Full throttle 2006 NBA DISCUSSION - Page 2

Heading nowhere with how Kwame Brown and especially Lamar Odom are playing. Kobe is Kobe and to the mans credit he never seems to take a night off. If only the others didn't take a game or two off every week.

I see you haven't changed your opinion that you started with regarding this team. I'm curious if that's because anything less than a championship or a finals is beneath your notice with this team or what (and I'm not criticizing you, simply wondering if you've been following the progress outside the beginning of the year) ? We are 14 and 11 and have become one of the better defenses in the league. We started the season with a hard schedule that, after the All Star Break, becomes much easier. Meanwhile the teams currently tied and one game ahead of us (Clippers and Golden State respectively) have the opposite schedule with things becoming more difficult here on out. As it stands we are seventh in the West (due to seeding in the divisions) with a chance to become second in the Pacific to the Suns who could go any which way. You get us into a series with Dallas, Golden State, the Clippers, or Minny (especially since we won't play them on the second night of a back to back like the first three games have been played) and we've got more than a fighting chance as we have Kobe and he's proven that he alone on sheer will can win a game or two for us and ESPECIALLY if it is the playoffs. Am I being optimistic? Yes but their current level of play this early in the season (we're 8 and 2 in the past ten games and this three game road trip will definitely give an indication of where we are) has given me a chance to think we'll only get better. Remember, the West outside of the Spurs is anything but a sure thing (regardless of Amare returning to the Suns after the halfway point). We just beat Dallas twice, a team with an 18 and 7 record and despite the hurting we put on them last game is not a pourous team as they have been in the past. Again I'll freely admit I have a bit of optimism but after looking at where things were headed last year this team is indeed on the up and up. You can thank Phil Jackson, who coincidently is showing he is a good coach not just a good coach of talent, for that.

We won't win the Finals or anything but I can see us easily making it to the second round or the Western Conference FInals with the team we currently have IF (and I know it's a big if) they keep growing as they have showed since they started 5 and 8.

And yes even Kwame has showed some fire lately, choosing a role as a rebounder and a defender over a scorer (Phil told him he wanted him to model his game after Rodman)

just imagine how excited you'd be if they'd kept butler. every laker fan should start writing love letters to jerry west. and who is this smush parker? he came out of nowhere. all i know is denzel washington was having orgasm's one night on tnt proclaiming smush went to his college. fordham baby!

I'd reply and go through things over and over but why bother you really couldn't give a rats tail what I think CT. Then again you're a die hard Laker fan and I am most certainly not.

I will say this though the team does look better a lot better than they did last year. However I am quite amused at how positive you are at how Kwame and Lamar are performing.

All I can say with honesty is good for you and enjoy the season certainly the Lakers will return to form and possibly the playoffs. The finals isn't what I was thinking they had to do but I did think they could be stronger than they have shown so far.

Perhaps you should watch Detroit to see a true 5 man squad that plays like a team. I'll take a 5 course meal anyday than a Whopper with a bag of pretzels and a couple of Tootsie Rolls but then again maybe thats just me.

Ha...believe it or not but you'll get no argument from me regarding Detroit. Barring any weird circumstances they're winning it all and they are very impressive to say the least.

EH, my "highness" on this team more comes from the fact that I thought they were gonna be right where they were last year (sure I was outwardly optimistic but...come on). So everything up to this point had been a good surprise. I just hope it keeps going...

it isn't going to take a weird circumstance for the pistons not to win the title, as it did for the heat last season. the spurs are still the elite team in the league but d-wade and the shaq daddy will reign supreme!

The Knicks beat the Suns in triple overtime tonight. It's just one win, but it show that they can win late. David Lee played 52 minutes, got 23 points and 15 rebounds. Maybe he can play like that for the rest of the year.

and I agree Marbury is a horrible teammate, but there's nothing they can do with him now.

Hopefully he (Artest) ends up with the T'Wolves, because I want to be the guy to throw water at him and make him go bat-shit crazy again. But seriously I'd like them to get Artest so Garnett doesn't go all Private Pyle on the team.

Seems I wasn't too far off the mark with these teams. In particular i'm kinda surprised at how Cleveland, Miami, Milwaukee and especially Phoenix have performed so far.

Certainly wrong about these teams at the moment. New York seems to be turning it around. Philly looks pretty dangerous right now with how AI and CWebb are playing. Houston has been devastated by injuries and a lack of production from Swift, Alston and the other lightweights they have other than Mac and Yao. The next level seems to be a top ten draft pick at this date.

I would have disagreed with you at the beginning of the year Fab but now I almost agree. Almost means if Houston had actually picked up a guy like Sam Cassell and not had those injuries they could be a top team right now. They have a serious lack of talent, leadership and cut throat skill players. With TMac and Yao you can easily anchor this team into the western conference finals but to do anything more you have to have a guy like Cassell who is fearless and deadly.

yup, i'm pretty sure i'm right about this one.

