What did I say about career numbers. I said right now they are about equal, or similar. Look it up. I am not disrespecting your GOD Timmy, those are just the facts.

Secondly Pau is not Overrated. He really is that good. For the record I though he was overrated until I saw him play the last 150 or so games for LA. He is definitely not overrated. Nowitzki on the other hand…………….

how dare I as a Laker fan actually like the bench players? GASP!

Actually, I don’t like Powell at all. His scoring is nice, but the rest of his game blows.

Shhhhhh, he can hear you. And the rumor mill says he holds a grudge.

Scold? Nah…

Read?

he’s a Luke hater. There’s actually ALOT of Walton lovers in LaLaLand. We recognize Walton’s consistency and blue collar work.

I think Artest can guard Kobe’s guy and Kobe can guard Parker and solve that problem.

it wouldn’t help you guys because that would leave Fisher trying to guard Richard Jefferson. Jefferson is both so much stronger and faster than Fisher (not to mention much taller). This will allow Jefferson to go off and will not be good to you guys. Of course, if kobe guards parker and Artest guards Jefferson, Manu will take Fisher to school once again (start at the 1:10 mark). It’s also important to note that Fisher will be 3 years older from the last time he had to guard Manu in the playoffs in 07. Manu is also 3 years older, but not as much as Fisher since he hasn’t played nearly as much and has just been resting or recuperating for the past 2 years (he’ll be fresher). I think what you mentioned about implicating the same strategy as in N.O. will have to be the best strategy for you guys. Let Parker have his, and focus on locking down the other guys. this worked for the Mavs, but we also didn’t have RJ and Manu, so we’ll see how it works. Besides, after Chris Paul, there’s really no other threats in the Hornets after West, everyone else feeds off of Chris Paul. That is not that case with SA. If you make the terrible comparison of trying to shut down West as being equivalent to shutting down Duncan, I’ll give that to you, you still have to worry about Manu and RJ, N.O. doesn’t have players like that, only two players to contain that can get their own. SA now has 4. it’ll be much harder.

I agree with you that Artest will be a better defender than Trevor, but it seems to me that the Lakers have geared up mostly to defend their chances in the Finals against an East team, and have counted San Antonio out. Artest is better at guarding Pierce and Lebron, but not Manu or Parker (he is at guarding Jefferson though). At offense is the place where I think he’ll be at the very least detrimental to your team. Kobe, Pau, and Odom, those are your 3 offensive options last year in order, for the Lakers. And for good reason too. Trevor was 4th at most, even though he’s not capable of getting his own offense. Artest will disrupt that and try to be 3rd. making Odom 4th and having him sulk throughout games. Artest will be better at knocking down open 3’s, something Ariza was known to do. But, something Ariza was also known to do was not shoot contested 3’s and disrupt that flow of the offense. That is something I see Artest doing, and Kobe getting mad at him for. I do think that Artest will be kept in check throughout the year. It’s just his disruptive influence on the offensive end where I see him hurting the Lakers more.

Chinese Magic Johnson, haha, I could definitely see that comparison.

Concerning Walton, I wasn’t aware that he was so disliked by many Lakers fans. From what Tandur pointed out, he is liked by few, if not more LA fans, so we’ll just agree to disagree. I thought he was always solid, not a starter but a decent bench player. As far as your bench, I agree with you that the bench underperformed, specially when compared to the 08 bench mob you guys had. Your bench will never be as good as it was during 08, but you mentioned how every bench player had a good game here and there, and I think that’s what you should expect from your bench. As long as you’re getting a good performance from a player in the bench, for a game here, and from another for a game there, you can’t really ask for more. There’s a reason they’re on the bench (inconsistency), and not starters. Again, I agree that your bench underperformed, but I think you’re holding the standard for a bench to the 08 bench you had in which they were firing on all cylinders, and that’s a lot to ask for.

I don’t not like Michael Finley, I acknowledge his deficiencies (rotting corpse) but the man is an assassin. I would not mind seeing him be a back up to RJ although I would prefer Hairston to do that. What would be ideal for me is for him to come in for plays in which we need a 3 at the end of any period or game (I hope the NBA would allow a shooters practice area kinda like how in the MLB there’s a pitcher’s cage for them to warm up and be inserted into the game with a rhythm).

