.....................
 

.....................

Lakers have looked good offensively. Not so good defensively. That Phoenix win is looking less impressive by Utah going into Phoenix and beating the Suns. Can't be mad with 3-0 though. I may have underestimated them. I still think they are going to struggle to make the playoffs though and if they do make it, it will be as a seven or eight seed. I see Sacramento improved with a full year with Artest and the emergence of Kevin Martin. I think Utah will be much improved if they keep Kirilenko and Boozer healthy this year. I think the addition of Derek Fisher also helps them. I think Houston will be better if they can keep Ming and McGrady healthy. I expect Memphis to be down though with Gasol missing the early part of the season and Battier gone but Warrick will take up some of the slack. Also, Stoudamire should be back but they'll miss Bobby Jackson. On the top, u still have Dallas, SA, Phoenix, Clippers, (team from the Northwest Division). That leaves the Lakers battling with Memphis, Utah, Houston, Sac, and Denver for the last spots. We'll see. I do expect to see Kobe try to dominate even more than last year. Knowing the way we've seen Kobe over the years, I am betting that it KILLED him to do all he did last year and not win MVP so I think he's going to try and score 40 a game this year and I don't think that will be in the best interest of the team. The key will be Bynum. If he can give them 12-8, they are a shoe in for the playoffs. And of course, Odom has got to be consistent even when Kobe is on the floor. Stop deferring to Kobe so much and display the skills that, if he brought them every night, would make him arguably a top five player in this league. At least top ten.

There is absolutely no excuse for the way he played last night in Seattle. He took SIX shots in the game and four of them were 3pt shots. In the entire first half, he didn't attempt a 2pt shot at all. That's crazy. And the Laker defense has been horrible. They are giving up the fourth most points in the league. They've been playing at a faster pace this year and scoring more points but defense is what's going to be needed to win games and they play none. Seattle just scored 112 and 117 on them in back to back games. The Sonics had 95 at the end of three quarters Sunday. That's not going to get it done.

Boss-

This glorious guy is going to do the same thing he does every year with the Lakers. Last year they werent supposed to make the playoffs and of course when they did the criteria for success changed. They are an improving team. They dont even have their starting big men right now. Next year, they will be out from a really bad contract and will actually have some room. And then the run begins. This year, second round.

As for the best BB player, its kobe and Lebron is coming fast. The MVP EVERY year is Shaq.

Weve got to make some picks boss. Anything for college football saturday?

Just because I make a prediction at the beginning of the season means I have to stick with it once things get rolling. Once a season gets going, u see different things happening that u maybe didn't expect. Last year, I didn't expect for McGrady to miss 35 games and Ming to miss 25. I expected to see a Houston team closer to the one that had battled Dallas in the playoffs the year before. Instead, they didn't even make the playoffs. I didn't expect Boozer to miss 49 games. I didn't expect Minnesota to fall off the map. But those things happened. Just as if Kobe is to go down for 35 games this year, your expectations of the Lakers has to change.

In any case, my criteria for success hasn't changed. When u are the Los Angeles Lakers, your goal is not just to make the playoffs. When u pay a coach $10 million, u aren't just trying to make the playoffs. U expect that u BETTER make it and u expect to do damage.

Last year, I saw a Laker team that was probably the eighth best in the conference. I thought Sac was a better team than them at year's end. This year, I can see the Lakers being better than maybe two of the teams that were better than them last year, Denver and Memphis. That would put them at the 6th spot. But then I think u will have a return to form by Houston and great improvement by Utah. Of course, injuries notwithstanding. I think that puts the Lakers again in that same range they were in last year. I also think that New Orleans will be improved. I just don't see where the Lakers have improved themselves. The only thing could possibly be more experience but u could say that for all of the teams competing for those last three spots. Utah added Derek Fisher and gets back a healthy Boozer. Houston gets back a healthy Ming and McGrady. New Orleans added Stojakovic and Bobby Jackson. What did the Lakers do that comes anywhere close to improving themselves as much as those moves improved those three teams? Radmonovic, Evans, and Farmar?

Oh, as for the MVP/best player debate, I've always felt there should be two different awards. I think it's rare that the best player is also the most valuable to his team. I think picking player of the year is a lot easier than picking MVP though. As valuable as Kobe is to the Lakers, is he more important than AI to Philly? Or Carmelo to Denver? Chris Paul to NO? Pierce to Boston? KG to Minnesota? LeBron to Cleveland? Duncan to SA? It's extremely hard.

I think that Kobe is the best one on one player in the league. He can get anywhere on the court and get any shot he wants to. But I think he's far from the most efficient of scorers. He scores the most points but he should. He shoots more than anyone else by far. Look at him compared to James. Kobe shot 350 more times than LeBron. Four more shots a game than LeBron. He shot 139 more 3pt shots than LeBron. Yet his scoring average was only four points more. It's not hard to see how LeBron could have easily scored as much or more per game than Bryant. Kobe averaged 2.4 more ppg than Iverson. That's one basket more per game. It's easy to see how Iverson could take a couple more shots, especially more 3's and get up there where Bryant is. Kobe is just a different kind of scorer. He gets hot and can do anything. And he's more spectacular. But he's not better. And when it comes to adding in rebounding and assists, LeBron is way ahead of Kobe. So if I had a vote for best player, I'd go with LeBron now.

