Lakers OFF-SEASON IS A WRAP

[mr j 858]

 

[vrai1]

Hibbert the main guy. Hope he comes out and leads us.

keeping my expectations low, but it looks like he's taking this offseason seriously. hopefully he can surprise us.

 

[Lizakers]

Stupid Dantoni
My boy got injured twice in that Warriors game before the Achilles and he left him in

 

[essential1]

Was a must win and if Kobe doesn't want out or if he says he can still go, have to leave him in there. If November, probably different... But it was April and we needed every win to make the playoffs.

Also even after the 2 scares in the game, he still was playing at a high level after each. So it wasn't inhibiting his play.

 

[thatboydrew]

 

[reboot24]

The video was great, but too much of him on the ground crying. I was more focused at the quotes and speech in the back. More so, I think the focus wasn‘t the over played high lights of kobe dunking. It was more about footage of Kobe in practice. Putting in hours of work to hone his craft as they say. Still a great motivational vid.

 

[youngwolf]

Hibbert the main guy. Hope he comes out and leads us.

keeping my expectations low, but it looks like he's taking this offseason seriously. hopefully he can surprise us.

Roy.

I love this guy.

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

Eric Pincus ‏@EricPincus
As I understand it, the Lakers hope to have Robert Upshaw in training camp, but he has some private personal steps he needs to achieve

Eric Pincus ‏@EricPincus
As I hear it, the Lakers have given a goal along with tremendous support to Robert Upshaw, an open door, but he has to walk through it

Eric Pincus ‏@EricPincus
Upshaw is trying to get help on this personal issues, and in doing so, has a shot to get to training camp with the Lakers

Eric Pincus ‏@EricPincus
It's different than what the Lakers did with Ronny Turiaf and his heart surgery, but some similarities with Robert Upshaw and their support

Eric Pincus ‏@EricPincus
There's a Twitter sense, from those who hit me up, that the Lakers are dropping some ball with Upshaw, but it's the opposite actually

Eric Pincus ‏@EricPincus
Upshaw is trying to get help on this personal issues, and in doing so, has a shot to get to training camp with the Lakers

Eric Pincus ‏@EricPincus
Robert Upshaw has battled through some personal issues that got him kicked off two different college teams

Basketball Insiders | NBA Rumors And Basketball News
NBA NBA AM: Not Easy To Break Into The NBA With Baggage
By Steve Kyler
on August 31, 2015 7SHARES 2 COMMENTS

Breaking In With Baggage: Making it into the NBA is not easy to do. While it’s often assumed that being talented and skilled is enough to get you considered, history has proven that a lot of super talented players simply don’t have what it takes for NBA teams to make a commitment to them.

This surfaces a lot among fans, who openly question, “Why hasn’t this guy been signed?”

There are a lot of factors that go into a player getting the chance to play on the big stage and, while talent is one of the biggest, it’s not the only one and it’s usually not enough to trump red flags or known baggage.

During the summer, reports surfaced that the Los Angeles Lakers were on the verge of signing undrafted rookie Robert Upshaw to a deal. Fans clamored over Upshaw during the draft process, viewing him as a first-round talent. The problem with Upshaw is that he had as much public baggage as anyone in recent draft history and while he’s an immensely talented player, the stories surrounding him were downright scary from a team point of view.

Upshaw was kicked out of two NCAA college programs amid reports of heavy drug use and personal issues that had most executives in the NBA removing him from their draft board.

There was no one doubting Upshaw’s ability as a player, what scared them away was all the things they had heard from the programs he was a part of and despite having enough talent to play in the NBA, he simply was viewed as not worth the risk, even on a non-guaranteed deal.

The Lakers invited Upshaw to Summer League and, according to sources, Upshaw stayed out of trouble and was under camp consideration; however, a lot of time has passed and Upshaw still remains unsigned.

Our own Eric Pincus recently tweeted an update of sorts on the Upshaw situation, basically saying that the Lakers are still considering Upshaw, but they have some very clear goals they would like to see Upshaw achieve before they would be willing to sign him to a deal, even a camp deal.

Now Upshaw is an extreme case, because his baggage was excessive and public and well researched by teams. But Upshaw is far from alone in how the NBA talent machine works.

Teams are fearful of introducing chemistry problems into their locker room, they also have brand sponsors and owners that are reluctant to risk the PR hit having a bad guy on the roster could open up.

One executive commented recently on a known guy with a bad reputation, saying he would be willing to take a flyer because of the player’s talent but knew his owner would never sign off on it because of the risk associated.

