The reasons LAL will fail.

[MiamiThrice]

There are a number of reasons why LA will fail and I LOL when I see this team being compared to the meet up of NBA greats LeBron/Wade/Bosh.

-Kobe Bryant. This is 2012. Not 2006, 2008, or even 2010. Kobe can still put up points, but does so in a way that is a hindrance to the team. At age 34 this guy is cancerous. High volume shooting with low percentage shots. Part of LAs problem last year was that Kobes ego was too big to allow him to defer to Andrew Bynum who was a superior player. This guy will no doubt be doing the same thing next year. It is who he is, he is incapable of change. For ****s sake he wasn't willing to defer to a prime Shaq in the 2004 Finals and cost his team a title single handly. Kobe at 34 is just not good enough to be the leader of a championship team and no way he will defer to Howard who is by far the superior player.

-Spacing in the paint. Dwight Howard is an inferior offensive low post threat to Bynum. His footwork just isn't on the same level, and thus he takes longer to get to his spot and make his move. With Orlando it wasn't a problem because they simply surrounded him with 4 three point shooters. In LA his only reliable shooter will be Steve Nash and Gasol will be clogging the paint making it easier to collapse on Howard. Howard is not that good of a passer and this could be problematic.

-Steve Nash. Remember how Steve Nash's career jump started when he signed with Phoenix? Yeah, that's because he went to a team thats offense was specifically catered to his skill set. In Los Angeles he will not be the main focal point, the second point, or even the third. Nash will be forced to play with a primary halfcourt team such as he did with Dallas, or even in Phoenix when the Suns catered to Shaq with a halfcourt offense and Nash's stats suffered greatly. He'll be good, but your not getting the MVP or even the 2012 Suns Nash.

-Mike Brown. Just another typical negro coach that is incapable of doing his job. Let's be real, this guy sucks complete ****. Nothing more needs to be said.

In the end this team probably won't even beat the Thunder, let alone my World Champion Heat squad.

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/HEAT%20CHAMPS.jpg

[DaSeba5]

Hey a Marino avy. Another fellow Heat/Dolphins fan. :cheers:

[1987_Lakers]

Just like Dan Marino failed every single year of his NFL career?

[DaSeba5]

Just like Dan Marino failed every single year of his NFL career?

Not his fault. He never had a defense and a running game.

He was like LeBron in Cleveland. He was trapped carrying bad teams to the playoffs.

[MiamiThrice]

Hey a Marino avy. Another fellow Heat/Dolphins fan. :cheers:

:cheers:

How are you liking Hard Knocks ? First episode was pretty good. I'm really looking forward to next weeks which looks like it'll focus on the offensive line. Really wanna get a good look at Jake Long and Richie Incognito, two beasts.

If you arn't watching it, you better tune in!

[Jacks3]

So much wrong.

[kennethgriffin]

2012 =
kobe 28/5/5
nash 13/4/11
pau 17/10/4
howard 20/14/2


sorry but you act as if this is garbage

[DaSeba5]

:cheers:

How are you liking Hard Knocks ? First episode was pretty good. I'm really looking forward to next weeks which looks like it'll focus on the offensive line. Really wanna get a good look at Jake Long and Richie Incognito, two beasts.

If you arn't watching it, you better tune in!

It was good. I think they were forcing stories like the Vontae one, but I still liked it. I also want to see the O-line. It was a big problem last season.

[MiamiThrice]

2012 =
kobe 28/5/5
nash 13/4/11
pau 17/10/4
howard 20/14/2


sorry but you act as if this is garbage

We'll see who still gets those numbers next year.

The answer: none of them.

[Sleu27]

http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/zz194/saes329/BarrackObamagif__BarackObamaDidNotRead_d61f7e_3675 033.gif

[Hotlantadude81]

There are a number of reasons why LA will fail and I LOL when I see this team being compared to the meet up of NBA greats LeBron/Wade/Bosh.

-Kobe Bryant. This is 2012. Not 2006, 2008, or even 2010. Kobe can still put up points, but does so in a way that is a hindrance to the team. At age 34 this guy is cancerous. High volume shooting with low percentage shots. Part of LAs problem last year was that Kobes ego was too big to allow him to defer to Andrew Bynum who was a superior player. This guy will no doubt be doing the same thing next year. It is who he is, he is incapable of change. For ****s sake he wasn't willing to defer to a prime Shaq in the 2004 Finals and cost his team a title single handly. Kobe at 34 is just not good enough to be the leader of a championship team and no way he will defer to Howard who is by far the superior player.

-Spacing in the paint. Dwight Howard is an inferior offensive low post threat to Bynum. His footwork just isn't on the same level, and thus he takes longer to get to his spot and make his move. With Orlando it wasn't a problem because they simply surrounded him with 4 three point shooters. In LA his only reliable shooter will be Steve Nash and Gasol will be clogging the paint making it easier to collapse on Howard. Howard is not that good of a passer and this could be problematic.

-Steve Nash. Remember how Steve Nash's career jump started when he signed with Phoenix? Yeah, that's because he went to a team thats offense was specifically catered to his skill set. In Los Angeles he will not be the main focal point, the second point, or even the third. Nash will be forced to play with a primary halfcourt team such as he did with Dallas, or even in Phoenix when the Suns catered to Shaq with a halfcourt offense and Nash's stats suffered greatly. He'll be good, but your not getting the MVP or even the 2012 Suns Nash.

-Mike Brown. Just another typical negro coach that is incapable of doing his job. Let's be real, this guy sucks complete ****. Nothing more needs to be said.

In the end this team probably won't even beat the Thunder, let alone my World Champion Heat squad.

