Caught the fourth quarter of the loss to the Nets last night at the inlaws. However, no good papers here to fill in the gaps and I’m paying for Internet time, so help me a little: What happened? No Kobe to shut down Vincanity? Turnovers? Defense in general? Post a comment and I’ll check back over the weekend.

I’ll likely miss most of the Sunday night game as well. Thanks.

I’m out of here today for a long weekend in Vegas, so there will be no new posts until Tuesday.

I know what you’re thinking, by the way, and you’re wrong. You’re thinking, “Damn that lucky Kurt, partying the weekend away in the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah!” That’s because you think of Vegas like I used to think of Vegas — the place with the running tap of Jack and cokes, blackjack or hold ‘em at 3 a.m., and maybe even a little time spent at the OG.

Now, Vegas is where my in-laws live. Vegas is now the place I go to listen to my wife’s parents tell me what a great choice I made, where I sit on the couch and try to watch television to avoid talking to people, and where I end up sitting next to the crazy uncle at dinner talking about how those planes keep spraying us.

Once you have in-laws in Vegas it sucks the fun right out of the city, even torturing you because you know how close the fun is but you can’t get there. In-laws turn Vegas into Bakersfield.

The only thing consistent about the Lakers so far this season has been their inconsistency. So, in honor of that, this mid-season team evaluation will alternate views between the good and the bad.

(First, let me say this would never have been possible without the work of Kickerblogger, Ed at Stats Pimp and Roland at 82games.com. These guys are heroes of mine.)

Good: The Lakers record. For all the frustration Laker fans have felt since November, the bottom line is that halfway through the season the Lakers are four games above .500, are on pace for 45 wins, and if the playoffs started today would be the seven seed. Honestly, that’s about what most of us expected from them this season. While it’s frustrating because we see flashes that let us know they are capable of more, they’ve still been above average. (I think years of being fans of and closely watching a dominant team make this year feel worse than it is.)

Bad: The upcoming schedule. According to Stats Pimp, so far this season the Lakers have had the fifth easiest schedule in the NBA. That changes in February and March — just look at it. The Lakers are going to have to play up to those promising flashes we have seen to maintain their playoff spot (right now they are percentage points ahead of Memphis, the nine seed).

As a side note, currently, the Lakers are 2.5 games better than the “Pythagorean Projection” for them this season, something that may catch up to them.

Good: Kobe Bryant. I’ve said it before: My biggest concern coming into this season is that the new-look Lakers would resemble the 76ers of the past couple seasons, with Kobe playing the role of a taller Alan Iverson. But it hasn’t been that way. Kobe’s shared the ball, and while the offense hasn’t flowed smoothly at times, Kobe is largely doing his part.

Don’t worry, Kobe’s getting his — he’s got a PER of 22.35 (13th best in the league), he’s second in the league in points produced per game, and he’s scoring 27.5 per game, second best in the league. (Put everyone on the same playing level by adjusting their scoring to points per 40 minutes played, and Kobe is fourth in the league at 26.1.) But more importantly, he has shared the ball, averaging 6.6 assists per game. As much as an assist from Steve Nash matters to his team, an assist from a scoring threat like Kobe matters even more. Let me steal the words of Dean Oliver from a recent message board post:

Guys who get double-teamed for their scoring — if they have good assist totals, it is huge… My work shows it. It’s theoretically sensible. Typically these are big men, but it can be other guys. MJ was a good example of a non-post player who had to be double-teamed. Kobe gets good value for his assists. There are others but not a lot.

Kobe has taken his share of bad shots this year (and Caron’s share, and Luke’s share, and….), plus it has taken a while for him to really start to trust his teammates in key situations. But the bottom line is you can see him evolving into a leader on the court and making the team his own through more than just launching up 35 shots a game. If that evolution continues, it bodes well for the future.

Bad: Turnovers. The Lakers defense creates fewer turnovers than any defense in the NBA, averaging just 12.3 per game. At the heart of the Lakers defensive problems is this passive play.