As a continually disgruntled laker fan, and open Kobe hater I can sum up the 2005-2006 season right now.

Kobe scores 81 against raptors!!!...and a first round playoff exit.

Not to take anything away from the performance. In this modern day of sport, there are a few things that will probably never be touched. An undefeated NFL season, UCLA's college basketball winning streak, Hank Aaron's home run record (yea i dont think it will be broken, bonds be damned!), and Wilt's 100 point game...but goddamn it if Kobe didn't come close TWICE this season. That is saying something. He touched an upper level of excellence that only a handful of atheletes can ever be a part of.

BUT, Once all the hoopla dies down, someone in the laker front office needs to get off their ass and make the artest deal. Get rid of odom. The guy is making 70-80K per game to be kobe's ball boy. He is barely putting up 20 points a game and is a non-factor defensively. Artest would bring some semblance of defensive intensity to this team. Phil has handled worse than artest. The fact that Kobe is putting up so many shots every game is troublesome as well. It is literally becoming a one man team. This doesn't bode well for the future playoff hopes of this team...and no way in hell the NBA gives the MVP award to kobe, he has made too many enemies and it probably wouldn't be the best PR for David Stern's business casual NBA

Kobe averages close to 35 points per game or more with the Lakers making the playoffs and you bet your ass he gets the MVP.

Kobe...man.

No words. Even though he is a prick, dude can ball. No one, not even Jordan, not since Wilt, has anyone dominated this way. Get him some people stat, Kupchak!

I agree with Fazer, though. He can't, and won't do this shit in the playoffs. The regular season is made for ball hogs.

Must have been good during the week for coach to keep him in during the 4th this time around.

I hope you're talking about just this game.

Ha Ha. Of course.

It'd be a lot easier for Kupchak to get players if anyone actually wanted to play with Kobe.

Man....that was something....

Well put.

Was Jalen Rose "guarding" Kobe for most of this game or did Mo Peterson have him? Because if it was Rose I could drop 35 on the guy. Still wow, but come on Jalen Rose sucks

And boy is the Lakers team brutal. Hope Kobe enjoys all these high scoring games while Shaq is contending for the Championship.

Shaq's going to be contending for a Championship? Are they even going to get to the Championship?

atleast the heat have a shot at making the championship.

That seems to be becoming more and more the case.

I agree with Nash, he's unbelievable. But I think if the Lakers make the playoffs it's going to be hard to ignore Kobe.

billups is pretty much playing out of his mind right now but he doesn't have those nice fancy numbers that people seem to love for an mvp.

The Pistons are an ensemble, and as important as Billups is to the team, he's not the difference maker that Nash and Kobe are. The Suns are playing great right now, without Amare, which no one expected them to do. While the Lakers have completely turned things around from last year, and while a good deal of that is due to the influence of Phil and the fact that they now play defense, that team would be 2-80 without Kobe.

Apparently Ron Artest is going to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Peyja Storiokovich (I probably screwed up the spelling on that).
As a Kings fan, I get a very bad feeling about this. Artess is a headcase, and he is not going to be happy about being traded to a even smaller market then the one he was constanly bitching about being in anyway.
THis smacks of a desperation move by the Kings management. They are looking for the quick fix rather then going back to basics and rebuilding in a logical matter.
Yeah, he's a good player, but a Team like the Kings will not be able to handle the problems he is gonna bring..particualry if he decides to make himself as big a nuiscance as possible to try to force a trade to a bigger market.
ANd the bottom line is that Artest strikes me as too unstable a player to build a franchise around.

Didn't Artest start out in Chicago? That was pretty major, and he still caused problems. Dude has more issues than being in a small city.

And Chicago traded him because they knew he was nuts and eventually would do something like in Detroit.

And now ESPN says Artest didn't want to go to Sac and Sac said fine so no trade. The guy needs serious medication.

Wow. I feel for Indiana fans. That fuckhead is really trying to screw their season up. What a shithead.

As a Sac fan , I am relieved. Most Sac fan commentary on this trade was not favorable.
BUt it does upset me that Artiss can dictate like that. When he signed the fucking contract, it said he could be traded. It goes with the big bucks. And call me old fashioned, but you voluntary sign a contract, you should abide by it's terms.
What a dickhead. I glad I won't have him as a neighbor....

Get the welcome mats out and the mental institution ready, Dudalb. Artest is coming to town.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2304942

My respect for the King's managment is now at a new low. Anyone with any brains can see how this is going to turn out: Artest will make himself as obnoxious as possible to get traded to a bigger market team. After years of making good management decisions, the Kings seem to have got insane and are throwing away their reputations one a desperate quick fix that will not work.
Wonder how long until Artest beats up somebody at Arco Arena....