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/HEAT%20CHAMPS.jpg

Plausible.

[Bandito]

Dude the reason why the Lakers lost in 04 is because the Pistons were the better team and Karl Malone was hurt you dumb stan.

Kobe didn't defer to Bynum because every time he had the ball it was a 50% of a turnover because of his innability to pass the ball. He was effective on offense but didn't pass the ball when he could, heck, even Shaq pass the ball and he sucked at that and he was way more dominant than him.

if Wade learned to defer to Lebrick I am pretty sure Kobe will defer to Nash for playmaking. He doesn't even want the ball all the time, all he wants is to shoot it:lol

[KOBE143]

The reason Miami will fail next season.


LAKERS

[SourPatchKids]

http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/zz194/saes329/BarrackObamagif__BarackObamaDidNotRead_d61f7e_3675 033.gif
Boy Obama's hair sure has taken a turn for the worse.

[TheeBeast]

There are a number of reasons why LA will fail and I LOL when I see this team being compared to the meet up of NBA greats LeBron/Wade/Bosh.

-Kobe Bryant.[ .......] Andrew Bynum who was a superior player [.......]


:roll: :facepalm

Stopped reading there

[Bandito]

The reason Miami will fail next season.


LAKERS
Owned:kobe:

[rs98762001]

-Mike Brown. Just another typical negro coach that is incapable of doing his job.
Were you wearing your white hood when you typed this crap?

[Kews1]

Was the negro comment really necessary.

[DaSeba5]

Keep in mind, I didn't even read the post. I just saw that you were a Dolphins fan.

[MiamiThrice]

Was the negro comment really necessary.

Yes it was. The number of successful coaches in the NBA that were black can be counted on one hand. I don't see anyone complain when someone uses "hes white" to try and downplay draft prospects, so I don't see anything wrong with my comment when it is even more accurate.

It appears none of the Kobe riders/Laker fans are capable of producing any kind of counter argument. All I'm seeing from them is this.

http://oi46.tinypic.com/34oudkg.jpg

[The Choken One]

Steve Nash by himself made the Suns a playoff team.

Dwight Howard made the Magic a top tier defensive team and 4th or 5th seed with relatively no help.

Now you put both of these players on a team with the best SG in the league, an extremely skilled PF, and Metta World War who is absolute dog shit at times, but can still defend decently. Add in the fact that the Lakers won't have absolute shit coming off their bench for once.

Lakers will make the finals...and it will create an awesome series with the Heat. Toss up who wins, honestly. Impossible to truly say.

Can't wait..

[Bandito]

Yes it was. The number of successful coaches in the NBA that were black can be counted on one hand. I don't see anyone complain when someone uses "hes white" to try and downplay draft prospects, so I don't see anything wrong with my comment when it is even more accurate.

It appears none of the Kobe riders/Laker fans are capable of producing any kind of counter argument. All I'm seeing from them is this.



Dude the reason why the Lakers lost in 04 is because the Pistons were the better team and Karl Malone was hurt you dumb stan.

Kobe didn't defer to Bynum because every time he had the ball it was a 50% of a turnover because of his innability to pass the ball. He was effective on offense but didn't pass the ball when he could, heck, even Shaq pass the ball and he sucked at that and he was way more dominant than him.

if Wade learned to defer to Lebrick I am pretty sure Kobe will defer to Nash for playmaking. He doesn't even want the ball all the time, all he wants is to shoot it:lol
Please:coleman:

[Kews1]

Yes it was. The number of successful coaches in the NBA that were black can be counted on one hand. I don't see anyone complain when someone uses "hes white" to try and downplay draft prospects, so I don't see anything wrong with my comment when it is even more accurate.

It appears none of the Kobe riders/Laker fans are capable of producing any kind of counter argument. All I'm seeing from them is this.

http://oi46.tinypic.com/34oudkg.jpg

Even if what you said were remotely true you still dont refer to people as negros or ******s. Calling somebody "white" or "black" isnt racism. Using words like cracker, ******, negro etc is. Its not funny nor does it make you seem even slightly intelligent.

[eliteballer]

Join Date: Aug 2012

:oldlol: this miami bandwagon b!tch acting like he knows the game

[kennethgriffin]

every single one of kobes misses will end up in dwight howards hands

we're forgetting how much attention kobe attracts and how high howard jumps. dude grabs 15rpg with ease LOL

this and nash/gasol/howard pick and roll will be way too much for anyone to handle

[MiamiThrice]

Steve Nash by himself made the Suns a playoff team.

Dwight Howard made the Magic a top tier defensive team and 4th or 5th seed with relatively no help.

Now you put both of these players on a team with the best SG in the league, an extremely skilled PF, and Metta World War who is absolute dog shit at times, but can still defend decently. Add in the fact that the Lakers won't have absolute shit coming off their bench for once.

Lakers will make the finals...and it will create an awesome series with the Heat. Toss up who wins, honestly. Impossible to truly say.

Can't wait..

Steve Nash made the Suns a playoff team all by himself really? Because the Suns havn't made the playoffs since 2010 which is when Amare left town. Next.

Dwight Howard made the Magic a 4th seed by himself? Cool. Put any legit star in the East and the team is in the playoffs. How much you want to bet Andrew Bynum has Philly at around a 4th or a 5th seed this year?

Kobe hasn't been the best SG in the league for a few years now. Dwyane Wade is superior in every way possible. Better defender, more athletic, better defender, better at getting to the rim. The only thing Kobe is better at is making Horse shots, so I guess he has him there!