I said possibly with Sacha because I wanted to be nice, but he really is dumb as hell all the time.

If I were you, I would blame not winning the 08 chip to the celtics because of injuries. if i were a celtics fan, I would blame not winning the 09 chip because of injuries. Of course, this is because I’m a spurs fan, and I blame almost every year that we don’t win a chip because of injuries. SA goes through this every year, and most fans know that we when healthy we always have a good chance at a title. You can’t tell us that we can’t that we can’t blame not winning chips on injuries, it’s in our ankles/knees blood.

After they lost suddenly everyone says they must not have been very good. No one says the Lakers must have been better than we thought.

That’s because everyone already thinks beforehand that the Lakers are a great team. The Lakers are way too talented, and people judge them based on talent, expecting them to be play to their potential. But the Lakers never do because their main obstacle is themselves. So when a series is dragged out to longer than expected, people will always point out, with good reason, “wow the Lakers aren’t as good of a team as I thought, they should’ve beaten this team handily” instead of “the lakers must have been better than we thought”. People already expect them to be as good as possible, but the Lakers always disappoint. Kinda like a genius kid that doesn’t study or go to class throughout a semester, and passes with a C-. They get by through talent alone. Occasionally during the a tight fourth quarter or a game 7 will the kid pick up a book and begin studying his ass off. After they win every series, people always pick the Lakers to win the next one by saying “I think the Lakers finally get it, they showed in that last game that they’ve gotten focused and are just beginning to tap into their potential” but the Lakers prove them wrong all the time. This is why people never say that the Lakers must be better than we thought, because they’re not. At least not as good as they should be on paper.

Granted, it will be an epic series if we meet.

I agree, and finally, a one line response. I feel naked.

fuck!! I had a response almost ready to post but firefox kicked me out for some stupid error!! I shall type it again though, at least what I can remember of it,

you are right. The Lakers did not have Ariza during the 08 postseason. therefore they did not have a capable defender agaisnt parker during that time. I’m sorry if I strayed off, but I did not understand your point. My point is still valid however because Ariza was a great defender for the Lakers against Parker during the 09 regular season. I was trying to mention how the Lakers lost that, and on top of that, even though you were without Ariza and Bynum, we were without Manu. Another thing that I must also mention if we’re talking about the 08 playoffs, is that Parker has gotten better. Last year he just started hitting some 3’s every once in a while, and hitting the midrange consistently. So basically, while I agree with you that the Lakers didn’t have a capable defender against Parker in the 08 postseason, I’m also adding that we didn’t have Manu and that Parker got so much better.

As far as injries. if regular person asked me “who won the title last year?” I’ll say “the Lakers” and nothing else, I won’t even mention injuries to other teams or anything like that. If an NBA knowledgeable person asks me the same question, I’ll include the things other than the Lakers that helped the Lakers route to a championship such as Van Gundy’s terrible coaching deciion, Cavs on dimensionality, Celtics injury, Spurs injury, etc. If the same person asked me about the 08 title, i’ll mention that the Lakers didn’t have Ariza or Bynum who would’ve been a good body to throw at Perkins to help the Lakers, I would also mention Manu’s injury. Injuries have always been an important piece to winning a championship if you’re a spurs fan. I still don’t believe that the Spurs will win it all unless they get lucky because they’re old and injury prone. Sure, in professional sports injuries are part of the game, but true sports fans acknowledge that it takes more than just being a good team to win a title, it takes luck, and injuries are mostly about luck.

I’m sorry, but I’ll better believe your stats when it includes when both teams were healthy. Call it a convenient excuse all you want, but when I get sick on the day of a test, any person who takes that test is going to get a better grade than me. I will then have a chance to take the test, but only when I’m healthy. Regardless, this doesn’t point out to me that the Lakers are more focused, just more talented with the players that they had available at the time. Take the Rockets series for example, the Lakers were 4 and 3 agains them. Does this point out that the Lakers were more focused than the rockets throughout the entire series? Hahaha, of course not, just that they won from the talent that they had on the floor alone. Talent on the floor is so much more important in the NBA than in other sports.