http://sports.yahoo.com/news/lakers-...2290--nba.html

Here's what dantoni thinks of the whole thing.

Kind of funny article

 

yeah he was not a happy camper

 

I wouldn't be either if I had a bunch of talent and that blows leads to way below .500 teams.

They could be great team

 

It could be ... if they get 3-4 at least average players on the bench and limit older guys minutes to maybe 20-25 for the regular season. Then they would be ready for playoffs and injuries won't happen as much.
San Antonio did that and its working out great for them.

 

That's what the bulls did last few seasons, it wasn't just one player, but a different player contributed every game.

 

And that's resulted in how many championships for SA? They've had the top seed and flamed out in the 1st and WCF the last two years.

Rotations get shortened in the playoffs. You need a solid 1-8 or 1-9 spots. The Lakers are setup properly to contend. They haven't been consistent because of injuries, change of system, and lack of familiarity. I've seen tons of improvement over this season. If they can continue to make strides I guarantee you know one wants to see them in the first round

 

In the guys previous note. In his defense, the spurs have had 50+ winning seasons since 99 season,
That's great stat

 

Well Lakers are spending $100 million on salaries this season. San Antonio? $70 million and they won 53 games so far (Lakers won only 36).
Heck, Houston is spending the least amount on salaries ($51 million, or almost half less than the Lakers) and they still won more games this year.

For $100 million I think people were expecting more than the 8th place in the West.

I know its just a regular season, but I highly doubt Lakers will start playing really well of the sudden in the playoffs.
I know injuries happened, but like I have said it before - its Lakers' own fault that they're happening. It was unrealistic to think that they can get a bunch old players, with no support from the bench, and expect them to play 40+ minutes night after night with no injuries. I have said that before the season started and it turned out ... it was true.

 

Since '99 we have 5 titles and they have 4. I'll take the 5 please.

Also, since the Lakers acquired Gasol in '08 we have the most wins of any NBA franchise. That's INCLUDING this disaster season (record-wise).

They could spend $1 Billion on players. If the guys are hurt and can't play, they are going to lose games. It's common sense.

So Nash getting his leg broken was the result of old age? Lillard would have hurt him on that play whether he was 23 or 39. Dwight recovering from back surgery is because he's old? He's 27. And came back 3 months sooner than expected. Kobe's been having a phenomenal year. His injury came at the hands of a dirty play and even he's already back. The only suffering from being a little older is Pau. And that's because he has no off season when he plays for Spain. Your prediction was off, as usual.

All I can tell you guys is for Lakers fans, we have only one-track minds. We don't care how many regular season wins we get, how much the payroll is, etc. At the end of the day, if we win a championship, that's all that matters. Anything less is failure. Why do you think there are no division banners at Staples?

One-track mind...

 

They need to lower the pay scale, the nba owners need to strike.
The players are big babies,
Carmelo Anthony and deron Williams are the worst of them all, oh can't forget bosh too!! Over rated..
Being a builder, and everyone else went thru a recession. They should as well

 

I guess I just had a lucky guess when I said that the Lakers will have injuries and no defense?

My prediction was off? Let's see ... injuries, poor defense, no bench, crybaby Howard as soon as things got hard (who also can't hit free throws) ... What exactly did I got wrong?

The only prediction where I was off was that the Brooklyn Nets won't be as good as they're.

As much as I dislike Lakers, I really wanted to see NBA finals Heat-Lakers, since they're the best teams on the paper.

 

Yes your predictions we off. You said they would be injured due to AGE. As I've shown the only player who that could be argued true for Pau. Even Jordan Hill's injury came from a fall, and he's young.

Their defense is rated 18th in efficiency. Pretty much middle of the pack. And when you consider the long stretches they go without a guy above 6'9" on the court that's pretty dang good.

You act as if they've had their team together the whole year. Details Zoran...details.