With the Lakers losing the turnover battle nightly — by an average of 3.1 — Laker opponents are averaging 7 more shots per game than the Lakers. That a nightly hole to dig out of that has held the Lakers back as much or more than anything this season. (The team’s recent struggles giving up offensive rebounds has exacerbated this problem.)

Good: The Laker offense. Once again, for all my frustration with it, the Laker offense is effective.

The Lakers have the eighth most efficient offense in the NBA right now, averaging 104.8 points per 100 possessions. They are ninth in the NBA with a team eFG% of 48.7% (above the league median of 47.9%). They get to the free throw line 26.5 times per game, eighth highest total in the league.

That’s not to say things are all peaches and crème on offense — the Lakers rely too much on isolation plays and three pointers. For example Kobe has had to generate his own shot 70% of the time this season, getting an assist on just 30% of his attempts. That’s near the bottom of the league (25% is the lowest, thank you Stephon Marbury). And it’s pretty typical of the entire Laker offense — the Lakers are 20th in the league in percentage of shots coming from an assist. Except for a brief flirtation with the triangle (which apparently went the way of the Dodo when Kobe went down), the Lakers have primarily been a team who lives for isolation plays (Kobe, Lamar, Atkins, Butler on occasion) where that player drives the lane and then, if it’s not a easy shot, kicks out for a three (Atkins, Cook, Jones). I’ve written at length about how this style of offense should not be a surprise — it’s pretty much what all Rudy T. coached teams have done.

I think we all had dreams this would be a running, athletic team more reminiscent of the “Showtime” era. So far this season, the Lakers are averaging 91.9 possessions per game, which is flat with the 92 they averaged last season. The run-and-gun is over in Phoenix.

The bottom line is, however, the Lakers score enough points to win most nights.

Bad: The Lakers’ defense. It doesn’t really matter how much you score if you can’t stop the other team, and the Lakers rank 22nd in the league in defensive efficiency, giving up 104.0 points per game.

A key part of the problem is the turnover discussion above. Teams have an eFG% against the Lakers of 47.3%, which is actually lower than the league average, it’s just that their opponents are getting more shots.

The Laker defense is leaky everywhere but shooting guard, where Kobe has held down the fort (what they’ve missed most with him out is his defense). The Lakers opponents PER by position (remember, the league average is 15) are: point guard, 17; small forward 18.3; power forward 17.2; center 16. Four out of the five positions on the floor, the Laker defense has been worse than average — which is a kind way of putting it.

Good: Chris Mihm and Jumaine Jones. At the start of the season, I thought Chris Mihm would play 20 minutes a game tops, spelling Vlade Divac. Jumaine Jones was a guy I pictured losing the fight for playing time at the overcrowded three spot. Boy am I glad I’m wrong.

Mihm has the second highest PER on the team at 17.36 and on the season he is shooting 51.3%. He’s also been the best offensive rebounder the Lakers have, grabbing 10.8% of the missed Laker shots when he is on the floor. He has been a solid defender and by far the team’s best shot blocker, plus he can get out and run the floor. While he could use a couple more post moves, and at times it appears he has the Roberto Duran “manos de piedra,” he has become a decent offensive threat. (He’s been slowed the past few games with a calf injury and shin splints. I’d say rest him for a few games if we had a capable back up, but….)

Jones leads the Lakers in Roland Rating — when he is on the floor the Lakers are a much better team than when he is off it. He is second on the team in points per shot attempt at 1.21 and his eFG% is a team high 58.2% — he is a serious three point threat. Jones also has taken advantage of being put in the starting lineup with Kobe down.

Bad: Point Guard. While both Chucky Atkins and Tierre Brown show flashes — Atkins particularly in a couple of games after Kobe’s injury — the point guard position has been the weakest link for the Lakers this season when you look at both ends of the floor.

