The Lakers’ post-season storylines are a pretty slim volume right now. We’re in a bit of a holding pattern aside from shedding a couple pretty decent assistant coaches and to be honest, the Bernie Bickerstaff interim romp was one of the highlights of the season.. Darius wrote about assets yesterday and that’s about the only game in town, studying our cards and considering the possibilities. Wholesale changes may not be in the books this summer. Signing Dwight is a priority, he’s a franchise cornerstone. We all hope that Kobe will come back strong for the final year of his contract. I’m not particularly keen on trading Pau unless meaningful long term value is returned. As for Steve Nash, he’s pretty beat up. Maybe his imprint comes from mentoring but it’s doubtful we have any meaningful generational metamorphosis until the summer of 2014.
For the here and now, it’s about the playoffs. The second round is shaping up in epic nature. The Knicks and Pacers are one-all. Chicago stunned Miami on their home court and are playing with free money tonight. Memphis and OKC are tied up, a tactical battle orchestrated by a couple crafty old point guards in Lionel Hollins and Scott Brooks. And then there was the double-overtime Spurs-Warriors battle the other night – GSW came agonizingly close to a huge upset. Game two is tonight.
Dave McMenamin for ESPN LA hands out grades to the Lakers coaches and management.
The Great Mambino gathers the SS&R crew for a roundtable – the worst season in Laker history?
Lucas Sheiner & Ben Pickman for BustaSports with a Jordan Farmar interview as he looks toward an NBA return.
Eric Pincus for the LATimes wraps up Steve Blake’s year, his best as a Laker although injury-shortened.
Sam Smith for the Chicago Bulls blog writes about Jimmy Butler, getting it done.
Kelly Dwyer for Ball Don’t Lie on George Karl earning Coach Of the Year.
Ethan Sherwood Strauss for Warriors World on reasons for optimism.
Racm for Pounding the Rock with a preview for tonight’s Game 2 of the Spurs/Warriors series.
And finally, from the ESPN archives, a print interview with Lionel Collins conducted ten years ago, reflecting on the ’77 Championship Portland Trailblazers.
***
What’s next for the Lakers? Nothing that won’t wait for another day. The draft is still six weeks away and debating the number 48 pick really isn’t exactly barn burner material. This is the place where I’d normally go on about the winding road or some such nonsense but I got nothing. Signing off now.
Parrothead Phil says
I really enjoyed the Jimmy Butler story. Thank you for sharing the link.
Aaron says
@mcten: Lakers announce Pau Gasol will have a procedure on his knees Thursday to eliminate scar tissue through an ultrasonic energy probe
Hopefully this will help run and jump again. Since that is a big part of basketball.
Robert says
Dave Murphy: “aside from shedding a couple pretty decent assistant coaches” – Well – so I would guess that since we can afford to jettison these decent coaches, the ones remaining must be fantastic? Or perhaps they have “relationships” that give them a leg up? The word “brother” seems to come up a lot in our coaching evaluations. As in: Are you somebody’s brother? or As in: Are you somebody’s soon to be brother in law? : ) All I can say is – Oh brother : )
harold says
Gasol to have procedure on his knees. Hope he has the kind of comeback Kobe did.
Michael H says
Looking at the free agent list for this summer there are a few interesting names that possibly could be had for the mini mid level. None perfect players but for the mini they could have value.
Nick Young is a LA guy and had a disappointing season in Philly. Between run ins with Collins and injuries his production really fell off. But he can play both the 2 and 3 and I doubt anyone will pay him 5 mil again next year.
Martell Webster is a guy I always liked. He had a couple of injury plagued seasons in Minny but was healthy and had a nice season with the Wiz. Played for 1.75 mil last season. He can play the 2 or 3. Could we get him for 3 mil?
Wes Johnson was the 4th overall a couple of years ago. Hasn’t done much yet but he plays D and is still very young. Can play the 2 or 3.
Corey Brewer had a nice year but was awful in the playoff. A very good defender and another 2 or 3. He played for under 3 mil last year.