The team looks good on paper, but when you realize Kobe Bryant is the most overrated player in the league, Howard is a minior uprade over Bynum, Mike Brown is the head coach, and Steve Nashs talents will never be maximized it is easy to see as someone that knows the game that this team will underachieve.

[MiamiThrice]

Even if what you said were remotely true you still dont refer to people as negros or ******s. Calling somebody "white" or "black" isnt racism. Using words like cracker, ******, negro etc is. Its not funny nor does it make you seem even slightly intelligent.

Butthurt Black person detected.

Negro means black in spanish. I am fluent in the language and it is not a racial slur. I am guessing your not the brightest crayon in the box. Can't say I'm surprised.

[RIP CITY]

-Kobe Bryant. This is 2012. Not 2006, 2008, or even 2010. Kobe can still put up points, but does so in a way that is a hindrance to the team. At age 34 this guy is cancerous. High volume shooting with low percentage shots. Part of LAs problem last year was that Kobes ego was too big to allow him to defer to Andrew Bynum who was a superior player. This guy will no doubt be doing the same thing next year. It is who he is, he is incapable of change. For ****s sake he wasn't willing to defer to a prime Shaq in the 2004 Finals and cost his team a title single handly. Kobe at 34 is just not good enough to be the leader of a championship team and no way he will defer to Howard who is by far the superior player.

Every word of this is nonsense. Yes, including the 2004 Finals comment, one of the biggest myths in NBA history is that Kobe caused the Lakers to lose that Series. I'm a Pistons fan and watched every second of that Series 2-3 times, it's bullsh*t. Not just from the perspective that it downplays what the Pistons team/defense did either, just overall nonsense from top to bottom.

Andrew Bynum is not a superior player to Kobe Bryant, that's a ridiculous statement. Dwight Howard is debatable but he is definitely not "far superior".

Kobe Bryant is not a cancer, you don't win 5 Championships being a cancer. He's not the most selfless player of All-Time, I agree but chill out with the ridiculous exaggeration man.

He doesn't need to defer to anyone on this Lakers team, he shouldn't have deferred to Andrew freaking Bynum either. He needs to fit into more of a role than he has before but he does not have to defer. His role will be to lead the Lakers in scoring, play more consistent defense now that he doesn't have to carry so much of the offensive load and be the closer at the end of games. All things he's still fully capable of doing and all things that will be easier for him to do now that defense's can't focus in on him as much as the last few years. You can't throw 2-3 defenders at Kobe anymore, because Dwight/Nash/Gasol will destroy you if you do, that's not the same as Bynum/Pau/Sessions, not even close. Bynum, while being the 2nd best Center in the NBA is widely overrated by Kobe haters as if he's some All-Time great Center (he's not close), Pau is as mentally fragile as a 12 year old girl at times (the entire 2012 Playoffs basically) and Sessions is just an average starting PG at best.

I understand people hate Kobe, he's kind of a douche and his stans are annoying as shit at times but alot of stuff people say about him on this board is beyond retarded. Everyday I wonder more and more way I keep coming on this site to have to read garbage like this. Do you even watch basketball or do you just wait until the Heat game comes on, grab a box of tissues, a bottle of lotion and try not to shoot in your own face?

[Kews1]

Butthurt Black person detected.

Negro means black in spanish. I am fluent in the language and it is not a racial slur. I am guessing your not the brightest crayon in the box. Can't say I'm surprised.

Im white and i still dont appreciate your racism. Any idiot who says that Negro is not a racil slur is not raicst is just a ****ing retard. Maby when its used speaking the Spanish language it may not be, when its used in English its a different story you ****ing bigot.

[MiamiThrice]

Dude the reason why the Lakers lost in 04 is because the Pistons were the better team and Karl Malone was hurt you dumb stan.

Kobe didn't defer to Bynum because every time he had the ball it was a 50% of a turnover because of his innability to pass the ball. He was effective on offense but didn't pass the ball when he could, heck, even Shaq pass the ball and he sucked at that and he was way more dominant than him.

if Wade learned to defer to Lebrick I am pretty sure Kobe will defer to Nash for playmaking. He doesn't even want the ball all the time, all he wants is to shoot it:lol

Feel free to get me Kobes stats in the Finals. And also Shaqs. You know what? I'll save us both some time and get both statistics.

Kobe: 22.6 PPG 2.8 RPG 4.4 APG 38.1% shooting 22.6 Shots per game
Shaq: 26.6 PPG 10.8 RPG 1.6 APG 63.1% shooting 16.8 shots per game

The key numbers we're looking at here is Kobes shots per game(which matches his PPG!!!!) and Shaqs FG%. Lets also take into account Shaq was being guarded by the 4 time DPOY Ben Wallace in his prime!!!!! Shaq still shit on him, but Kobe didn't care. Kobe would hog the ball and bend over for Tayshaun Prince taking terrible shots, refusing to feed O'Neal for consistant easy points. Kobe lost that series for his team and his 04 Finals was 10x worse than LeBrons 11 Finals. You wouldn't know about that though.

Kobe Bryant turned the ball over 3.5 times per game compared to 2.5 for Andrew Bynum. Looks like Kobe was more turnover prone bro! And Shaq was a great passer. Your lack of NBA Knowledge is being exposed here.

Kome will never defer to anyone. It is not in his DNA. Good luck. I bet if you ask him he would actually say he was the best player on those 00-02 Laker teams LOL!!!! Wade has less of an attiude and is more willing to do what is best for the team. Kobe just cares about being the man.

[MiamiThrice]

Im white and i still dont appreciate your racism. Any idiot who says that Negro is not a racil slur is not raicst is just a ****ing retard. Maby when its used speaking the Spanish language it may not be, when its used in English its a different story you ****ing bigot.

