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From Dan Loumena, LA Times: Andrew Bynum says he’s ready to play. The Lakers say they’re ready to activate him and turn him loose Tuesday night against the Washington Wizards. Lakers fans and NBA followers worldwide have debated and followed his progress from this summer’s surgical repair of his right knee to the precipice of his return. And nobody knows exactly what to expect. Not even the Lakers. But if there were ever a game for him to debut following his rehabilitation, this match-up against the Wizards in Washington would be it.
From Mike Bresnahan, LA Times: Andrew Bynum finally went through another practice. It went well, apparently. “I’m definitely playing tomorrow,” said the Lakers’ center, who has not see game action since undergoing knee surgery last July. The Lakers, on a 9-7 skid after winning their first eight games, have been waiting for Bynum to return, though there was no timetable for how many minutes he might play Tuesday against Washington. “I don’t know how long,” he said Monday after practicing with teammates before they met with President Obama. “The practice felt very good. Obviously I’m not myself yet, but I can definitely go out there and help the team, and I’m going to go do that.”
From Dave McMenamin, ESPNLA: As President Barack Obama finished his remarks to the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday as he honored them for winning the 2010 NBA title, Pau Gasol leaned over to Andrew Bynum, put his arm around the young center’s shoulders and pulled him in for a hug. Yes, Pau, rejoice. Bynum is back. “I’m definitely playing [Tuesday],” Bynum said. The team underwent a full practice on Monday morning before the meeting with President Obama at a Washington-area Boys & Girls Club and Bynum was able to make it up and down the court in five-on-five situations without any pain or discomfort in his surgically-repaired right knee.
From Kevin Ding, OC Register: Back in 2008, Barack Obama was trying to win a presidential election while Kobe Bryant was trying to be a champion again. Bryant tried not to be publicly heavy-handed but did offer Obama an endorsement. The morning after Obama won, Bryant was privately jazzed to the point he secured extra copies of the post-election Orange County Register front page to commemorate history for himself and his family. Since then Bryant has won again – and again – and his path has crossed with President Obama’s again and again and again and … “Fifth time, I think?” Bryant said Monday after the Lakers visited with President Obama to honor their 2010 NBA championship. “Something like that. Fourth? Fifth?”
From Broderick Turner, LA Times: Kobe Bryant has spent time with President Obama several times over the last year. Bryant was even a part of a contingent of NBA players who played a pick-up basketball game with the president last summer. Still, when the Lakers visited with Obama at a local Boys and Girls Club in the Washington area Monday — part of a ceremony for winning back-to-back championships — Bryant still was in awe. Bryant talked about how “extremely competitive” Obama is. Every one knows how competitive Bryant is, so that’s something the two have in common. “The cool thing about going to the White House is to be able to talk with people that work with him and have been around him and they talk about his resiliency and always having a positive attitude no matter what,” Bryant said. “[He says], ‘You are going to have setbacks, but we’re still going to get to where we need to go. Even though we’re going through this, ultimately we’ll get there.’ I think that’s one of the characteristics that I admire the most about him.”
DirtySanchez says
Nice to hear Bynum sound ready to play tonights game against the Wizards. Hopefully he will help the team close this road trip out with nothing but W’s.
james says
woo will be good to see ‘drew back
JeremyLA24 says
I have a feeling this game is going to look really rusty on the offensive end. It took a long time for Pau and Andrew to co-exist offensively last season (and they didn’t at all the 2 seasons before that.) I’m expecting a lot of plays that should be textbook to go awry due to miscommunication or the bigs “stepping on eachother’s feet.”
Defensively, we should look a whole lot better. There is no way that we will be outscored in the paint as we were in the previous game against the Nets. Personally, I will be looking for Andrew’s help defense to see if his defensive rotation is on par with where it was last season. That is something that he really became dangerous in mid last season before he had his injury that plagued him through the playoffs.
Additionally, tonight may be the night where we need LO the playmaker to show up more than we need LO the finisher. I love LO the finisher but like I said, our offense is probably going to look even more rusty than usual. So, if we could implement some ball movement through our point/PF we should see some easy looks for a slumping Pau and a somewhat unconfident/ rusty Drew.
On a final note, win or lose I want us to play a good brand of basketball tonight. I’ll be really upset if it’s a “live by the Kobe night,” while everyone else stands around and watches. That won’t help our team progress at all and we all know that we can have that on any given night. So I’d rather see us lose the right way then win the wrong way this early in the season.
Chris J says
The L.A. Times wrote, “But if there were ever a game for him to debut following his rehabilitation, this match-up against the Wizards in Washington would be it.”
Really? I can think of lots of other players against whom I’d prefer to see Drew wet his feet rather than JaVale McGee, who’s both big and very active.
Roy Hibbert’s taller, but he’s not going to require much side-to-side movement to hold off.
Then again, we’re going to see a lot of Odom anyway the rest of this trip since Drew can’t be running around the perimeter chasing Spencer Hawes and Andrea Bargnani as they chuck up 3-pointers. Best to work the big man back into the mix slowly, so perhaps these match-ups are for the best.
Darius Soriano says
The game preview is up.
http://www.forumblueandgold.com/2010/12/14/preview-and-chat-the-washington-wizards-7/
DY says
Wonder who was in more of awe of each other: Obama or Kobe?
Dfi says
Is that a bad photoshop job up there of Obama or has my lack of sleep finally caught up to me?
tsuwm says
>bad photoshop job
PHOBAR > PHOtoshopped Beyond All Recognition
Ben says
Im glad Bynum is returning, it just shows how much we have missed the big guy in middle..now Pau can play even more freely
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