Shannon Brown agrees to 2 years, 4.2 million with the Lakers.

We were still on pace to win 63 games with no bench during the Bynum injury phase. I think we could still cancel out his loss with our additions, but there's no real reason to take that risk like you said.

 

There's no telling if those horrible calls will continue, since refs repeatedly whistle Drew whenever he breathes on someone. What if it happens again? That's why we need LO, or at least someone suitable to play backup on a championship team.

I like Drew, but there's no telling how he will play in a full 82 game season plus postseason. He's shown spurts of allstar caliber play for a week or so, only to get injured. I'm not ready to bank our season on him until he shows me he can perform at a high level consistently, for an entire year.

 

63 wins in the regular season

vs

winning in the postseason, WCF, Finals, are two completely different issues

 

We won the playoffs with Bynum still injured, and Fisher in a slump. It's not real different because we didn't really have a bench since LO was the actual starter.

 

Yeah, I'm getting tired of him playing like an all-star then getting injured. I doubt it's gonna happen 3 years in a row, so all I am hoping now would be for him to be more consistent and perform up to his talent. But, foul trouble is pretty much a sure thing with the refs blowing a whistle for bullshit calls, so we would still need Odom.

 

LO was the starter and helped us win the postseason. Replace LO with JP or DJ Mbenga, what happens?

In the postseason, we played the Utah Jazz who cannot win on the road, and a fluke Denver Nuggets team. The Houston series was a wash since Yao was injured. Regardless, that doesn't really matter to me. Contenders around the league are getting better. San Antonio has definitely gotten better, if they get McDyess like they are rumored to, another big upgrade. Boston (IMO our biggest threat), added KG and Rasheed Wallace.

Again, if we play the season with JP/DJ, or some random scrub as our backup big, we're gonna have a very tough time repeating.

 

We're talking about winning without a bench, which we essentially did already. If Drew stays healthy and we lost LO and have no bench, I still don't see the big deal. If we're able to get some production out of our 1 this time, it might actually be an upgrade. This team has plenty of upside.

 

If Odom goes away, the only guy I think that would do well in LA as a backup would be David Lee, but he ain't signing for LLE, so we need Odom!

 

If Drew stays healthy, he has the potential to put up 20/10. But can he? Even if he does, we have yet to see how he performs over the span of the entire season + postseason.

As for bench. If LO was essentially our starter, then you replace Drew with JP, unless you get somebody better. An injured Drew still blocks, alters shots, is still a threat in the paint, and can still score offensively. The whole goal isn't to stay status quo anyways, it's to the get better like teams around us have done.

 

He won't. His only options are LA or Portland. I don't see him going anywhere anyways, which is why I said all this is moot. But if we end up losing him and have to rely on the LLE for his replacement, we're in trouble.

 

We already replaced LO in part with the addition of Ron. And we have Drew, if we get anything out of Shannon or some other piece we acquire that gives us depth, I don't think we've lost a step. The other contenders have injury concerns as well.

The problem I have is that this team would be kind of cheap to let LO go in this weak market, but I'm not going to freak out over him. LO was part of the reason the Houston series and Denver series dragged on, he also had some injury problems of his own and we STILL got past it. We didn't need him to explode on the Jazz we would have won that series anyway in their condition. I appreciate him for what he is, solid depth that we need in case Bynum can't step up yet. But we can overcome even that I believe.

 

Um, no.

Utah cannot win on the road, and they're the 8th seed anyways.

Houston lost Yao, so they're left with Scola/Hayes or whoever to play PF/C. Props to them for pushing us to 7, but obviously that should've never happened. With such a severely undersized front court, it's not a huge accomplishment we ended up beating them. I don't remember anyone celebrating or praising the Lakers for their performance that series.

Denver was hyped up and some predicted them to beat us in the WCF. Like I said, they're a fluke team because all they rely on his offense and flash. We ended up beating them like we should, with people writing us off after the Game 4 embarrassment. Who stepped up after game 4 and put up 19/14, 20/8? Oh yeah, Lamar.

Nowhere did I mention us having a fluke championship run, the teams that we beat leading up to the Finals just weren't anything special.

 

We didn't really need LO in any of these series Lost. We have Ron now, and LO was injured in Houston/Denver. His monster game in game 6 might not even have been needed.

 

So you would trade Trevor Ariza and Lamar Odom for Ron Artest? I sure as hell wouldn't.

Like I said in a previous post, we can replace LO with Ron. Now we need to replace Trevor's production. Trevor was a solid role player, we need to get a solid role player in return. Is JP a solid role player? I dunno, based on your guys's comments towards him throughout the season, I don't think so.

I have nothing to argue here. I already said, that in my eyes, keeping LO makes us clear cut favorites to win a ring next year.

Lose LO, we are still contenders, but the road is much tougher. Never said we'd be completely out the hunt without LO, but without him, I don't see much that separates us from Boston or San Antonio, whereas if we keep him, we should be clear cut favorites to win the ring. Kobe/Ron/Pau/Drew/LO. That type of talent doesn't come around very often.