From your poor sentence structure I can tell your not very educated. You probably listen to hip-hop and wear XXXL white t-shirts too. One of those white kids that thinks hes black. Grow up.

[Bandito]

Im white and i still dont appreciate your racism. Any idiot who says that Negro is not a racil slur is not raicst is just a ****ing retard. Maby when its used speaking the Spanish language it may not be, when its used in English its a different story you ****ing bigot.
You just prove Miamithrice is another idiot.:roll:

[RoundMoundOfReb]

2012 =
kobe 28/5/5
nash 13/4/11
pau 17/10/4
howard 20/14/2


sorry but you act as if this is garbage

Can you post your predictions for all the other Lakers as well?

[Bandito]

From your poor sentence structure I can tell your not very educated. You probably listen to hip-hop and wear XXXL white t-shirts too. One of those white kids that thinks hes black. Grow up.
Dude just because you know a little spanish doesn't mean you can say a coach sucks because he's negro, and that is consider a racial slur in USA.

[kennethgriffin]

Can you post your predictions for all the other Lakers as well?

those werent predictions fatty

read it again

[Kews1]

From your poor sentence structure I can tell your not very educated. You probably listen to hip-hop and wear XXXL white t-shirts too. One of those white kids that thinks hes black. Grow up.

I go to Massachusetts Institute of Technology and do a MBA, what do you do you ****ing rookie?

[MiamiThrice]

Every word of this is nonsense. Yes, including the 2004 Finals comment, one of the biggest myths in NBA history is that Kobe caused the Lakers to lose that Series. I'm a Pistons fan and watched every second of that Series 2-3 times, it's bullsh*t. Not just from the perspective that it downplays what the Pistons team/defense did either, just overall nonsense from top to bottom.

Andrew Bynum is not a superior player to Kobe Bryant, that's a ridiculous statement. Dwight Howard is debatable but he is definitely not "far superior".

Kobe Bryant is not a cancer, you don't win 5 Championships being a cancer. He's not the most selfless player of All-Time, I agree but chill out with the ridiculous exaggeration man.

He doesn't need to defer to anyone on this Lakers team, he shouldn't have deferred to Andrew freaking Bynum either. He needs to fit into more of a role than he has before but he does not have to defer. His role will be to lead the Lakers in scoring, play more consistent defense now that he doesn't have to carry so much of the offensive load and be the closer at the end of games. All things he's still fully capable of doing and all things that will be easier for him to do now that defense's can't focus in on him as much as the last few years. You can't throw 2-3 defenders at Kobe anymore, because Dwight/Nash/Gasol will destroy you if you do, that's not the same as Bynum/Pau/Sessions, not even close. Bynum, while being the 2nd best Center in the NBA is widely overrated by Kobe haters as if he's some All-Time great Center (he's not close), Pau is as mentally fragile as a 12 year old girl at times (the entire 2012 Playoffs basically) and Sessions is just an average starting PG at best.

I understand people hate Kobe, he's kind of a douche and his stans are annoying as shit at times but alot of stuff people say about him on this board is beyond retarded. Everyday I wonder more and more way I keep coming on this site to have to read garbage like this. Do you even watch basketball or do you just wait until the Heat game comes on, grab a box of tissues, a bottle of lotion and try not to shoot in your own face?

Bro don't worry I understand why you like Kobe. If it wasn't for him your franchise would be irrelevant for the last 20 years.

Shaq was assraping the shit out of Wallace x 2 in that series, and for him to only average 16 shots is horseshit. Kobe went into hero mode. He was at the height of Rapebe in 2004 where he went "**** it I'd rather lose as the man than win as the sidekick". The guy is a piece of shit. Phil Jackson even said he was "uncoachable" in his novel "The Last Season" which he wrote that year after he retired. It was a great read. Kobe was a prick and cost his team the series.

Every GM in the league would rather have Bynum than Kobe on their team. Other than the team that has Dwight Howard that is. Bynum effects the game every second he is on the court. He is one of the best defensive anchors in the league, arguably the best low post offensive player in the league, and a great rebounder. Go ahead, name me the players in the NBA that are a better offensive low post option than Bynum. I'll wait. Just look at Team USA. Kobe is by far the least useful of ALL the perimeter players in these games. It's quite evident. The only thing he has going for him is that his name is Kobe Bryant.

Kobe has 5 rings because he has had by far the most talented roster of anyone in the league in the years he has won. Kobe has never won a series as the underdog and has 0 playoff series victories without Shaq/Gasol/and now we will include Howard. He will be riding Howard coattails now that Gasol is no longer the best big in the league just like he rode Shaqs. Every year Kobe won he had the best bigman in the league. Gasol can easily be debated in those years as the best big, at worst top 3.

[Bandito]

Feel free to get me Kobes stats in the Finals. And also Shaqs. You know what? I'll save us both some time and get both statistics.

Kobe: 22.6 PPG 2.8 RPG 4.4 APG 38.1% shooting 22.6 Shots per game
Shaq: 26.6 PPG 10.8 RPG 1.6 APG 63.1% shooting 16.8 shots per game

The key numbers we're looking at here is Kobes shots per game(which matches his PPG!!!!) and Shaqs FG%. Lets also take into account Shaq was being guarded by the 4 time DPOY Ben Wallace in his prime!!!!! Shaq still shit on him, but Kobe didn't care. Kobe would hog the ball and bend over for Tayshaun Prince taking terrible shots, refusing to feed O'Neal for consistant easy points. Kobe lost that series for his team and his 04 Finals was 10x worse than LeBrons 11 Finals. You wouldn't know about that though.