Not everything in the NBA is about talent. Keep in mind the 48 minutes of game time you see on the floor is the smallest portion of the commitment a team makes to a player. Teams spend more than 170 days together, virtually every day, all day when you factor in travel, practice and shoot-around time. A bad apple can not only divide a locker room, it can destroy a team and a program.

So the next time you ask why a certain guy hasn’t been signed, keep in mind it’s not easy to break into the NBA when you have baggage, and it’s even harder when the risk-reward ratio isn’t overwhelming in the player’s favor. It’s not just about talent at this level, there are a lot of other factors that matter too.

http://www.basketballinsiders.com/n...ge/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[lovehateself]

robert upshaw

 

[pmatic]

Why Shaq's departure ultimately paid off for Lakers

This week's podcast reuniting former Los Angeles Lakers teammates Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal has inevitably led to speculation about what might have happened had O'Neal not requested a trade because of his feud with Bryant. Might the Lakers have won the seven championships O'Neal told Bryant he wished they'd won together?

I don't think such continued success was realistic for Bryant and O'Neal with the Lakers. Going one step further, I think the numbers suggest that trading O'Neal when they did was actually the best thing the Lakers could have done in terms of their long-term success.

Fading Glory

By the time the Bryant-O'Neal relationship grew irreparably damaged, the Lakers' best days were already behind them. Remember, just to get to the 2004 NBA Finals the Lakers relied on adding 35-year-old Gary Payton and 40-year-old Karl Malone as free agents the previous summer, with both players pursuing the championship they were unable to win with their previous teams. Payton (7.1) and Malone (3.7) joined Bryant (13.0) and O'Neal (14.4) as the four players on the Lakers' 2003-04 roster to record more than one win above replacement player (WARP).

The collection of future Hall of Famers gave the Lakers a preposterously top-heavy lineup that was effective when all four stars were available -- they went 29-9 in the regular season in such games, a 63-win pace -- and collapsed when any of them were injured. The Lakers went 27-17, a 50-win pace, in the other 44 games. And, while it wasn't necessarily the reason they lost to the Detroit Pistons, Malone was limited and eventually sidelined by a sprained MCL during the 2004 NBA Finals.

Such an arrangement was obviously unsustainable. After undergoing surgery that summer, Malone ultimately decided to retire rather than attempt to return. And Payton was in the midst of a rapid slide from being an All-Star in 2002-03 to becoming a reserve by 2005-06. Payton's presence also pushed out longtime Lakers point guard Derek Fisher, who signed with the Golden State Warriors in the summer of 2004 in the hopes of finding more playing time.

The Lakers needed the aging superstars to cover up for their inability to develop talent after adding Bryant and Fisher as rookies in 1996-97. None of the young players on the 2003-04 Lakers -- Brian Cook, Devean George, Slava Medevedenko, Kareem Rush and Luke Walton -- would become even an average starter.

In the event the Lakers had retained O'Neal, they would have needed to find a replacement for Malone using their mid-level exception, which they ended up using to bring back former center Vlade Divac for a reunion that lasted just 15 games. Most likely they would have signed a player like Antonio McDyess, who instead went to the Pistons for their mid-level exception.

A hypothetical 2004-05 Lakers lineup with O'Neal might have looked like this table shows (below).

View media item 1698154
Since I estimate replacement level at 10 wins, we'd expect the Lakers to win somewhere in the neighborhood of 48 games had they brought back O'Neal. That's certainly much better than the 34 wins they actually managed in 2004-05, when the team collapsed after Phil Jackson replacement Rudy Tomjanovich had to step down midseason. But it wouldn't have made the Lakers much of a threat to the San Antonio Spurs, who went 59-23 and knocked off a 62-win Phoenix Suns team in the Western Conference finals en route to the title. And it's hard to see how things would have gotten much better as O'Neal entered his mid-30s.

How the Lakers won the Shaq trade

It's rare that a team trades a superstar and ends up better for it, but the Lakers stand as an exception to the rule in part because of O'Neal's age. The Miami Heat sent them forwards Caron Butler and Lamar Odom, center Brian Grant, a 2006 first-round pick (used to draft Jordan Farmar) and a 2007 second-round pick (later traded for the rights to J.R. Pinnock, who was waived during training camp).

