A quick look at and some random thoughts on some of the things that have crossed my web browser in the last week or so…
*Well that was fun. Like I mentioned last night and Phillip did this morning, the game against the Pacers was a thorough beatdown and should serve as a nice springboard for the Lakers’ upcoming roadie. Keep playing like this and the wins will follow.
*Don’t look for the Lakers to pick up one of the recently released vets or street free agents looking to latch on to a contender. Just remember, in the playoffs rotations shrink to 8-9 guys and the Lakers are already set with the guys that they trust in those roles. I mean, do you really think that any player off the street could beat out one of our top 8-9 guys for minutes down the stretch of the season and into the playoffs? I don’t.
*On opening night against the Clippers, the Lakers received their championship rings. Sadly (unless you’re a Lakers staffer reading this right now) you were not invited and did not get one. Well, here’s your chance to get one of those diamond clustered beauties.
*Speaking of championships, a long time mantra of this site is that the Lakers will go as far as their defense takes them. Currently the Lakers are number one in defensive efficiency. I think that is the factor that we should all be looking at when examining the Lakers post season chances more than any other stat or storyline that gets thrown out there by any media expert. And, again, I think Artest deserves a lot of credit. Just a month ago, he looked plodding and was not moving well. Since then, he’s lost some weight (and is looking to lose a bit more) and is moving so much better. The man is putting in the work needed to help the team.
*And speaking of defense, you don’t get to be good on that side of the ball without pushing the envelope when it comes to the rule book. So it makes some sense to me that, based on a poll of current players, Artest and Kobe appear on this list of NBA’s dirtiest players. Reggie Evans is a given. My only question is, why no Celtics?
*My two cents on the Shaq injury: Cleveland won’t miss a beat. Shaq is a physical presence in the middle, but Cleveland is the Lebron show. If they can go without their starting back court and reel off a bunch of wins, they’ll do just fine plugging in Varejao at Center and giving more minutes to Hickson and Jamison. They’ll also play Lebron at PF (where his PER is even better than at SF) and call it a day. However, come playoff time and a potential match up with Orlando and a likely-to-be-rusty Shaq is back in the fold?
*Over the years, I’ve loved HBO. Some of their series (The Wire, The Sopranos) have been some of the best TV I’ve seen. But I love their sports coverage too. So, it’s no surprise that my DVR is already set for this Saturday.
*Yesterday in the game wrap, I mentioned that SF is probably the most stacked position in the league. It helps when Lebron, ‘Melo, and Durant play that spot. But PG is close. And over the next few years it will get even closer or surpass SF as the deepest and most talent rich position in the league. You already have CP3 & Deron (the league’s elite) with guys like Kidd, Billups, and Nash playing tremendous ball with no real indication of slowing down much. Plus a secondary group of some veteran and young guys like Parker, Baron, Jameer, Rondo, and Brooks. Then, you add to that group second year studs like Rose and Westbrook. Now, look at this year’s rookie crop of PG’s. Evans, Curry, Jennings, Lawson, Collison, Flynn, and we haven’t even seen Rubio yet. Yikes.
*I just want to give a quick tip of my cap to two sites that are making me smarter about this game that we all love. HoopData and NBA Playbook are just tremendous places for NBA info and bring the average fan insightful information every day. I really can’t say enough about the statistics, breakdowns, and visuals that you get from these sites. Great, great work.
*Lastly, are you going here? If you are, let me know. I want to hear about your experience.
j.d. Hastings says
My counter to the notion that the league is now a PG league is that the starters in the finals last year were Rafer Alston and Derek Fisher.
Andreas G. says
Darius just said that it will be the deepest and most talent rich position in the league though?:)
Also we can probably add Wall to that list. (And for us living in Europe; we have indeed seen Rubio and he’s living up to all the hype.)
R says
Good news on the PG front – hopefully the Lake Show can snare one next year.
sbdunks says
OT: You know, we can complain about Bynum’s blackhole tendencies, Pau’s softness, the point guards’ defense.. but hey, atleast we’re not celtic fans…
Then we’d have to put up with Perk’s ugly mug, Sheed’s ugly shot selection, and this wonderful play…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zzOfsTZEVg
It’s beautiful! LOL
Burgundy says
Darius – as you said Small Forward and Point Guard are probably the two deepest positions in the league (which is why it’s so infuriorating that with all the talent out there, the Lakers start Derek Fisher and play him 30 minutes a night, but that’s a topic that’s been beaten to death…and rightly so).
The reason why the Lakers are an elite team is because they have elite front court players in a league that has few elite front court players.
How many elite power forwards/centers are there?
Dirk
Bosh
Pau
KG
Boozer
Duncan
STAT
Randolph (?)
Josh Smith
Bynum
Howard
Jefferson
Lopez
So…13 TOTAL…and two of them play for the Lakers. And Lamar Odom would be a starter on just about any other team in the league.
In fact, if you really thought about it, in a perfect world, where salary doesn’t matter, or anything like that, if you could make a no strings attached player for player swap:
1) How many big men would you swap for Pau?