Defensively, Atkins gets beat off the dribble regularly — part of the reason Lamar Odom and Chris Mihm have had foul trouble this season is sliding over to pick up a point who has blown by Atkins. Brown is no better. Opponents point guards are shooting an average of 46.5% (eFG%), with 10.1 assists and just 2.6 turnovers.

Offensively, neither Atkins nor Brown are the kind of playmaker points that can run the Laker offense. Atkins is a classic modern point guard who looks to shoot first, pass second. Brown looks to pass first but is reckless, turning the ball over plenty. Both Kobe and Lamar have said this season they would like to create fewer of their own shots and get some spot-up opportunities coming off weak-side screens, but right now the Lakers don’t have a point who can get them the ball in those positions. Atkins would make a fine backup, but doesn’t work getting 36.5 minutes per game.

Good: Rudy Tomjanovich. Rudy T. has been positive minded and open to player suggestions, a welcome change from the rigid system and mind games of Phil Jackson. He isn’t using the media to motivate his charges. As best one can tell from the outside, the players seem to like him. The brief use of the triangle came after he asked the players for suggestions.

This was not supposed to be a season where the Lakers won it all, it was the first with a new cast and a reasonable goal was to make the playoffs, improve as the season went on and start to see what pieces fit together. Those goals are being met, for the most part.

Bad: Rudy Tomjanovich. John Nash couldn’t figure out his player rotations so far this season. For example, against teams that were killing the Lakers inside, Chris Mihm sat the fourth quarter. If I tried to list all his odd decisions, I’d overwhelm the Blogger system with the longest post of all time (and this is already plenty long). It all seems to stem from playing guys that fit his core offensive philosophy — has a love of guys who shoot the three or penetrate (Brian Cook and Tierre Brown being the best examples) and sticks with them despite them going cold or being a defensive liability.

There are other problems that can be laid at Rudy T.’s feet. The biggest is that the Lakers (prior to Kobe’s injury) had not found a way to get Lamar Odom consistently involved in the offense. With the Lakers penchant for the isolation and kick out, so many plays seemed to put the ball in Kobe’s hands and clearing out space for him, while Lamar stood around with his hands in his pockets. Get Lamar the ball and the situation was reversed. No good balance was ever found for more than a game at a time.

As I said before I think it’s too early to draw major conclusions on Rudy T., but I’m not sure he’s a good long-term fit.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, today’s Los Angeles Times gives a Laker injury report that is not promising.

Kobe will likely be out another nine games, four at home then a five-game road trip that follows. That puts a lot of pressure on the current Lakers to stay in the playoff race by playing at least .500 ball — right now the seventh-seed Lakers are just percentage points ahead of eighth seed Minnesota and ninth seed Memphis (Houston is already half a game better than the Lakers). Something that would help this is Lamar staying out of foul trouble and in the game.

Chris Mihm has not been himself lately — he had just one rebound against the Sonics and three against the Clippers — and now we know why: He’s battling a calf injury (explaining the sleeve he has worn over it the past couple of games) and shin splints. So, now both our guys playing the center spot have injured legs. Is it a coincidence they gave up 20 offensive rebounds to Seattle and 19 to the Clippers?

Or, set the TiVo. Either way, Caron Butler is scheduled to be on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno show this evening. Why Caron? If you have not heard the story of his troubled youth before, tune in.

(By the way, light posting day here as I am working on a lengthy mid-season report, as well as actually working for a living. The report post should go up tomorrow morning, computer willing.)

Traditionally in these previews, the focus is on the other team, its strengths and weaknesses, and how the Lakers match up. Today I’m taking a different tack — I plan to focus almost exclusively on the Lakers and life without Kobe, because if things aren’t going right in your own house it doesn’t matter who the opponent is.

And, while the Lakers are 4-2 since Kobe went down, that has been in spite of their defense. In the first four games without Kobe, the Lakers gave up 104.4 points per 100 possessions, up from 103.7 previously this season (thanks to Kevin Pelton for those numbers).

