http://www.sheridanhoops.com/category/power-rankings/ You can’t kick dirt in their grave if they’re not dead yet, but in your modern sportswriting biz, we like to cover all eventualities just in case, starting with the most spectacular. It doesn’t come more spectacular than the Lakers, who now resemble a centuries-old redwood toppling over, picking up speed as it goes. I’ve been fortunate to have covered these guys for the better part of 20 years. Aside from being great most of the time, they were gourds most of the time, managerially as well as on the player level (it’s not every team whose coach lives with the owner’s daughter and publicly zings the owner’s son) and more fun that a barrel of inmates. The wacko days actually ended circa 2007, after Kobe Bryant came down from the orbit he’d gone into, when he demanded to be traded. After that, there was nothing like the good old days, like training camp in 2003 when newly arrived Gary Payton and Karl Malone assured us that Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal would stop sniping at each other in the papers, after which Kobe went home and announced through Jim Gray that Shaq was a malingerer, a fake leader, a fake friend, etc. In a crushing blow, Kwame Brown left in 2007. How do you replace someone who capable of hitting a fan in the face with a birthday cake on the sidewalks of El Segundo? I bring this up because if the Lakers aren’t actually over, they’re in the greatest peril they’ve faced since trading Shaq and showing Phil the door in 2004, after which they went 34-48 and saw their new coach, Rudy Tomjanovich, light out over the hill in January, leaving his five-year, $30 million deal on the table.
To make the playoffs, they'll probably have to win between 45 and 48 games. To do that, they'd have to win almost at the same rate the Spurs are winning right now, and do so from this point forward. I'm not even sure that the Lakers if they were playing well, would be winning at that rate period, let alone after a magical trade. That's not going to happen.
I also think they're dead. I mean, stick a fork in them. They have zero bench, an aging Kobe, perpetually injured Howard, aging and over the hill Nash, a ticking timebomb in meta whatever the hell he calls himself this week and a disgusted Gsau. They are lucky to have won as many as they have.
I think you are right. They have a duplication of talent at center. One of those guys can fetch at least one good player. Although I am not sure why anyone would pay Pau 19 million next year. Hopefully Memphis doesn't do anything stupid like trying to reunite the Gasol brothers and give LA Rudy Gay.
Crazy to think they owe just Kobe, Nash, Meta and Pau about $66 mil next year. I wonder if this is the summer that Kobe finally forces his way out of LA. He makes $30 mil next year, so it's hard to see how anyone can make the contracts work without unloading half their team. But he's such a marketable player and such an elite scorer that you could see a lot of teams at least trying.
I don't know what the future holds, but this fucking franchise always seems to find a way to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. But at least for now I can revel in their dysfunction and implosion, even if that only lasts a couple more weeks. Would it be greedy of me to hope that Jim Buss is worse than James Dolan and leads the Lakers into a new dark age for the next twenty years?
Greedy? No. Generous, yes. It would be just and fair to the downtrodden, the wretched refuse, the huddled masses, yearning to breath free! Sing Hallelujah, brothers and sisters!
If their pick is in the lotto; Phoenix gets it. If I were Phoenix; I would care more about the lakers constantly losing then they losing themselves. It would be epic if the laker lotto pick netted a #1 pick. That would be the dagger!!!!
I 100% agree with this statement. Remember the time they were like 9 games under .500 and Robert Horry said we will be above .500 before the allstar break? Yeah they won a fucking title that year! Fuck!!!!!
More than he wants to match Jordan's ring count? I'm not so sure. Remember, Kobe tried to abandon ship last time shit went south in LA. Besides, just look at the stats and the titles. A lot of people (including Jerry West and Magic) already consider him the best ever. Those who don't will probably not be convinced by Kobe wasting the twilight of his career on (at best) a .500 team.
And there you have it. Not part of the greatest TEAM ever, or the greatest Laker team ever. It's all memememememe with Bryant. And guess what? He won't be greatest Laker ever. He can't touch Magic or Wilt.
