Lakers: Kupchak, "Team Not Quitting" <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The mountain the Lakers now have to scale to make the playoffs might have given even Sir Edmund Hillary pause -- trailing the Denver Nuggets by 5 games with 14 to play -- but general manager Mitch Kupchak refused to concede the season. "We're still in a playoff hunt because of the teams out there that are banged up," Kupchak said Friday. "I read the paper every day and it seems like another guy is going on the injured list. ... It is the only approach for this team to take." Kupchak also said that perhaps interim coach Frank Hamblen had gotten too caught up in the Lakers' seven-game losing streak when he accused the team of quitting in the second half of Thursday's 117-96 loss to the Nuggets. "I know what the guys are going through," Kupchak said. "When a team like Denver is playing well and we're not, and have lost a bunch of games in a row, in our case, the perception is that you've given up. Our guys have not given up. "But if you turned on the television and saw the second half of that game, you might think, 'Oh my gosh, they've quit.' They haven't. But they're not playing with the same energy and confidence of a team like Denver." The Lakers, who last missed the playoffs in 1994, are one more loss away from sole ownership of the second-longest losing streak in franchise history. They need to finish 9-5 to avoid only the seventh losing season since moving to Los Angeles in 1960.</div> Source
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting GiantMidget:</div><div class="quote_post">Mitch Kupchak,"Please dont fire me...youre going to fire me arent you?"</div> He deserves to be fired. The team is quitting. Kobe is really the only one, IMO that has been playing with everything he's got. It just seems to me that everyone exept Kobe knows that they can't make the playoffs and don't really care if they lose or win the remaining games.
I hate the fact that we aren't going to make the playoffs. I kept my playoff hopes alive up until the game we lost to Minnisota. I thought we had a good chance of making it after the Knicks game but my hopes were blown away against Minnisota.