Kobe Bryant turned the ball over 3.5 times per game compared to 2.5 for Andrew Bynum. Looks like Kobe was more turnover prone bro! And Shaq was a great passer. Your lack of NBA Knowledge is being exposed here.

Kome will never defer to anyone. It is not in his DNA. Good luck. I bet if you ask him he would actually say he was the best player on those 00-02 Laker teams LOL!!!! Wade has less of an attiude and is more willing to do what is best for the team. Kobe just cares about being the man.Dude in 04 in the 4quarters who was sitting on the bench Shaquille ****1ng Oneal. Even then they were missing an important piece of that team Karl Malone, the starter PF who was injured. And the only game they won was a Kobe miracle shot. Plus is not like he wasn't trying to pass it to Oneal is just that the tactic Larry Brown used is don't let Shaq touch the ball. If you saw the game you would know that. But of course what can I expect of a dumb stan like you.


And how do you know he won't defer to anyone? He defer to Shaq when he was going up. Is not Shaq's fault his ego was so big that he wouldn't acknowledge Kobe was not Robin anymore but was more a Nightwing (you saw what I did there LOL).

And the reason Kobe turn it over more than Bynum was because he is the playmaker not the Center or the SG, he had PG duties on last year team. PG tend to turn the ball more because of how much they have the ball in his hand. I'll bet Lebron turn the ball at least 2.5 times in the finals. Even then that doesn't have to do with anything.

Bynum shots is 50% shoot it or turn it over, don't even try to deny it you dumb stan.

[Bandito]

I go to Massachusetts Institute of Technology and do a MBA, what do you do you ****ing rookie?
LOL owned yet again:lol

I used to go to UPR which one of the best Universities in Puerto Rico. I am in USAF now though...

[MiamiThrice]

Dude in 04 in the 4quarters who was sitting on the bench Shaquille ****1ng Oneal. Even then they were missing an important piece of that team Karl Malone, the starter PF who was injured. And the only game they won was a Kobe miracle shot. Plus is not like he wasn't trying to pass it to Oneal is just that the tactic Larry Brown used is don't let Shaq touch the ball. If you saw the game you would know that. But of course what can I expect of a dumb stan like you.


And how do you know he won't defer to anyone? He defer to Shaq when he was going up. Is not Shaq's fault his ego was so big that he wouldn't acknowledge Kobe was not Robin anymore but was more a Nightwing (you saw what I did there LOL).

And the reason Kobe turn it over more than Bynum was because he is the playmaker not the Center or the SG, he had PG duties on last year team. PG tend to turn the ball more because of how much they have the ball in his hand. I'll bet Lebron turn the ball at least 2.5 times in the finals. Even then that doesn't have to do with anything.

Bynum shots is 50% shoot it or turn it over, don't even try to deny it you dumb stan.

Damn man, don't let Shaq touch the ball. That shit sounds like a great stratey. :applause:

Oh wait.....if it was so great then why didn't any other team do it durin the dynasty Lakers? And do you not realize Shaq is 7'1 probably pushing 400 pounds in those years? Yeah bro it's really hard to get a guy like that the ball. Please anyone with a brain can see that Kobe was butthurt that he was always considered the Pippen and Shaq winning yet another Finals MVP would cement his status as Shaq's bitch. Kobe would rather lose as the leading shooter than win as the sidekick. Seeing Shaq win another Finals MVP would torment Bryant more than losing itself. That's how pathetic this guy is.

Sessions has point guard duties, not Kobe. Lol @ Kobe handling the ball and breaking defenses down at this state of his career. He'd be out of gas in minutes. Do you even watch the Lakers. Kobe just turns the ball over because he tries to do things he used to be able to do, but no longer can.

And my name isn't Stan bro.

[Figlo]

The reason they will fail is OKC, this is LAL big four first year together, maybe their last?(Howard not re-signing?) I really don't see how these guys can mesh together, they all need the ball to be successful if they someone come together put egos aside and try their hardest to go for that CHIP. But OKC still match up perfectly with them, Perkins has always been sort of a Howard stopper, Ibaka knows Gasol game and has improved offensively this year, but the LA towers will still win the BIG matchup. Durant will murder however guarding him from that team. And the key matchup will be Nash and Westbrook.

I'm so exited for this season!!!

[comerb]

The reason they will fail is OKC, this is LAL big four first year together, maybe their last?(Howard not re-signing?) I really don't see how these guys can mesh together, they all need the ball to be successful if they someone come together put egos aside and try their hardest to go for that CHIP. But OKC still match up perfectly with them, Perkins has always been sort of a Howard stopper, Ibaka knows Gasol game and has improved offensively this year, but the LA towers will still win the BIG matchup. Durant will murder however guarding him from that team. And the key matchup will be Nash and Westbrook.

I'm so exited for this season!!!


The only players that really need the ball are Kobe & Nash. Nash is a distributor, he'll get everyone involved, so that's not even an issue. Kobe will get his touches, an honestly the Lakers will be better off with him getting fewer touches, fewer iso, and forcing up fewer bad shots.

Dwight and Pau are two bigs that effect the game far more than almost any other in the league w/out ever running a play for them. They both are big on the boards, alter tons of shots, play solid defense, clean up and finish near the basket... and Gasol is probably the best passing big-man in the league. On top of that, the two of them guarding the paint make up for the deficiency Nash represents on the defensive end.

I don't like the Lakers, but it's pretty hard to deny they are going to be ridiculously good. The biggest challenge will be health and trying to peg down the team identity. Specifically how much they are going to run w/ Nash in the game.

