Los Angeles Lakers Blog – Page 83 – NBA Blog

Lakers reportedly turned down Timberwolves trade offer for Pau Gasol

The Los Angeles Lakers recently rejected a Timberwolves trade offer for forward Pau Gasol that would revolve around Minnesota center Nikola Pekovic and forward Derrick Williams, according to an ESPN.com report citing sources with knowledge of the Lakers’ thinking.

The report claimed that the Lakers also turned down an offer from the Toronto Raptors.

Wolves president of basketball operations David Kahn was unavailable for comment Thursday morning, Dec. 6.

This is not the first time the 32 year-old Gasol, a friend of Spanish countryman and Wolves point guard Ricky Rubio, has been linked to trade talks with Minnesota. The Wolves reportedly pursued Gasol in talks before the 2012 draft and last season’s trade deadline. Williams, the No. 2 pick in the 2011 draft, was mentioned as possible trade bait for Gasol in the past. So were then-Wolves forward Michael Beasley and a first-round pick.

— Reported by Ray Richardson of the St. Paul Pioneer Press

Kobe Bryant reaches 30,000 career points in Lakers win over Hornets

Before Kobe Bryant had even turned in his latest dominant performance, NBA Commissioner David Stern sought him out to offer a congratulatory hand shake for the extraordinary scoring milestone the Lakers star was about to surpass.

Stern assumed Bryant would score the 13 points he needed to become only the fifth player in NBA history to reach 30,000, and who wouldn’t?

Bryant had 17 points by halftime, finished with 29, and Los Angeles snapped a two-game skid with a 103-87 victory over the New Orleans Hornets on Wednesday night.

”He just congratulated me and told me I was one of the best competitors that he’s seen in this game and I really appreciated that,” Bryant said of his pregame exchange with Stern.

Now Bryant in is elite company. The only other players to score more than 30,000 are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain.

”It’s pretty awesome,” Bryant said. ”These are players I respect tremendously and obviously grew up idolizing and watching and learned a great deal from.”

— Reported by Brett Martel of the Associated Press

Steve Blake has surgery, out 6-8 weeks

Lakers guard Steve Blake underwent successful surgery today to repair a torn abdominal muscle, it was announced by the team.

The surgery was performed in Los Angeles by Dr. Craig Smith. Blake is expected to be out approximately 6-8 weeks.

The Lakers have been without Blake as well as point guard Steve Nash for much of the season. Blake has played in just seven games, while Nash only played in two.

Douglas leads Rockets over Lakers 107-105

Interim Houston coach Kelvin Sampson is always reminding his reserves that there will be some nights when the team’s stars will struggle and the Rockets will need them to pick up the slack.

Tuesday was one of those nights.

Toney Douglas had a season-high 22 points and Greg Smith added a career-best 21 to help the Rockets overcome a tough outing by James Harden and rally for a 107-105 win over the Los Angeles Lakers…

The Lakers had a 13-point lead with less than 10 minutes to go. But Houston used two big runs, including a 9-2 spurt capped by a 3-pointer from Douglas to take its first lead of the game – 100-99 – with about 2 1/2 minutes left…

Harden finished with 15 points and a career-high 10 rebounds, but entered the fourth quarter with just eight points after shooting 2 of 18 through the first three quarters. Jeremy Lin also struggled offensively, going 2 of 8 for four points…

Bryant led the Lakers with 39 points and Howard had 16 points and 12 rebounds. The Rockets fouled Howard repeatedly in the last 3 1/2 minutes, gambling that sending him to the line would be better than allowing the Lakers to get the ball in Bryant’s hands.

Howard went 5 for 10 from the line in that stretch and was eight of 16 overall.

— Reported by Kristie Rieken of the Associated Press

Pau Gasol out with knee tendinitis

The Lakers’ much-discussed search for a way to make Mike D’Antoni’s offense work with Pau Gasol, or to make Gasol effective next to Dwight Howard, is on hold.

Gasol, who had been benched at the end of recent games including Sunday’s loss to the Magic, will be out tonight against the Rockets because of tendinitis in both knees. The former All-Star who had been dealt to the Rockets in a trade later vetoed a year ago this week, had been struggling with the injury and the Lakers’ switch to an up-tempo offense in which he was usually at the high post, rather than inside.

“He was playing hurt,” D’Antoni said. “In this league, you just can’t do that. They got to get him healthy, whatever it takes, one game, two games, 10 games, day-to-day, I don’t know. But he’s got to get healthy. It wasn’t fair. He was trying to battle through some stuff. In this league, you just can’t do it.”

— Reported by Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle Blog

Magic get better of Dwight, beat Lakers in LA

The Orlando Magic caught fire in the fourth quarter to stun the Los Angeles Lakers 113-103 and get the better of former player Dwight Howard on Sunday.

In their first meeting since trading Howard to Los Angeles in the off-season, the struggling Magic surprised the Lakers by scoring 40 fourth-quarter points to snatch the road victory.

Arron Afflalo led the way with 30 points while Glen Davis added 23 and 12 rebounds to help Orlando (6-10) snap a three-game losing streak and win the battle against Howard.

“It means a lot to me,” Magic guard Jameer Nelson told reporters of the win. “We can all say it was just a basketball game, but we know (it wasn’t).”

Kobe Bryant tallied a game-high 34 points and Howard finished with 21 and 15 rebounds against his old team, but it was not enough to help the Lakers (8-9) under new coach Mike D’Antoni.

— Reported by Reuters

Howard had 21 points and 15 rebounds against his former team, but the rebuilding Magic rallied impressively with a 40-point fourth quarter for just their fourth win in 14 games, snapping a three-game skid. Orlando pulled the upset partly by intentionally fouling Howard, who went 9 for 21 at the line – including 7 for 14 in the fourth quarter.

