The guy actually has a huge ego, only in LA he has shown his best side, I guess due in part to playing with Kobe, and again to PJ’s genius mind games selling him the role of high IQ player -therefore cool & collected-, but he did complain in the middle of the playoffs about the lack of touches. Now Artest will inevitably mean even less of those for Gasol, or will it?

What think you? A source of chemistry problems lurking in an unexpected corner?

I remember when i was in highschool my buddy was dating George Carl’s daughter, and we’d be over at the Carl’s house regularly. Kobe Carl was still half my size back then as he was a little brat, but he always had a basketball in his hand. I never thought that the kid could possibly play in the NBA.

I’m rooting for him as well.

Your post misses some obvious points.

1) You do not need to knee people in the balls and slice their throats in order to be an “enforcer” in basketball. You don’t need T’s in order to be so. Toughness is through being a bruiser. When the ball is in the air or loose, or when you are boxing someone out. This is where people are “tough” or “enforcers.” Especially in playoff basketball.

A true sign of toughness isn’t how many technical or flagrant fouls you get. The toughness comes out because people simply do not want to go down low and get that rebound against you. Or they just do want to venture into the paint for that layup.

Artest is 6’7″ and listed as 260lb. I think that he is undoubtedly heavier, but let’s just assume 260. This is with minimal fat and a hard ass attitude. This guy is a BEAST. You will not find a more intimidating linebalker in all of football. Furthremore his attitude is where the toughness comes from.

Carmelo was single handedly DESTROYING us in the playoffs. Whether going to the basket or getting offensive rebounds. He was simply too powerful for Kobe and Ariza was like a flee on his back. Lebron would be the same. Against Artest, these guys are the flees. Are they going to push Artest out of the way for a rebound down low? Are they going to back Artest down?

There are a lot of things you can say regarding Artest. I just can’t believe that you chose the one thing on which even his detractors agree on —that he makes his team “tougher.”

Look at Ron’s personal foul avg per game and technical fouls. He got less technicals than Kobe for the season (4 to KB’s 11) and averaged slightly less personal fouls (2.2) than Kobe (2.3) while playing just one minute less on average. He’s been ejected out of a game ONCE in the last SIX years. I think it’s safe to say Ron can stay on the court.

Also, I truly hope Shannon Brown is playing big minutes once the playoffs start because that will mean the Lakers found a worthy successor to Fish.

In the lineup the Lakers will be trotting out next year, the point guard’s job will be to play hard-nosed on-ball defense, and connect on 40% of the wide-open threes he is afforded. I think Shannon Brown can deliver on that and throw in a dunk on a break-away each game for good measure!

But I do want to point out that the lack of news about LO is probably a good thing. Let’s look at this through the prism of the Lee/Ariza situation.

What if LO’s agent is quietly shopping offers. He probably has an offer in hand from Lakers around the rumored 24/3yr mark. Mitch probably gave the same scenario to LO’s agent. Here’s our offer, see what you can get on the open market and come back to us to talk.

LO is probably happy with the Lakers offer but his agent is counseling him to be patient and see if he can drum up a competing offer to drive the Lakers up another mill a year or tack on another year. Lakers probably are willing to do that but not without some kind of competing offer.

LO and his agent aren’t making waves, LO would probably be happy with the current offer but wouldn’t mind more.

He and his agent are approaching this the professional way. Pure guesswork on my part of course. But I’m trying to be optimistic about the lack of news.

Latest on LO and Portland: Blazers not interested, according to a source.