I still think the Heat can beat them. The Lakers don't have much depth, and they're not going to be a particularly great team at defending the outside shot. If Miami shoots well from downtown and runs on them at every chance... plus, ironically enough, Miami has a pretty deep bench these days. Also, both Pau and Dwight are anything but consistent offensively... so it's a toss-up whether they will be able to really punish the Heat offensively for not having a true center.

[Thethirdguy]

OPs reasoning seems sound, and could be right, but every argument made could just as easily be completely null and void based solely on the quality of the players they will be surrounded by. I seem to remember there being a lot of debate about whether or not the heat would ever be able to mesh together and I'm pretty sure they just won a championship

[Bandito]

Damn man, don't let Shaq touch the ball. That shit sounds like a great stratey. :applause:

Oh wait.....if it was so great then why didn't any other team do it durin the dynasty Lakers? And do you not realize Shaq is 7'1 probably pushing 400 pounds in those years? Yeah bro it's really hard to get a guy like that the ball. Please anyone with a brain can see that Kobe was butthurt that he was always considered the Pippen and Shaq winning yet another Finals MVP would cement his status as Shaq's bitch. Kobe would rather lose as the leading shooter than win as the sidekick. Seeing Shaq win another Finals MVP would torment Bryant more than losing itself. That's how pathetic this guy is.

Sessions has point guard duties, not Kobe. Lol @ Kobe handling the ball and breaking defenses down at this state of his career. He'd be out of gas in minutes. Do you even watch the Lakers. Kobe just turns the ball over because he tries to do things he used to be able to do, but no longer can.

And my name isn't Stan bro.
Dude don't try to downplay 04 Pistons. They were one win away from repeating in 05 against the mighty Spurs, they beat the 04 all star Lakers. Maybe you don't like it because you're a dumb Lebron stan but the fact is the 04 Pistons beat the 04 Lakers. The Lakers was missing Malone of the key players, one of the main reasons they beat the Spurs in the Western conference finals (which Kobe was killing btw).

and this is TO stat in the playoffs for LeBron James seeing as you like stats. 3.52 read it and cry !!!!!:facepalm

[AlonzoGOAT]

Just like Dan Marino failed every single year of his NFL career?
:facepalm Doesn't have a ring = failed doesn't take into consideration what was around him = :facepalm

[Blue&Orange]

There are a number of reasons why LA will fail and I LOL when I see this team being compared to the meet up of NBA greats LeBron/Wade/Bosh.

-Kobe Bryant. This is 2012. Not 2006, 2008, or even 2010. Kobe can still put up points, but does so in a way that is a hindrance to the team. At age 34 this guy is cancerous. High volume shooting with low percentage shots. Part of LAs problem last year was that Kobes ego was too big to allow him to defer to Andrew Bynum who was a superior player. This guy will no doubt be doing the same thing next year. It is who he is, he is incapable of change. For ****s sake he wasn't willing to defer to a prime Shaq in the 2004 Finals and cost his team a title single handly. Kobe at 34 is just not good enough to be the leader of a championship team and no way he will defer to Howard who is by far the superior player.

-Spacing in the paint. Dwight Howard is an inferior offensive low post threat to Bynum. His footwork just isn't on the same level, and thus he takes longer to get to his spot and make his move. With Orlando it wasn't a problem because they simply surrounded him with 4 three point shooters. In LA his only reliable shooter will be Steve Nash and Gasol will be clogging the paint making it easier to collapse on Howard. Howard is not that good of a passer and this could be problematic.

-Steve Nash. Remember how Steve Nash's career jump started when he signed with Phoenix? Yeah, that's because he went to a team thats offense was specifically catered to his skill set. In Los Angeles he will not be the main focal point, the second point, or even the third. Nash will be forced to play with a primary halfcourt team such as he did with Dallas, or even in Phoenix when the Suns catered to Shaq with a halfcourt offense and Nash's stats suffered greatly. He'll be good, but your not getting the MVP or even the 2012 Suns Nash.

-Mike Brown. Just another typical negro coach that is incapable of doing his job. Let's be real, this guy sucks complete ****. Nothing more needs to be said.

In the end this team probably won't even beat the Thunder, let alone my World Champion Heat squad.


Your prognostic would have been take much more seriously if you said something like:

-Heat. Going to be blatantly and disgustingly carried by the refs again.

[PyrrhusX]

The main thing we should be asking is who laker fans will blame IF (big if to show neutrality) the lakers dont meet expectations? I remember when Ramon Sessions was praised like the second coming of god.

People are getting excited now but who knows what will happen.

Miami are still the champions and Lebron is in career form.

[Bandito]

The main thing we should be asking is who laker fans will blame IF (big if to show neutrality) the lakers dont meet expectations? I remember when Ramon Sessions was praised like the second coming of god.

People are getting excited now but who knows what will happen.
I actually thought Sessions would've been a lot better than he was on this team.

[East_Stone_Ya]

i predict that 2004 will happen again for Lakers..to much hype and two future hall of famers joining the club(like Malone& Payton)

[BoutPractice]

"Another negro coach"? Er... what?

[Bandito]

i predict that 2004 will happen again for Lakers..to much hype and two future hall of famers joining the club(like Malone& Payton)
Yeah me too to be honest.:lol

[midatlantic09]

Mike Brown. Just another typical negro coach that is incapable of doing his job. Let's be real, this guy sucks complete ****. Nothing more needs to be said.



Have you submitted your KKK application yet? I'm pretty sure you'll be admitted.