Yup, just heard the same thing. I think this trade sucks for both teams. Peja will help Indy this year, but not enough and he will be gone this summer. They both needed to pull the trigger, but its gonna be rough for each team.

I can see trading Peja, but not for Artest, who has cancer in the locker room written all over him if anyone did.

Yeah this doesn't look good. However if Artest does a Chris Webber this trade will come off as genius. We know the Maloof brothers will pay Ron well too. He'd be an idiot to cause any problems.

He is a fucking idiot though so expect drama Kings fans.

That is just my point. Any intelligent person would be pleased that even with all the baggage that Artest has he is still making this kind of money. But Artest is not intelligent.
Oh, I fully expect him to pull every stunt he can to make himself hated by Kings fan and Sacramento in general so that the Kings will trade him...hopefully to a team in a huge city.
The problem is no major city team might want him at that point.
The Maloofs said in annoucning the trade that they were gamblers.
Well, I don't like the odds on this one....

Not so big trade. Minnesota gets Ricky Davis, Mark Blount and Marcus Banks. Boston gets Wally world and the Kandiman.

Davis is a more explosive player but Wally is a good 3rd option/role player. I say this trade is a push.

Actually I retract that statement. Better deal for Minnesota because Olawastanki is gone.

Well to put this trade in perspective of a T'Wolves fan, I mind as well just stab myself in the eyes.

They sucked before the trade and they will continue to suck after the trade, just in a more uptempo fashion.

If Kevin Garnett goes Private Pyle soon, no one can blame him.

You get rid of Olowokandi, whose contract I believe is up this year for Mark fucking Blount who is wayyyyyy overpaid and still has a few years left.

I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt I will be.

I also think Kevin McHale secretly hates Garnett and wants to sabotage any future talk of Garnett being the better PF then himself when Garnett retires and people remininesce on his career and start the inevitable comparisons of where he fits into the Greatest PF's of All Time debate.

And does anything else think that the old teammates, McHale & Ainge, just swapped out their headaches for the other guys?

And just in case you couldn't tell...I hate this trade.

i'm not saying that billups is the mvp but he's easily one of the few guys that should atleast be considered for it. did anybody think the pistons would be 35-5? most people thought they'd probably take a step back with flipper. nash is still the most important player to any team in the league and he's canadian baby! your definition of a difference maker is clearly different then mine. the lakers are basically a .500 team. who cares about that? wow, the lakers with kobe may squeeze into the playoffs if they're lucky. sure he's been a huge difference maker for the lakers but you can't knock some guy because he's on a good team. i guess we should take away all the mvp's trophy's jordan won and tell shaun alexander he doesn't deserve the mvp because it's not fair he has the best left tackle and left guard in all of football. take billups off of the pistons and they wouldn't have a prayer in winning the championship. i guess that's not much of a difference in the end though.

Antonio Davis deserved to have his knuckles bashed after the incident not to be backed up. His wife couldn't take the jarring of some ignorant asshat and then made a scene. Just watch the people who were around them nobody was paying attention or cared. Antonio like the doofus he is runs in the stands and does nothing but embarass himself, his team, the NBA and the Knicks organization.

While he shouldn't be thrown off the team the man should publically have apoligized. Its just another blackeye for the NBA which has way too many as it is of late.

Off topic but if anything has surprised me this year its been the play of the Phoenix Suns. Without top 5 bigman Amare Stoudamire they are number 1 in the pacific division. The same Pacific division that holds the talk of basketball right now (Kobe Bean Bryant) and a Laker team thats firmly nondangerous.

Steve Nash could be a repeating MVP right now. Joe Johnson has been forgotten with the play of Boris Diaw, Raja Bell and James Jones. If anything they are even deeper now. I thought last year was a fluke I really did. Mike D'Antoni has made me a believer now. If everything remains and Marion keeps it up + Amare ready to go come playoff time this team could steal it from San Antonio.

As for the most hohum team it has to be Dallas I just can't believe how boring this team is. They can score but they can't defend for the life of them. If KG is wasting away in Minni so is Dirk in Big D.

Also the stink of Miami is getting bigger and in total honesty I didn't think they'd look this bad until playoff time.

m sorry but Kobe is MVP. The Suns ARE deep and that's exactly the point. If Nash is gone the team is still viable. The Lakers without Kobe, well we'd be lucky to win 10 games this season. Same goes for Billups. Plays an almost unnoticed game on Sunday and the team still wins handily. They're all MVP's if you look at it that way.

Not taking away from either player, but if the Lakers do make it to the playoffs with 45 or so wins, it would be a miracle that one player alone was able to get for his team.

Artest is behaving himself so far, but I am convinced that it won't last.