Last night, against a good perimeter team, things got worse. The Lakers not only lost, they allowed the Sonics to get to 114.2 points per 100 possessions, well above that team’s already second-best-in-the-NBA average (109.7). I hate to say a team just isn’t hustling on defense, but that’s how it appeared for stretches against Seattle. Why did Radmanovic get so many good looks when it became clear he was the hottest shooter in the building? Even after he hit a few threes Laker players were still insanely late on their rotations out to him.

Other key factors in the loss are the Lakers gave up 20 offensive rebounds (grabbing nine) and had three more turnovers than Seattle, which contributed to Seattle taking 19 more shots than the Lakers. When a team shooting 50.7% eFG% on the season takes 19 more shots than you, you’ve got a huge hole to climb out of. That problem is not new, it been a Laker pattern all season that has worsened with Kobe gone.

The Laker team and coaching staff need to find some defensive answers tonight.

Rudy T. appeared to be looking for answers everywhere and anywhere last night. Luke Walton stepped up and took advantage of his turn, earning himself a little more run with scoring and decent defense. (Luke’s bigger problem really is with Mitch K. and not Rudy T. — when Kobe returns Luke will be fighting for playing time with Caron Butler, Jumaine Jones and Devean George. We are so overloaded at the three it’s actually a little sad.)

After facing the best perimeter team in the league, tonight the Lakers get a team that gets its points inside. Elton Brand is the driving force behind the Clippers with a PER of 21.8, considerably better than any of his teammates. He missed the last game and tonight should draw the attention of Odom, Chris Mihm and Brian Grant. When he was out last game Corey Maggette stepped up with 27 points, but he may not play tonight due to a sore left foot. Also, Chris Kaman has had some good nights recently and can’t be ignored. Tonight should be a good game for Chucky Atkins to bounce back, the Sonics are weakest at the point defensively.

Despite what Marco Jaric thinks, the Lakers should be able to beat the Clippers. That said, to do so they need to play defense, keep Brand (and Simmons and Wilcox if he plays) off the offensive glass, and get the offense back to the move-the-ball system we saw last week and not last night.

Will the Lakers do that? You think I can predict what Laker team will show up night-to-night?

There’s less than one month to the NBA trading deadline. It’s also about the time of year when free agents to be start really positioning themselves for this summer.

Combine those two factors and it makes late January and February the time of year when the most ludicrous of NBA rumors can get some play. Take, as exhibit 1A, today’s Los Angeles Times report that Ray Allen would consider being a Laker.

The Seattle SuperSonic guard, an unrestricted free agent come July, said he’s open to any possibility, even sharing a locker room with Bryant, with whom he exchanged barbs during the exhibition season.

This has about as much chance of happening as Ashlee Simpson getting the lead role in a Broadway musical.

First, the Lakers need another spot-up shooter to stand on the perimeter and take threes like they need another small forward who can’t defend. I don’t care if they find the second coming of Bob Cousy to play the point, who would be able to get Kobe, Lamar Odom and Ray Allen enough touches to keep them all happy?

Then there’s the money — Ray Allen wants a lot of it and the Lakers don’t have it. Right now the Lakers have $66.6 million in salary on the books for next season. (That assumes Devean George, $4.9 million, and Vlade, $5.3 million, exercise their player options. Vlade can be bought out for $2 million, which would knock a few mill off the total.) The Lakers have four roster spots where no money is committed for next year. There is no way the Lakers are going to bring in Allen at the eight-digit salary he wants and blow their cap structure to hell.

This is Ray Allen using the media to start negotiating with the Sonics, letting them know he’s thought about playing elsewhere and they need to pay him.

There will be a lot of this going on the next few weeks. Feel free to read and enjoy, just keep plenty of salt nearby.

I was at work for the first half of the Laker/Sonics game last night, and I had to do something I’ll do a lot more soon with an East Coast road swing coming up — “watch” the game on the Internet.

And I can’t find a good way to do that.