[Cali Syndicate]

People forget how good a pick n' roll player Pau is. And Nash is still one of the best pick n' roll PG's in the league. That alone makes the Lakers more dynamic on offense.

Last season it was either iso down to Bynum or on the elbow to Kobe. Iso iso iso was their game which made them very stagnant. Brown may not be an offensive couch but with Nash running the offense makes it a whole new ball game. It all depends on Kobe and if he can lessen his role, but by the way he's asserting himself in these Olympics, kinda doesn't look like he will.

[HorryIsMyMVP]

Someone ban this mother ****er!

[Nick Young]

3 more rings for Lord Mamba:bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:

Lebron is f*cked

[mikek85]

Never winning with Mike Brown. He will get outcoached.

[mikek85]

3 more rings for Lord Mamba:bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:

Lebron is f*cked

No kobe is f'cked. MIKE BROWN

[RIP CITY]

Bro don't worry I understand why you like Kobe. If it wasn't for him your franchise would be irrelevant for the last 20 years.

The Pistons were relevant for more than just that season, they were relevant for most of the entire 2000's decade but don't let that stop you from making things up about the 2004 Finals. Not that the Pistons relevance has anything to do with this conversation.


Shaq was assraping the shit out of Wallace x 2 in that series, and for him to only average 16 shots is horseshit.

First of all, the Pistons entire defensive strategy was based around stopping Kobe Bryant and letting Shaq get whatever he wanted in 1 on 1 coverage against Ben Wallace. The Pistons put Ben on Shaq and asked him to do his best, they did not double team Shaq more than 10 times in that entire Series. What they did do, was put their best perimeter defender, Tayshaun Prince, on Kobe Bryant and the minute Kobe put the ball on the floor to do anything with the basketball at all Chauncey AND/or Rip AND/or whatever other perimeter player that was on the floor at the time came over and surrounded Kobe in a bracket to prevent him from driving to the basket to either get to the rim for an easier shot, get to the FT line from driving and getting fouled or get into the lane to create plays for his teammates (which was also one of Kobe's primary tasks on that Lakers team).

The Pistons focused their defense to prevent Kobe from attacking the basket and creating plays for others, something he did excellently during the Lakers 3-Peat, including getting Shaq plenty of wide open dunks when he would drive down the lane, draw the defense and just drop it right in Shaq's lap when the defense collapsed on him. They never doubled Shaq, which always was one of the ways that the Lakers 3-Point shooters got easy looks. It was a genius strategy by Larry Brown to prevent the Lakers from getting floor spacing, giving Kobe much less room to operate and forcing Shaq to beat the Pistons by himself. It was designed to cut everyone off BUT Shaq and it did exactly that. They bracketed Kobe, which was having the SG/PG stand on either side of Kobe while Tayshaun guarded him, thus not allowing Kobe to go either way around Tay because once he started one way they would step into his driving lane to stop him from getting to the basket.

By bracketing Kobe they cut off the head of the Lakers offense, yes, Shaq was a juggernaut in the paint but Kobe was both the main perimeter scorer but also the teams best and most productive playmaker. Also, doubling a perimeter player makes it easier for the help defender to recover to his man because he has less space to travel to return to his assignment. When Kobe got bracketed, he'd pass it to one of the other perimeter players but the Pistons defense had already recovered so they weren't open, then, because those players were incapable of creating their own shot they simply passed it back to Kobe after the double-team backed off, forcing Kobe into taking shots late in the clock with a long stretched out Tayshaun Prince with a hand in his face.

On top of those role players not being able to create their own shot, the times Kobe did pass them the ball and the Pistons defense hadn't recovered they just simply missed open shots. The support players in that Series were ATROCIOUS on an All-Time bad level. It wasn't until the final Game 5 that anyone on the Lakers not named Kobe or Shaq even scored in double figures. 10 Points, not one player on the Lakers roster was capable of chipping in 10 lousy points in that Series until the blow out Game 5 where Payton ended up breaking into double digits in a game that was basically garbage time before the 3rd quarter even reached it's half way point.

Yet another point to be made about this Series is that you seem to be pretending that Kobe brought the ball up the court as the PG, held the ball for 20 seconds and then jacked up a poor shot. Kobe was not the only player not feeding Shaq the ball, NONE of the Lakers players were feeding Shaq the ball and apparently the genius Phil Jackson wasn't a good enough Coach to get them to (I'm not hating on Phil but it was partly his responsibility to get the other players on the team to feed the ball to Shaq for more than 16 FG attempts, he was simply outcoached by Larry Brown in that Series by a mile). It was not Kobe's fault that the other players weren't willing to feed Shaq in the post either.

On top of all that, the Lakers defense was completely non-existent in that Series. Plain awful. They made a poor offensive team like the Pistons look like the 2000's Suns. The Pistons during that Playoff run would routinely go long stretches without being able to muster much offensive punch but against that Lakers team they looked like a well oiled offensive machine. But guess who was the most consistent Lakers defender in the Series? His name was Kobe Bryant. He gave more effort in the Game 5 blowout on the defensive end than Shaq did the entire Series. He was by far the hardest working defender on the Lakers during that Series.

And, the only game the Lakers won was on a Kobe Bryant game-winning shot.

Kobe losing that Series for the Lakers is one of the greatest myths in basketball history. That Pistons team was arguably the greatest defensive team of All-Time and just completely outplayed the Lakers the entire Series. The Lakers, not Kobe Bryant. The defensive strategy the Pistons used against Kobe in that Series is something very few stars could have done much against, particularly primarily jump-shooting players like Kobe. And again, Kobe wasn't the only Laker not getting Shaq the ball. Think I might make a thread about this since this claim is used so often to degrade Kobe even though it's far from the truth and only degrades the Pistons superior effort in the Series.