Craig W. says
The thing about both the 2nd round Western Conference playoffs is that the underdog teams really were the best teams in all the games to date. They each lost the 1st games because of shooting down the stretch, but they both came back and really dominated the 2nd games on the road. This is really impressive and they now go home for two games. The Spurs and Thunder should really be worried because these series could turn against them very easily.
rr says
Responding ro Robert and dr rayeye form the other thread, talking about Fisher:
. Our season ending rotation at PG demonstrated how foolish letting Fish go was.
—
This is just an emotional reaction. Fisher will occasionally have good games, and he certainly deserves credit for having some nice shooting games for OKC in postseason. But dr rayeye’s comment about the “mid-season boost” is wrong. Fisher only played 24 games for OKC and played very poorly for them. As to leadership, Fisher was on the team when Dallas crushed the Lakers in 2011 and the team certainly didn’t fall apart without him after the trade. And, no one remembers it now, but Steve Blake was great in Game 7 in 2012 against Denver.
What dr rayeye does is wait until Fisher plays well, and then starts talking about him. Rayeye is always very quiet about Fish after he puts up a 1/7.
I get wanting Fish around again; I would be fine with Shaw as coach and Fish as one of his assistants. But acting like keeping him around and playing him a lot would have made a big difference on the floor has almost no factual basis at all.
rr says
I mentioned Martell Webster awhile back.
Of those guys, Wes Johnson would be the cheapest. He might actually sign somewhere for the minimum.
CJ Watson, whom I mentioned in my other post, played in Brooklyn for the minimum last year and a player option for at 1.1M this year, so it is possible that he will be back on the market.
Everclear says
We never had a chance:
• Robbed of Chris Paul.
• Which eventually robbed us of Odom.
• Our head coach got fired just a few games into the season, right after rehauling our offensive playbook.
• Phil Jackson was passed over, ignoring his championship history with Kobe and Pau and his love of Dwight Howard’s game.
• D’Antoni was hired, with a new offensive scheme, zero championships, zero defensive mental talent, and coming in on crutches from knee surgery.
• Nash goes down in the second game of the season for 24 straight games.
• Our backup point guard goes down in the seventh game, for the next 37 games.
• Pau Gasol goes down in game eighteen, missing a total of 20 games.
• Dwight Howard goes down with a shoulder injury.
• Same night, we lose our main backup, Jordan Hill, for the rest of the season to a hip injury.
• Finally, game #45, we get our starting lineup back again… only to have D’Antoni not start Pau and make him sit at the start and end of games.
• 2 games later, Dwight goes down again with a shoulder.
• Owner Jerry Buss dies.
• The night Dwight gets back, Pau Gasol goes down again for another 19 games.
• Kobe gets injured for 2 games.
• But after, we have our starting lineup back for TWO FULL GAMES! #70 and #71!
• World Peace goes down, out for six games.
• Nash get re-injured, out for the rest of the season.
• Kobe ruptures his achilles, out for the rest of the season.
———- WE MAKE THE PLAYOFFS (somehow) ———-
• Jodie Meeks goes down. Out for the season.
• Next game, Nash and Steve Blake go down. Out for the season.
• Last game, World Peace drains knee, but can’t play. Out for the season.
…we never had a chance.
Robert says
rr: I never bring Fisher up, I only comment when others do. I do appreciate that you did not say I was ever “quiet” on this, because I was vocal on day 1 of DF’s departure. Just like I was on Day 1 of MD’s arrival : ) I am not a Monday morning QB, I make the calls on Sunday – and I am clearly not always correct. To be clear, would the season have been significantly changed with Fish? – No. Would we have been better off with him than without him for a number of reasons – yes. He has occasional good games, I am not sure I can say that about Darius Morris and then the Kobe control ,the leadership, etc.. Also he would be a good guy to keep in the organization for possible future leadership. You know kinda like a B Shaw. Anyways rr – this is belly aching about the past – which I am guilty of from time to time. The plans for the future are something you and I are in sync on with regard to the players. I am in waiting (and have a feeling I will remain so) for your final decision in another area : )
Anonymous says
Sorry Pal, but keeping Fisher was a mistake. 82 bad games + a few good games in the playoffs does not equal a roster spot. Dude was inconsistent, slow, a liability defensively and an offensive non-threat. Even with our injuries this season, I just dont see why we needed to keep him. I have lots of respect for the guy and thank him for his contributions, but we are better off without him.