I think I’m spoiled because baseball has a pretty good system in place — the MLB.com flash game track system shows you a lot of detail, including where pitches were in relation to the batter. It’s not perfect (when there is a fly ball out to Milton Bradley in center field, I don’t know if it came right to him or if he had to make a shoestring catch), but you can follow the game closely.

NBA.com’s flash game tracker isn’t as good. I can get a play-by-play, and a running box score, but there is no feel for the game. ESPN’s site gives you a shot chart but its running play-by-play isn’t nearly as smooth. I’ll add that I checked, and ESPN’s feed ran a few seconds ahead of the NBA feed when side-by-side.

I admit that part of the problem is the sport — it’s much easier to have a computerized play-by-play of baseball because of the pace of the sport and the majority of the action being in one area (at the plate). I’m not sure how you make it better for basketball.

Does anyone out there have a better system (or site) for “watching” games live? It’s one of the West Coast issues, games are going on before I leave the office all the time. I just wish there was a better way to deal with it.

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Two other quick notes this morning:

Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban just rips into ESPN’s Chad Ford in his latest blog entry. Ford has long been a whipping boy on NBA team message boards and blogs around the nation (an honor richly deserved), but when a team owner (especially one as accessible as Cuban) writes that Ford never calls him but writes about what Cuban is doing and thinking, it takes on a whole new level of credibility.

I heard big time Laker fan Ice Cube interviewed by Jim Rome this morning (don’t take this as an endorsement of Rome and his show, it’s not [he could be an entire entry some day], but he is a good interviewer and Cube is a great guest). Ice Cube knew his Lakers and was good with the direction of the team, and he had the quote of the day:

“It was time for a change. This was like a soap opera with bad writers.”

If you lived in Seattle, were forced to spend too much time indoors because of the rain, loved the Sonics, and had an unhealthy obsession with Legos, what would you do? Build a life-size Lego Ray Allan, of course.

I think the best chance for a Laker win tonight comes if the Lego Ray Allen is the one that shows up to Staples Center. Problem is, if they put Chucky Atkins on him, Lego Ray will still score 12.

(By the way, if you want one, you can get a life-size Lego Kobe as well — or Jason Kidd, or Shaq or other NBA players. Think how good that would look in your living room. You can’t make up stuff this funny.)

Okay, time to get serious (well, as much as I ever do). There are two questions that come up when thinking about the run of wins the Lakers have had since Kobe went down: 1) What will happen when the Lakers take on a good team? 2) Will the improved team play continue when Kobe comes back, or will the Lakers revert to old habits?

We’ll find out the answer to question #1 tonight (question #2 is a topic for another post, probably next week, closer to when Kobe returns). The thing is, while these Sonics are good, they are not as good as the ones that got off to the fast start this season. So far in January, the Sonics are 6-5.

The reason for the slide is defense — the Sonics actually play less than the Lakers. Early in the season the Sonics were one of the top 10 defensive teams in the league, now that has fallen to 25th overall (giving up 104.5 points per 100 possessions, the Lakers are 22nd at 103.7). Teams shoot well against the Sonics (48.7% eFG%) and teams get to the free throw line 26.5 times per game against them (only five teams are worse).

While the defense may be poor, their offense is still a force — they have the second highest rated offense in the league (109.8 points per 100 possessions). Their team eFG% is an insane 50.7% (third best in the league) and, almost as importantly, they get rebounds on 33.2% of their misses (the highest percentage in league). Think about that, a good shooting team that on one-third of its misses gives itself a second chance — a tough combination to beat.

As you would imagine, Ray Allen (the real one) has the highest PER on the team at 20.17 and leads the team in Roland Rating at +13.5. But right behind him with a PER of 20.11 is Danny Fortson, who has come in and provided the rebound and defensive toughness inside Seattle lacked in recent years. Fortson leads the league in points per shot attempt at 1.39, in part because he gets to the free throw line on second chances. Also, obviously, don’t forget about Rashard Lewis (19.69 PER), who scored 37 on the Lakers (8 of 12 from three point range) in the Sonics win in December against the Lakers.