Certainly, Miami got the better of the deal in the short term. O'Neal finished a narrow runner-up to Steve Nash in MVP voting as the Heat posted the best record in the Eastern Conference before being upset by Detroit in the conference finals. But by the 2005-06 regular season, Odom was more valuable by WARP than O'Neal, who played just 59 games before getting healthy in time to help Miami win the NBA championship. The 2006 title was O'Neal's last great performance, and aside from a brief bounceback in 2008-09 with the Phoenix Suns, he was outperformed by Odom the rest of his NBA career.

Meanwhile, the Lakers were taking a circuitous route to their next great big man. After a single season, Butler was dealt to the Washington Wizards for former No. 1 overall pick Kwame Brown. Brown was a disappointment in L.A., rating worse than replacement level most of his Lakers career, but he ended up playing a key role in franchise history. The Lakers used his expiring contract, along with 2007 first-round pick Javaris Crittenton and second-round pick Marc Gasol, two future first-round picks and Aaron McKie as salary-cap filler to acquire Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies.

Naturally, it's a little unfair to compare the performance of Gasol and Odom head-to-head with O'Neal given all the additional picks the Lakers had to give up to get Gasol. Still, there's no question the Lakers ended up ahead for their series of deals.

Alongside Bryant, Odom and Gasol ended up two of the leaders of the Lakers teams that reached the NBA Finals three consecutive years and won championships in 2009 and 2010. Farmar played a key role off the bench, and the Lakers also benefited from drafting center Andrew Bynum with the lottery pick they got by missing the playoffs in 2004-05.

By this point, we're getting too far down the rabbit hole to trace all of the Lakers' success to a single transaction. Nobody knows exactly how the Shaq-Kobe era would have played out had it not ended in 2004. But it's hard to believe the aging Lakers could have ended up more successful in the long run than they were with the spoils from the O'Neal trade. Their dysfunction ultimately created a title run rather than destroyed one.

http://espn.go.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/13567314/nba-shaq-kobe-stuck-together

at the 2005 roster.

 

[CP1708]

That bench. :x

 

[thirdtimearound]

And people love using the 2005 season to prove Kobe couldn't get it gone without Shaq. Smh.

 

[reboot24]

And people love using the 2005 season to prove Kobe couldn't get it gone without Shaq. Smh.

a better way to put it is that kobe was capable of winning with difft bigs. he won with both gasol and shaq. he understood the need for talent. no one has won it on their own.

 

[sea manup]

 

[reboot24]

Kwame a fuse of Dmiles n DHoward. So much potential.

 

[darthska]

Somebody trolling w/ that highlight package.

Using commentary from old Jordan highlights.

Free throws?! Free throws in a top 10 plays clip?

 

[essential1]

Crazy that despite being a bust and the head of the list of guys mentioned as busts, he actually had a decent NBA career

 

[reboot24]

Somebody trolling w/ that highlight package.

Using commentary from old Jordan highlights.

Free throws?! Free throws in a top 10 plays clip?

no way, lol. it was a clutch situation. u saw? most guy like rose wouldve choke, aka rose in memphis or lebron. good complete package. haha

 

[alfa]

In a way, I feel for Kwame because dude got roasted because of being picked #1 and not having the mental constitution to excel in those kind of circumstances. Like @Essential1  said, he actually had a serviceable, decent career in the NBA and stuck around for a while. As a Laker and Pau fan, I'm still grateful for that day when I heard we had traded Kwame (+ fillers at the time) for Pau. I can't knock the man for that, dude played a role in Laker history. 

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

Phil saved kwame's career when he told him to focus on defense

 

[reboot24]

In a way, I feel for Kwame because dude got roasted because of being picked #1 and not having the mental constitution to excel in those kind of circumstances. Like @Essential1
 said, he actually had a serviceable, decent career in the NBA and stuck around for a while. As a Laker and Pau fan, I'm still grateful for that day when I heard we had traded Kwame (+ fillers at the time) for Pau. I can't knock the man for that, dude played a role in Laker history. 

Plenty of over paid players, plenty of busts at all numerics. The scrutiny shouldn‘t be just on the player, but rather the franchise that drafted them. It‘s taboo because the sheeple dare not use logic and reasoning.

You can‘t always blame the kid, look at the parent too. People who actually watch basketball should see this. At least he took it to the rim in fashion. Sheesh.

 

[licensed to ball]

Who the hell is reboot

He sounds familiar

 

[CP1708]

He's Bravelude.

 

[mj 23]

my mans is on 1

 

[essential1]

He's Bravelude.

Wait you changed your avy?