The Magic made their decisive 12-2 run while Howard wasn’t helping the Lakers at the line in the final minutes, with Nelson and J.J. Redick hitting 3-pointers along the way…

Howard left the court after the game without shaking hands with the Magic – not that he has many close friends left in blue pinstripes anyway. Orlando has new coach Jacque Vaughn, a new front-office staff and just five players who played with Howard.

”Let Dwight be Dwight. If he wants to walk off the court, it’s cool,” said Davis, who overlapped with Howard only last season in Orlando. ”No hard feelings. He lost. I’d feel bad, too. I wouldn’t want to shake nobody’s hand. We weren’t even really thinking about him. We just wanted to get this win. I didn’t talk to him. I’m here to play basketball. I’m not here to be buddies.”

Kobe Bryant scored 34 points for the Lakers, who dropped to 3-4 under new coach Mike D’Antoni with another inconsistent performance featuring deficient defense. Metta World Peace scored 15 points and Pau Gasol added 11 for the Lakers, who went back to poor form just two nights after a 122-point effort in a blowout win over Denver.

— Reported by Greg Beacham of the Associated Press

Dwight Howard reflects on Orlando Magic

The “Dwightmare” may be over, but on the eve of his first game against his former team, Dwight Howard was in a reflective mood about what happened over those final furious six months with the Magic.

“I’ve had a chance to sit back and think about it and there are some things I could’ve done better. There are some things that could’ve been done better on both sides,” Howard said in a lengthy, wide-ranging interview after Los Angeles Lakers practice on Saturday. “But at the end of the day, we all learn some lessons and we’ve got to move forward.

“I’m happy here, I’m having a lot of fun. This is a place that I’ve always prayed that I could be a part of something very special. So I want to take advantage of it.”

Howard didn’t want to elaborate on what he or the Magic could have done differently during the excruciating process that led to his trade to the Lakers in August. Los Angeles hosts Orlando on Sunday night at the Staples Center.

“It doesn’t really matter to talk about it now. It’s over and done with,” he said. “There are a lot of things we both could’ve done, but at the end of the day, it happened just the way it was supposed to happen. There was a reason behind everything. We might not see it or understand it at the time, but there was a reason why everything happened the way it happened and I think it made both parties stronger.”

— Reported by Ramona Shelburne of ESPN Los Angeles

Lakers hit 17 3-pointers, beat Nuggets 122-103

By the time Dwight Howard stepped back and oh-so-coolly hit just the second 3-pointer of his entire career in the closing seconds, it didn’t even seem weird to the Los Angeles Lakers.

With so many unlikely numbers in improbable places on that bulging scoresheet, what was one last long-distance shot for a team that finally discovered its elusive rhythm?

Antawn Jamison scored 33 points while leading an outstanding game by the Lakers’ reserves, and Howard had 28 points and 20 rebounds before hitting Los Angeles’ 17th 3-pointer to close a 122-103 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Friday night.

Jodie Meeks scored 21 points on a career high-tying seven 3-pointers for the Lakers, who improved to 3-3 under Mike D’Antoni while playing at the furious tempo favored by their new coach…

Kobe Bryant had 14 points and eight assists for the Lakers, who moved the ball to the tune of 33 assists while making 54 percent of their shots. They also tied the club record for 3-pointers in a regulation game, getting five from Jamison in the first 30-point game by a Lakers reserve since Shaquille O’Neal did it in 1998.

Jamison, the high-scoring veteran who signed with Los Angeles for a shot at a title, found the shooting stroke he has lacked for much of the season so far, going 13 for 19 and grabbing 12 rebounds while taking more shots than Bryant or Howard…

Los Angeles led 71-57 at halftime, making 60 percent of its shots in an impressive stretch of offensive basketball.

— Reported by Greg Beacham of the Associated Press

Andrew Bynum in lawsuits with neighbors

NBA superstar Andrew Bynum is suing his next door neighbors, claiming they’re violent, racist hooligans — but the neighbors have fired back … claiming Bynum is the REAL a-hole.

Bynum — a former member of the L.A. Lakers — claims that ever since he moved into his fancy home in Westchester, CA more than 7 years ago, he’s been constantly harassed by his neighbors, Ramond and Cindy Beckett.

According to his lawsuit, filed in L.A. County Superior Court, Bynum says … the Becketts have objected to his “profession, his race, his friends, his cars and his taste in music.” …

In their legal docs, the Becketts UNLOAD on the NBA star — claiming he’s guilty of the following misdeeds:

— brandishing FIREARMS in an attempt to intimidate the Becketts
— “apparently” using drugs and allowing weed smoke to drift next door
— blasting loud, profane rap music (including the song “Currency” by Trina)
— blasting his video games at “window-shaking volumes”
— letting his dogs run loose through the neighborhood
— constantly racing his luxury cars at dangerous speeds

— Reported by TMZ.com

Lakers awful at free throws so far this season

Forget Hack a Dwight.

Opposing teams may just want to adopt this strategy to win games: Hack the Lakers.

The Lakers rank 29th out of 30 NBA teams in free-throw shooting at 66.8 percent. In four of the Lakers’ eight losses, the margin between made and missed free throws exceeded the point differential between winning and losing. Among the worst Lakers players to send to the free-throw line include Dwight Howard (47.8 percent), Morris (56.5 percent), Jordan Hill (61.5 percent) and Antawn Jamison (63.2 percent).

“Stop talking about it. I don’t want to hear about it,” Howard said after going 3 of 12 from the line in the Lakers’ 79-77 loss Tuesday to the Indiana Pacers. “That’s my problem, thinking too much at the line.”

— Reported by Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News