<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">EL SEGUNDO ? There was a recurring theme coming from the Lakers as they took turns shuffling in and out of individual meetings with Coach Phil Jackson on Tuesday. The Lakers take a 26-25 record into tonight's game against the Atlanta Hawks and will enter this weekend's All-Star break at .500 or better. But the players and Jackson agreed that .500 is not good enough. "We definitely underachieved," guard Smush Parker said. "We've let a lot of games this season slip between our fingers. I feel that we're nowhere near our potential and we just have to get better. "Hopefully the second half of the season will bring us a lot more victories." The Lakers can use several excuses for their mediocre first half. Jackson's system, which is unfamiliar to some players, has played a part in the Lakers' first-half problems. Jackson is using his meetings with the players as a gut check more than motivation. "Late-game execution, defense, better execution in the triangle there are still a lot of things that we're not doing execution-wise," Parker said. "There are still a lot of options and plays that we haven't done yet because of the lack of execution. For the most part, we just have to get better on defense." Injuries have played a role in the Lakers' sluggish first half. Slava Medvedenko had back surgery, and Chris Mihm is out because of a strained shoulder. Lamar Odom, who agreed that the team has underachieved, has been playing with a rib injury. The Lakers lack the depth to overcome a lot of injuries. "It's just really one of those things where you can't count your chickens in that situation," Jackson said. "You just have to go and play games and understand that you're going to have injuries. But when you have those injury situations you hope you have enough balance behind you and depth behind you as a team so that you can survive those times." The Lakers have a favorable schedule to come back to after the All-Star break with 18 of their remaining 30 games at home, but improvements will have to be made if they hope to capitalize. "What we like to do as a basketball club is play .500 on the road," Jackson said. "Up until this (past 2-5) road trip, we thought that we were going to be a team that could be close to that. And then this road trip kind of squashed that idea. If that happens, you've got to really find a way to win at home. We haven't carried that desperation on our home court yet."</div> Source
I can see a 8th seed, 7th at best. They need Odom to contribute more offinsively and they will make a good run. However they arent finals contenders.
These Lakers should be in the playoffs. They should have more wins if it weren't for poor late game execution. Also, it would help if Odom would stop his underachieving ways. 13/10/5 is not good enough for a second option on a team that isn't all that deep. He needs to amp up his production and stop being so damn passive. He needs to start showing the Lakers that he wants to part of the offense and assert himself in it instead of merely going through the motions. Kobe can't do it all every night, but if Odom and the rest of the guys don't start stepping it up consistently, he's going to continue to have to take 25 or 30 shots a game to give them a shot at winning.
I heard Lakers were close to getting artest Man that would have locked play-offs for sure because Artest is soo good on defense and can give you 20-30 on a regular basis on offense Sacramento will catch up to them i dont really know about play-offs.
My Knick's buddy told me of a rumor sending Marbury for Odom, not to sure about that. I would really like to see Fisher back here, he's been damn good in Golden State lately, can still shoot and share the ball
Marbury isn't coming to LA. The rumor your friend probably heard was something like Channing Frye and Penny Hardaway (for his expiring contract) for Odom and a filler, but NY turned that down because they don't want to part with Frye.
I've said it ever since they both entered the NBA and I'll say it again.. Luke Walton and Sasha Vujacic don't belong in the NBDL (D-League now,) let alone the NBA. These two have to be the worst overall players I've seen since... I can't even remember the last time I've seen such idiots actually. Luke Walton is a good for nothing that wastes minutes when he is out there, and is a liability in both offense and defense. People praise him because he has made some nice passes here and there over the years, but he is simply a joke. He is a momentum killer, both with his offense and defense. He often makes stupid mistakes with the ball and screws up any kind of flow we have in the game. On defense, I don't think I need to say anything because I'm sure you are all aware of how he performs on that end. Jackson likes Walton because of his knowledge of the game, well then I'm all for him joining the coaching staff... but not play 20-25minutes a game. Sasha is the opposite of Walton, which is still horrible. His defense is better than Walton, but offense is even worse. He can not hit a wide open jumper if the whole world was depending on it. He is a overrated pesky defender who gets into players' faces and and usually gets burned to the basket or commits a stupid foul. He's not even known as a decent defender and he is overrated, that tells you something. Until we get some decent backups for Kobe and Smush (who should be a backup himself) we will continue to struggle. Our defense has been horrible all season, but without Mihm it has gotten even worse. Mihm isn't a very good defender, but his presence makes an enormous difference in the paint. That tells you something about our interior defense, doesn't it? Cook is a very good offensive player and I love the way his game meshes with Kobe's, but aside from the charges he takes once in a while, it's like hes playing defense from the bench, no where near the middle that he should be protecting. Mitch Kupchak has done a horrible job constucting this team, worse than most people realize. Our best defender is Kobe, and IMO he isn't that great of a defender to begin with. True he is a very good one-on-one defender, but he is a horrible help defender, often found standing around when his man does blow past him. Our defense is so bad that, I think the Dallas teams in the past might even be better. It has been much more noticeable of late because of the defensive focus teams have been putting on Kobe. Our offense isn't flowing as smoothely and I believe it has shown that we really have been outscoring teams, not shutting them down in our victories. All I'm saying is, until Kupchak is fired we will not see a very successful Laker team. All he sees is players based on their offensive talent, without a care about the D. Hell, even those offensive based players he has brought in have been horrible on offense.. He has done such a bad job, it makes me sick..
Phreeze hit it on the head...it's so darn frustrating to see a team built on such crappy players start and even come off the bench for the greatest franchise in the nba history.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting shapecity:</div><div class="quote_post">All a bunch of words and b.s. from the players not named Kobe.</div> Yeah you always hear Smush or Vuvajic or Walton saying how the "TEAM" let games slip away. hahaha
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting rocky votolato:</div><div class="quote_post">Yeah you always hear Smush or Vuvajic or Walton saying how the "TEAM" let games slip away. hahaha</div> lol when they do do that I point at the screen and say look who's talking....
