Kobe Bryant was immensely influential in the creation of Laker Film Room. He’s two years older than I am, with his career beginning during my junior year of high school and ending when my son was in middle school. He always felt like the older brother that I never had and never met, but wanted […]
Kobe Bryant
Kobe Bryant Isolation: The Crazy Data Behind the NBA Legend
In an age of teams relentlessly focusing on efficiency and team basketball, the Kobe Bryant isolation brand of ball is frowned upon more and more. Shots with an insane degree of difficulty, many from mid range, and especially in isolation will just drive coaches and analytic heads like me insane. But Kobe was different. No, […]
Jeanie Buss’ Recent Comments Highlight Lakers’ PR Problem
We’ve reached a point with the Lakers where when an executive speaks, we have to hold our breath for the inevitable backlash as each sentence is broken down, word by word. Tuesday morning, when tweets came across the timeline that Jeanie Buss would be speaking publicly on the state of the Lakers with Colin Cowherd, […]
The Gray Mamba: How Kobe Bryant Forced Us To Think in Nuance
In a political culture of red versus blue, a sports culture of you versus us, and a general culture of black or white, Kobe Bryant might have been more aptly nicknamed for the areas his career spent the majority of its time in: the ambiguous shades of gray. This season, and especially this week, has […]
One Player, One Skill: D’Angelo Russell, Pull-Up Shooting
As part of a new series here at Forum Blue & Gold, we’re examining a single skill to keep an eye on with players this season. It could be their best quality or an aspect of their game that, if successful, will help the most. The two sound similar, but aren’t exactly the same. For […]
Positionless Basketball An Option For The Lakers
A favorite refrain from Jalen Rose is how positions were added to the analysis of basketball to help the more casual fan understand where certain players belong on the court. It’s an interesting premise that might hold water if plays weren’t designed around players fitting roles based on their skill sets and size (you know, […]
Why 2015-16 Lakers Season Is Most Interesting In Recent Memory
2015-16 features a brand new core, a departing hero and a coach potentially on his last chance. Sure, there are no realistic championship aspirations, but here’s a crazy thought: The upcoming campaign might be the most interesting Lakers season before actual games are played in almost a decade. We all remember that crazy summer of […]
Thursday Links: Markieff Morris, Kobe Bryant, & the Schedule
Yesterday, the Lakers, along with 31 other teams, were granted a mapped-out schedule of their next 82 games. Aside from predicting win/loss totals and counting up the number of national TV appearances, the biggest takeaway for fans is that these could very well be the final 82 games of Kobe Bryant’s storied career. In what will […]
What to do with Nick Young?
Nick Young couldn’t possibly have felt great about his Lakers signing Lou Williams this summer. The redundancy between the two is fairly obvious if simplified down to layman levels. Young and Williams are both chuckers best used off the bench to bring an immediate scoring punch to whichever lineup they’re joining on the court. So, […]
Tuesday Links: Vitti, Kobe, Randle and… Jim Buss
The biggest news surrounding the Lakers this weekend was the imminent departure of long-time team trainer Gary Vitti. To be clear, the news that the 2015-16 season would be Vitti’s last run with the purple and gold was reported in mid-April, but Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times reinvigorated the discussion with a recent feature […]