2) How many big men would you swap for Bynum?
3) How many big men would you swap for Odom?
In Pau’s case…maybe Dirk, and that’s about it.
In Bynum’s case, there are only 4 or 5 guys, if you’re thinking realistically (big picture).
Heck, even in Lamar Odom’s case the list isn’t very long.
Darius says
Burgundy,
Solid point about the league’s big men – I’d probably add Yao to your list but he’s injured. There are several other rather good players at those positions (Aldridge, Jamison, Horford, Kaman, etc) but your point stands.
Taken a step further, SG is probably the weakest position in the league with only Kobe, Wade, and Roy considered truly elite. I think this is also why our team is so strong – we have some of the best players at positions where there is not a lot of strength and it causes matchup problems for a lot of teams out there. I mean, even if teams have a front line that can battle with the Lakers, do they have a legitimate player that can slow Kobe on defense while occupying him and making him work on offense? And if a team has a great wing player that is fantastic on both sides of the ball, do they have the front court to neutralize our 3 bigs? Needless to say, this is why the Lakers are a long term contender. And when you add in a player like Artest – a guy that excels at defense and is quite capable on offense – it makes other teams’ advantages at SF less potent. This is why, as much as we can all agree that Fisher is not a great option, his presence can be mitigated somewhat by the make up of the rest of our roster. I don’t want to start a firestorm of Fisher comments here, but this is what the K-Bros were arguing a while back in this post: http://bit.ly/dCZ5gJ
wondahbap says
j.d. hastings,
If this was twitter, I’d retweet that.
Palani says
lol. sorry cannot resist:
4) How many PGs would you swap for Fisher?
sperm whale says
1,
cute, but not to the point. the lakers made the finals despite fisher’s play (of course fisher made some good *plays* but his play wasn’t consistent– perhaps those shots wouldn’t even have been necessary if he was solid throughout)
——–
saying that this is a “pg league” is to evoke two concepts:
1) there are a lot of good pgs in the league; more precisely, of the league’s very good players, a disproportionate number play pg
2) pgs dominate the league such that teams with good pgs go far
I think (1) is uncontroversial. (2) is true as well, but I think it was outweighed last year by what Burgundy brought up (orlando and the lakers have talent at positions where talent is rarer).
Burgundy says
Darius – it’s funny I was thinking of adding Horford and Kaman to the list.
I think if you ranked the Lakers’ starting 5 in terms of where they stand versus the other 32 teams in the league it would look like this (assuming a healthy Yao):
SG – Kobe – 1st
PF – Pau – 3rd (behind Dirk and Duncan, though you could argue he’s passed Duncan, at this point)
C – Bynum – 3rd (behind Howard and Yao)
SF – Artest – 9th (behind LBJ, Carmelo, Durant, Gay, Wallace, Maggette, Deng, & Butler)
PG – Fisher – 32nd (behind everybody else…that’s not an overstatement, I would LITERALLY take any other starting point guard in the league over Fish…and here’s what’s worse, Fish isn’t the 32nd best point guard in the league, because there are a ton of backup PG’s I would take over Fish, as well.)
If I matched up Odom against the other Power Forwards in the league, I think he would rank 12th (Behind Dirk, Duncan, Pau, Bosh, STAT, Randolph, Boozer, West, Smith, Aldridge, & Landry – and by the way, you could make a case that he’s better than Aldridge and Landry, making him 10th best)
As a final note, when you rank out the players like that, it kind of highlights how frustratingly poor our PG is, doesn’t it?
Do you realize if the Lakers even had the 25th best point guard in the league, they would almost be unbeatable (and yes, that’s a bit of hyperbole…but, still!)?
alex v. says
What was the last PG-dominated team that won an NBA title? (And who was the team before Showtime?)
It’s a little bit hard to find winners that even had great PGs. (I’d count Parker and Rondo as good, but not great.) If you allow for contenders, I guess you can point to Kidd’s Nets and Stockton’s Jazz teams.
Maybe this is just an anomaly resulting from where the great players have emerged over the last twenty years, but it’s hard to make the case that PGs dominate when it comes to winning it all.
Aaron says
Burgundy,
“As a final note, when you rank out the players like that, it kind of highlights how frustratingly poor our PG is, doesn’t it?”
Really? Its the opposite of frustrating. Derek is the great equalizer. He makes the season and the games exciting. If we had an average starting PG the Lakers would run away from every team in every game. Fish keeps people on this blog day in and day out. However if Kobe isn’t just in a slump and he is on the downside of his career we might need to bring in a average PG soon so we can keep winning championships. We won’t get away with starting a scrub for much longer.
Ryan says
Next year John Wall will have to be added to that list of PGs. The kid can play.
ray says
Ok Burgandy.
You can have Rafer Alston and T.J. Ford. I’ll stick with Fisher.
Craig W. says
Is there a system that has dominated the NBA over the last 20 yrs?