For the Lakers to win they will need a big game out of their front line — Mihm, Odom and Butler. Those are the weakest defensive spots for Seattle, the Lakers should be able to score inside. What’s more, that group (and Grant, Cook and Jones off the bench) needs to work hard to get defensive rebounds and not give up extra chances to the Sonics. If, for a change, the Lakers can get the front line of the Sonics in foul trouble, that would be a nice change of pace.

For the past two games, Chucky Atkins has been the point guard the Lakers have needed all season, the Lakers have moved the ball around and gotten good scoring chances. If they can do that tonight they can hang around, Seattle can’t stop them Kobe or no. However, to win will require perimeter defense, something that folded in the face of the Seattle offense the last time these two met. We’ll see what happens tonight.

Update: Kevin Pelton, the guy behind Supersonics.com and a guy who knows his stats, has posted a great preview of tonight’s game that is well worth the read. Also, he wants us to know that the people at Lego built Lego Ray, and “no actual Sonics fan hours were wasted on it.”

Let’s talk for a second about the three-point play — not the one the Lakers are attempting 30 of a game these days (except when playing well) but rather the more exciting one, the bucket and the foul.

The driving force behind the Crazy From The Heat blog figured out the number of “and one” fouls players on the Heat have gotten this year (and suggested how to figure that into other scoring stats). His work started the smart folk over at APBR looking into the number of +1 shots every player has gotten this season (and that required going through all the game logs, the NBA doesn’t keep track of this).

Without the data, my guess was Kobe would be the guy who has the highest percentage of “and one” free throws on the Lakers. I was wrong. Lamar Odom not only leads the team, he’s sixth in the league with 13.3% of his free throw attempts coming as the one shot after being fouled and still scoring (he has 24 of those shots this year).

Lamar is long and strong, something he had in common with the five people ahead of him on that list (Elton Brand, Nazr Mohammed, Eddy Curry, Amare Stoudemire and Antwan Jamison).

We’re not talking a lot of points here, but it’s just one more thing Odom brings to the table when the offense flows through him.

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Something else I find interesting.

Brian Grant doesn’t take many shots — he’s only averaging 2.3 shots per game he’s played — but when he does he gets more points per attempt than any other Laker.

Usually on this blog I’ve used effective field goal percentage (eFG%) to talk about a players shooting. It’s a good measure, but its flaw is that free throws earned are not part of the mix — a player who gets fouled and gets to the charity stripe deserves some credit for that.

That’s where “points per shot attempt” (or PSA) comes in. The bottom line with this statistic is that free-throws (as well as three pointers) are counted in to give a better picture of how efficient a player is at getting points when he does shoot. It’s not a measure one should look at as the Holy Grail (no stat is, and besides, I’ve already got one) but it does help fill out a picture about a player’s contributions on offense.

Let’s look at this season’s Lakers. Grant leads the way at 1.24 PSA, but he’s only taken 58 shots all season. Among the Lakers getting regular playing time, Chucky Atkins (1.13) and Chris Mihm (1.12) lead the way — Atkins because of his threes and Mihm because he hits 52% of his shots (he’s only attempted one three pointer all season).

As for the guys the offense runs through, Lamar’s points per shot attempt is 1.10, Kobe’s is 1.08.

Those numbers are pretty ordinary. For some comparison, on the high end of PSA among “name” players are Amare Stoudemire and Steve Nash of Phoenix, both at 1.23. Dirk Nowitzki is at 1.16 and Shaq is at 1.17. On the low end of the scale, Tim Duncan is at 1.07 (but he brings a few other things to the table). Atkins’ 1.13 PSA is the 47th best in the NBA so far this season. Lamar is 70th, and I didn’t feel like counting down to find Kobe.

The bottom line, it would help if the Laker stars were a little more efficient. But we’ve been saying that all year.

As a historical side note, one of the top PSA players of all time is Magic Johnson. His career average PSA of 1.22 is eighth best all time, and the highest of any player in the Hall of Fame.