Swamped with work today, so let me point you to some people doing some good writing, and throw in a couple comments.
• If you had offered me a deal beforehand to split the games against Detroit and San Antonio, I would have taken it. So I’m not too frustrated with the loss last night. Yes Utah and Sactown are 1.5 games back, but they could be closer.
• Tomorrow the Lakers take part in the first professional sporting event in New Orleans since the devastation of hurricane Katrina. I think we all hope that the city can bounce back, but it’s fair to question how good a basketball city it was even prior to recent events. Henry at True Hoop takes a look at this.
• With all the talk about the future Olympic team, Hoopsanaylist does a great breakdown of past squads, including the percentage of a team’s shots taken by a player.
• It pains you a little more when your idols let you down. Like when John Hollinger said in his chat yesterday
I still don’t have those guys on my MVP ballot — I don’t think Pierce and Bosh have quite been good enough, and it’s hard to vote for Kobe after he forced out Shaq…
I don’t want to rehash this whole thing again, but it takes two big egos not to dance. If it had been Shaq with the free agency hammer, he would have forced Kobe out of town. I suggest Hollinger read Roland Lazenby’s “The Show†to get the insider perspective of what Tex Winter thought:
“Phil was dealing with two mighty big egos. But in my mind I blamed Shaq more than Kobe. Kobe tried to sacrifice. Kobe tried to please Shaq, because Kobe realized the team’s effectiveness began with Shaq. But if you look at Shaq’s quotes in the paper, it was always me, me, me. Give me the ball. It’s my team, my city. Shaq is a wonderful person in a lot of ways. He’s very compassionate, very generous. He has a great sense of humor. But he’s moody; he’s unpredictable. And he’s very self-centered.”
Gatinho says
Ironically, Phil enabled that behavior.
Kurt says
Irony? We don’t get that at this blog anymore. We haven’t had any irony here since about, uh, ’83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was getting tired of being stared at.
Matt Bernhardt says
Our guy Jeff at Celtics Blog also used the same logic to keep Kobe off his preffered olympic team (http://celticsblog.net/blog/?p=1515), saying “He couldn’t get along with the most likeable man in the NBA”.
These things aren’t always so simple.
kwame a. says
you know it took ginobli and finley being unconsiouss from behind the arc to beat us yesterday. we allowed tim duncan to look like magic from the post, next game we should play him straight up because we just cant rotate quick enough when we sag and double. looking forward to jj’s debut!
Kurt says
I liked the effort against the Spurs. San Antonio shot at a high percentage, but they are a good team. That effort would win most nights.
John R says
Is this the first loss that can’t be blamed on effort? The Lakers would be 60-1 if only they tried a little harder I guess. Dr. Buss should be pissed that he’s paying all that money and he has the second best team in the NBA but they just don’t apply themselves.
Gatinho says
See, uh, people blog about a mediocore Lakerss squad here while smoking dope, so irony’s not really a high priority.
Kurt says
Wow Gatinho, I didn’t think anyone was going to get that reference. It was fairly obscure.
chris henderson says
to irony or not to irony…
we are in a race now, every game matters…
shouild be a great stretch drive, let’s see Phil coach this team the way we all expect him too…
only time will tell, but I am liking the second half of the season so far.
next up, a critical road game against NO/OK..
gonna be intense..
I hope.
John R says
Majeed: Actually, the Lakers would be by far the worst team in the league without their superstar! 10 wins max!
Marc Stein: Right. If you use the Take Player X Off His Team formula, Kobe would be the favorite over LeBron anyway.
Marc Stein chat today. That’s hurful how totally he agreed with that. Worst team by far? Agree or disagree?
Goo says
Is there any statistical analysis of how many Wins someone like Kobe is worth to a team? I’m familiar with the SABR baseball stats but I don’t know much about Hollinger stats and APBR kind of stuff…any ideas?
BLT says
I’m surprised no one else picked up the Roxanne reference. I don’t remember the dope line, though.
I wasn’t too discouraged by this loss. Lakers left Finley and Ginobili open for some long-distance shots, but they covered them well for others and they still made them. Still, it would be nice to see the Lakers put up this kind of effort night in and night out.
b
john says
i’d agree with that, the fact they would be in the race to accumulate the least wins in the league sans kobe. i dig this team, but take away kobe and you don’t have anyone else who fits the ‘scorer’ role that a team needs at the very least one of.
that said, i thought this team would be good for 46-48 wins. i still say, take this same squad two or three years from now as is, it could very well be a title contender.
Kurt says
Goo, yes, there are win shares for basketball, here is a description of the method. Last season, Dirk led the league with 44 win shares, with Amare Stoudemire next at 43 and KG third at 40. I have not calculated it for this season, and I’m not sure where this season’s stuff is already posted.
There also are player wins, where the formula is ORtg14 / (ORtg14 + DRtg14). KG led this last season with 15.8, with Dirk second.
JONESONTHENBA says
Everyone hate’s on Kobe because they don’t like him personally. I have had this arguement with many of the readers over at true hoop, who think Dwyane Wade is a better player than Kobe. My arguement is that Kobe does everything that Wade does, plus he play’s D and has long distance range. What do you think?