Of course! And this system relies less on the PG position than any other position on the team. While we are all arguing the merits of different positions and who mans those positions we fail to take into account the dominant system and what it demands from each of it’s positions.
If we are going to argue skill, I propose we argue what is needed in the triangle system – then find the right people to man the respective positions. I suspect a Chris Paul would actually make the system less effective and he would also harm the defense. Actually, if I were going to have a ball dominating PG, I would take Deron Williams, but even he might dominate the other players too much.
Yusuf says
Well Fisher has been playing better the past two games. Lets stop the fish bashing until he has another stinker guys cmon.
Joey Jo-Jo Shabadoo says
James Posey fails epically.
Darius says
Burgundy,
To piggyback on what Craig W. said, teams win championships not specific players. So in the same way that we compare and rank players at a position, we must also ask how they fit together on a team and mesh to make the group successful.
So, for example, when it’s said that Odom ranks (potentially) #12 as a PF in the league, there are players ranked above Odom that I would not trade him straight up for due to concerns about how that player would fit in with this team. I mean, would Boozer be a better fit than Odom on this team? Would he be happy coming off the bench? Would he provide the same versatility as an offensive initiator? The answers to these questions are either unclear or leaning towards “no”. That stuff matters.
Bringing this back to Fisher for one moment, I won’t make the classic arguments about what he brings to the table in the same way that it’s tiring to hear about the things that he takes off it. But I do know that Fish fits on this *team* in a way that others that are better than him may not. And I’m not talking about the CP3’s or Deron’s – those guys are studs and could play with you and me or Magic and Larry and do just fine. I’m saying those guys that, statistically or talent wise, are better than Fish but may not bring the same things to this team that Derek does. The leadership, the organization of the offense, the trust he inspires with his teammates. Do these qualities mean more than his poor shooting or his penchant for driving to the basket even though he’s not a good finisher? Or do those negatives outweigh the positives when combined with his fit? These are questions that are more difficult to answer than I think most people make it seem.
BCR says
I’d add Bosh to the list of fours that are better than Pau, but really, that’s about it. We have a top five player at three positions, a top fifteen player at the three, and a liability at the point.
TheSTD says
11. Isiah Thomas asks why you’re looking before Showtime instead of right after for your example
d-fish. says
there are 30 teams in the league, not 32.
the other stephen says
well…even if fisher’s performance falls off completely and he retires, i suppose it’s safe to say that he’ll hang around so we can use that shiny round magic eight ball of a head.
will we repeat? signs point to yes.
will we break the bank for another season in a row? it is decidely so.
will young bynum finally overcome his fear of passing and prove himself ready to assume the lakers mantle? reply hazy, try again.
do farmar’s ears help him parachute to the ground after he dunks? as i see it, yes.
will ammo ever see daylight at the end of the bench? my sources say no.
R says
15 – Are you arguing Chris Paul and/or Deron Williams instead of Fisher would hurt the Lakers?
‘cmon!
sT says
d-fish, LOL… We need a Laker game soon it looks like, with another blowout win of course.
Mark says
I do understand the intangibles Fisher can bring to this team. So, while I agree with that, it pains me to see the guy play. He is playing with a chip on his shoulder, and I don’t even know what he is trying to prove. He keeps on getting to the rim and always expecting a foul, in exchange for his .011 % around the rim. Is it sin to beg for Fisher to sit? So much for having a veteran-savvy point guard, but the guards he’s playing against always have a good night’s game, and we can say the same to Kobe (free-safety), but at least Kobe plays defense when he means it, and he SCORES. But hey, it may well be his last year in the league, so, let’s just hope for the best. 🙂
harold says
The million dollar question is not whether we have the top talent stat wise, but whether we have top talent that can complement Kobe.
In that regard, I think we’re fairly stacked.
John Morris says
I don’t agree that this league is dominated by point guards. I would say the league’s elite pg’s right now are (in no particular order) Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Chauncy Billips, Derrick Rose, Rajon Rondo, Steve Nash and a bunch or young talent up on it’s way. I think I was being generous with Rose and Nash because Rose is having a so-so year and I’ve always said Nash never deserved to be an MVP (let alone 2 consecutive) because the Suns have to hide him on the defensive end.
As for our tired old point guard – I’m really not looking for the Lakers to make some big-name offseason aquisition. I just want them to get someone with a little experience that can stay in front of the dribble penetration pg’s on a nightly basis and step into a wide open 3. The only problem is – who? I think there is a bunch of young talent at this position in the league right now and hopefully the Lakers can catch one in the free agent market within the next couple of years.
Jim says
Some people are crazy…
http://www.dailynews.com/sports/ci_14506730
MannyP13 says
Jim – Impossible is nothing.
Jim says
Manny,
I hope you’re right. I’m just saying, some people have some crazy ideas.
Darius says
New post up. Phillip bringing you some links for the Lakers and around the web.
http://www.forumblueandgold.com/2010/03/04/around-the-world-wide-web-lakers-and-league-news/