I don't even need to address the last point we both know that's not true. You would have loved it more if we had no shot at the playoffs right now.

 

Lakers are 25th out of 30 teams when it comes to points allowed. They're scoring 102 per game and allowing 101 per game ... that's not gonna get them through playoffs.

Yes, I did say they're gonna have injuries due to age. And I'm still sure Nash would've missed many games even if he didn't break his leg. Gasol was out already. Kobe looked really burned out at one point (when he stopped shooting and started assisting all of the sudden). Howard has a history of injuries and being a crybaby when things don't work out in his favor.

Lakers' can use all excuses they want ... when you spend $100 million a year on salaries, people expect results right away. Are we supposed to wait for few years until this team "learns to play together"? Wasn't the reason why they got a bunch of veterans is because they wanted results right away?

To be honest with you, yeah, I would loved it if Lakers missed the playoffs all together. I would also loved it if they play like people expect them to play so we can see the great NBA finals. I'm not a fan of Thunder and God forbid Spurs go to the finals, because that would be more boring finals than Spurs-Cavaliers was.
What I don't like is this team with great expectations that keeps disappointing people. Like I have said it before, I don't have a favorite team anymore - I just wanna watch great basketball.
I'm just tired of all this Lakers talk all the time in the media. Miami won 26 games in a row, Denver won 15, Houston is going to the playoffs even with a very low budget. Chicago and Boston have been playing well even without their stars players ... and every time I turn the NBA TV on there's a talk about Lakers and who's injured and how they won/lost the previous games. I wish they would either get really good so they deserve all that attention or miss the playoffs all together so that media stops paying attention to them.

 

How many times must I use my lunch break to dispel your arguments? LOL. Points allowed does not account for pace. And as far as point differential goes, we actually had a much higher point differential when we had a losing record. Go figure. So much for that stat.

That's conjecture. Nash has missed 0 games outside of the freak leg injury. Kobe didn't become a facilitator because he was burned out. He did it because it was evident Nash wasn't effective enough to do it on his own. Howard has no history of injuries. I think he had only missed 5 games total prior to his back injury.

Who's using excuses? I'm stating facts. In case you haven't noticed, the season hasn't ended yet. I'm sorry we didn't go 72-10 for you.

As far as expectations, well that's on you. If you watch the games and consider the circumstances you wouldn't be that disappointed. If you believe the media driven hype there's nothing I can do about that. That's why I don't watch ESPN outside of laughing at First Take.

All you have to do is wait a few more months and we'll see what happened. Until then you can keep wishing we kept Bynum

 

Soon the whole LA will wish the Lakers kept Bynum and Sessions.

 

Bynum is a joke!!

Who's Bynum?

 

I do wish Sessions would have stayed. He's the perfect backup pg for us. But it was his choice to go after the starting job in Charlotte. If Blake keeps playing with confidence though I won't miss him much.

 

Tonight is a big game! We need this one!!

Wow!! I sound like a laker fan..haha

 

It's infecting you! Haha

I missed this one and I'm not that upset about it. Didn't want to see another loss. The Lakers have dropped their last 3 games falling to the Warriors (103-109). This isn't a good time to be on a losing streak. Check DancingBarry's review over at Lakersground:

DancingBarry's Thoughts and Smiley Ratings

After the game MWP was diagnosed with lateral tear in his left knee. The Lakers will release a timetable for his return after he meets with team doctors. It doesn't sound good. This team hasn't been healthy once all year long.

Pau doesn't yet have his legs back either. I think he should be coming off the bench. We'll see what adjustments the Lakers can make. They are only ahead of Utah by 1 game in the standings. They play Minnesota on the road tonight.

 

I think Lakers needs to worry more about Dallas than Utah, they're also just 1 game behind and have been playing really well lately.

I watched them against the Clippers last night ... They won in the overtime. Although they do have a pretty hard schedule left (Denver twice, Indiana, Memphis, Chicago, Lakers ...).