As I said, I thought the drafting of Bynum was a bad move when first made but it didn't take me long to see what this guy could bring. I guarantee that people that were complaining that the Lakers didn't part with Bynum in a move for Jason Kidd or Jermaine O'Neal are happy now. This guy is on his way to the hall of fame.

Might be oldest reply to post ever

Bynum is on his way to the Hall of Fame...

Make sure you bring this one back in 20 years.

King Chestthumper.

This kind of goes along with what I was saying in the thread about horses' greatness. Bynum will obviously never put up the kinds of numbers that Wilt Chamberlain did or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He may not even put up the kinds of numbers Shaquille O'Neal or Hakeem Olajuwon did. But what if, for the next 15 years, he's the most dominant center in the league? Would that be worthy of the hall? In my opinion, yes. Where does he stand right now among the centers in the game? Top ten? Top five? You've got Yao Ming and Dwight Howard above him, IMO. After that, he's right there with Chris Kaman. I don't consider Amare Stoudamire to be a center and neither is Tim Duncan or Kevin Garnett. The guy has 18 double-doubles (Ming has 21) and he's the only player in the league averaging 10 boards and playing under 30 minutes per game. He's at 10.2 in 29 minutes a night and Ming is at 10.4 in 37 a night. Ming is at 2.3 blocks and Bynum is at 2.1. If I had a choice of which one I would take, I'd take Bynum right now over Ming and Kaman. And he's only 20. People forget that he's only 20 and had limited experience in high school games. The sky is the limit for him.

I'll admit as a Laker fan I was a little dissapointed that they didn't cut ways with Bynum last year for Kidd, because Kobe and Kidd would have been something special. Bynum has been good, but some of the praise is still a little early.

I'm a huge Kobe fan and it's good to see that he finally has realized that he does have guys on the team who can play some pretty damn good basketball, and his trust and faith in his teammates game is obvious by his numbers this year.

Kaman is a headcase, my highschool always played his in basketball, and he was good but not someone I would say would make it to the NBA. Not only has he made it to the NBA, but he is doing damn good. The big matchup of the game was Kaman (Tri-Unity Christian) against Ruvell Martin (Muskegon Catholic Central) who is now #82 and a good reciever for the Packers.

Let me ask you a question that I asked all Laker fans last year. Do you believe that a trade of Bynum and Odom for Kidd would have brought the Lakers a championship? I don't. I don't think that would have moved them ahead of San Antonio or Phoenix. In my opinion, a move like that better be for a title run, not just to advance one more round in the playoffs.

Maybe saying that Bynum will be a future hall of famer is a bit premature although I will stand by that. But I do think that his standing among the top five centers is legit and I think he's the one with the most room for growth and improvement among them.

I think it very well could have brought them a championship. Going through the Suns and Spurs would have been tough, but they would have had the talent to do it. Once in the finals, Kobe and Kidd would have crushed Lebron and the Cavs.

A bit premature.
Just a bit... a little bit.

Howard
Garnett
Yao
Duncan
Amarie
Boozer

I dont need to go on. And dont call Duncan, Boozer, Amarie or Garnett PF like they do in All Star crap, they are centers. Which two of these players above do you think Bynum is better than right now?

Answer: NONE

and we could add some more.
And you think Bynum has more upside than Howard(youngest of that group)?
You are not serious.

We disagree on who's a center and who's not. Duncan and Garnett are not centers. To call 6-8 Carlos Boozer a center is a joke. Stoudamire is debatable but even he says he's not a center. There is a difference in being a center and being forced to play the center position. The Mavs go through some periods with Nowitzki listed as their biggest player on the floor and listed as a center. Do you consider him one also? I think Bynum is behind Howard. I think it's a coin flip with Ming. If you include Stoudamire, he's behind him as well. It's pretty much a coin flip with Kaman also. So I think that Bynum is at best #2 and at worst #5.

Dwight Howard is nearly two years older than Bynum is. When Howard was 20 years old, in his second season, he averaged:

15.8 points, 12.5 boards, 1.4 blocks, shot 53%, and played 36.8 minutes in 81 starts.

Bynum at 20, as a starter:

14.8 points, 10.8 boards, 2.4 blocks, 66% shooting, playing 31.1 minutes in 24 starts.

On the surface, the raw numbers are VERY comparable and I'd say favor Bynum. When you look deeper, it's even more in Bynum's favor. At the same age, Howard had played over 2600 minutes in the NBA with a full season as a starter under his belt. Bynum, coming into this season had played just over 2100 minutes and had 53 career starts. It's also worth looking at the list of the guys you consider centers. With the exception of Garnett and Howard, all of the rest are in the Western Conference where Bynum has to face them more often. Add in Kaman and it's even tougher out there. Howard had none of them over in the East till Garnett came this year. So the competition on a nightly basis is tougher for Bynum. One other important fact. Dwight Howard was the leading scorer on that 2005-06 Orlando team. He's still their go-to guy now. Bynum is getting all of his as the third option on this Laker team at best. And it's also worth noting that Howard went into the NBA with a complete high school career. Bynum played about 25 games in high school.

I think that Bynum's upside is higher than Howard's.

I thought this sounded funny.

Bynum is a good player with lots of potential but he is not in the same league as Dwight Howard right now. I think there is a better chance that he progresses to a nice 17 pt 12 rebound player than a 2008 version of D.Howard.