10 cents on the dollar. Even then, the Lakers would have to find a taker for his $38 million remaining through next season, and no one's getting in line to help the Lakers. In order to avoid spectacularly missing the playoffs with a $100 million payroll, the Lakers have to help themselves. And so far, they can't even do that.

 

[Figured it out]

And I agree it makes no sense seeing how they have Randolph and Gasol.... Just wishful thinking and Mitch makes things make sense lol

 

[iheartboost]

D12 aint gonna stay, might as well rid of him now and get some key players back before he throws up the deuces come mid April.

 

[daddyrabbit251]

Guys want to trade Kobe now

 

[trynafeelmink]

waits for guys to start saying kobe shoots too much when he has only Steve nash as a consistent scoring option tonight

 

[trynafeelmink]

Oh and BTW Dantoni has kobe running more minutes per game than Lebron James right now . this man deserves to be fired!!

 

[pmatic]

D'Antoni has to play Kobe heavy minutes for the Lakers to be competitive. It's one reason I didn't blame Brown so much last season.

 

[MambaMentality824]

Kobe's gonna shoot the ball tonight... A LOT. And I don't wanna hear a damn thing about it from everyone on here But seriously, Steve Nash is going to have to step up tremendously if we have any chance of winning these next few games. I want him taking at least 15 shots as well. This is going to be a struggle but hopefully the younger guys step up and help us get a win or two.

 

[badboyf0life420]

Lol at trading kobe... These new posters are funny man.

BS aside. Anyone else curious to see what Nash can do with this team without Kobe?

 

[laker4lifeman]

They want Dwight,Kobe,Mike and Pau gone

 

[CP1708]

I already know. See: Suns trophy case-rafters.

 

[grandtheftbike]

midas whale trade pau for stat
dwight for marion
mwp for diaw
amnesty kobe
sign raja bell

 

[acbboyz84]

D'Antoni has to play Kobe heavy minutes for the Lakers to be competitive. It's one reason I didn't blame Brown so much last season.

He already play Kobe near 40 minute a game for awhile now.

Kobe is having an MVP type season but his team is losing smh.

 

[kookcle]

So they waived DJO because.....?

 

[flyerthandelta]

I really hope we can turn things around and it starts tonight, even though we have none of our bigs I'm expecting 50 from Kobe well see

 

[CHAOSE57]

This thread is in shambles now peeps want to get rid of Kobe, Dwight etc? Talk about panic mode.