Every GM in the league would rather have Bynum than Kobe on their team. Other than the team that has Dwight Howard that is.

Bynum is what? 10 years younger? Sure every GM in the League would rather have Bynum, he's the better long-term investment. If you asked every GM in the NBA which player they would want for the 2012 NBA season & Playoffs the answer would be Kobe by a landslide if not unanimously so.


Bynum effects the game every second he is on the court.

That's a glaring exaggeration considering Bynum is a flake who is inconsistent on both ends of the floor, particularly defensively where he rarely gives maximum effort for 48 minutes.


He is one of the best defensive anchors in the league, arguably the best low post offensive player in the league, and a great rebounder. Go ahead, name me the players in the NBA that are a better offensive low post option than Bynum. I'll wait. Just look at Team USA. Kobe is by far the least useful of ALL the perimeter players in these games. It's quite evident. The only thing he has going for him is that his name is Kobe Bryant.

I never said Bynum wasn't a valuable player but he is not a better or superior player to Kobe Bryant right now. The Team USA example is ridiculous at best, first it's a 3 week Tournament where the team plays what? 10 Games? Who cares? For two, not a single player on that team is giving 100% full effort on every play because they are simply so much better than their competition that they don't have to. Least of all Kobe, who is the oldest player on the team and clearly not giving 100% because he doesn't need to by any means for the team to win. Kobe isn't stupid enough to bother wearing himself down in a almost meaningless Tournament where the outcome has never been in question, the US will win Gold in a fairly easy fashion.


Kobe has 5 rings because he has had by far the most talented roster of anyone in the league in the years he has won. Kobe has never won a series as the underdog and has 0 playoff series victories without Shaq/Gasol/and now we will include Howard. He will be riding Howard coattails now that Gasol is no longer the best big in the league just like he rode Shaqs. Every year Kobe won he had the best bigman in the league. Gasol can easily be debated in those years as the best big, at worst top 3.

Yet another laughable claim Kobe haters on this board love to make: "Kobe can't win without an All-Time great big man like Pau Gasol." Pau Gasol is not one of the greatest big men of All-Time, which is one of the lame made up excuses to downplay Kobe. Pau was also not anywhere near the best big men in the NBA, ever. Top 3 is even VERY debatable.

The Lakers were not more talented than the Celtics team they beat in 2010, you seem to be pretending that 2012 Andrew Bynum was on that team, he wasn't. Bynum not only barely played that significant of a role on either Championship team (or the Finals team the year before) because of injury but also even if he was healthy he was not nearly the player he is today. Then you have a Top 5 big men in the League, Lamar Odom and an actual cancer, Ron Artest. That team was not the most talented team in the League and neither was the 2009 team (neither was the 2008 team). You're simply exaggerating a point that is ridiculous without exaggeration to begin with (all Championship team are talented). The Celtics had the most talented team in the League all 3 of those years (injuries derailed them in 2009, KG).

Look, I get it, you hate Kobe Bryant and you have a man-crush on LeBron James & your favorite team in the League is Miami so you want to downplay Dwight making the Lakers your biggest challenger. It's cool, no big deal, everyone has their favorites. But at least be reasonable and stop making shit up.

[Cali Syndicate]

The Pistons were relevant for more than just that season, they were relevant for most of the entire 2000's decade but don't let that stop you from making things up about the 2004 Finals. Not that the Pistons relevance has anything to do with this conversation.



First of all, the Pistons entire defensive strategy was based around stopping Kobe Bryant and letting Shaq get whatever he wanted in 1 on 1 coverage against Ben Wallace. The Pistons put Ben on Shaq and asked him to do his best, they did not double team Shaq more than 10 times in that entire Series. What they did do, was put their best perimeter defender, Tayshaun Prince, on Kobe Bryant and the minute Kobe put the ball on the floor to do anything with the basketball at all Chauncey AND/or Rip AND/or whatever other perimeter player that was on the floor at the time came over and surrounded Kobe in a bracket to prevent him from driving to the basket to either get to the rim for an easier shot, get to the FT line from driving and getting fouled or get into the lane to create plays for his teammates (which was also one of Kobe's primary tasks on that Lakers team).

The Pistons focused their defense to prevent Kobe from attacking the basket and creating plays for others, something he did excellently during the Lakers 3-Peat, including getting Shaq plenty of wide open dunks when he would drive down the lane, draw the defense and just drop it right in Shaq's lap when the defense collapsed on him. They never doubled Shaq, which always was one of the ways that the Lakers 3-Point shooters got easy looks. It was a genius strategy by Larry Brown to prevent the Lakers from getting floor spacing, giving Kobe much less room to operate and forcing Shaq to beat the Pistons by himself. It was designed to cut everyone off BUT Shaq and it did exactly that. They bracketed Kobe, which was having the SG/PG stand on either side of Kobe while Tayshaun guarded him, thus not allowing Kobe to go either way around Tay because once he started one way they would step into his driving lane to stop him from getting to the basket.

By bracketing Kobe they cut off the head of the Lakers offense, yes, Shaq was a juggernaut in the paint but Kobe was both the main perimeter scorer but also the teams best and most productive playmaker. Also, doubling a perimeter player makes it easier for the help defender to recover to his man because he has less space to travel to return to his assignment. When Kobe got bracketed, he'd pass it to one of the other perimeter players but the Pistons defense had already recovered so they weren't open, then, because those players were incapable of creating their own shot they simply passed it back to Kobe after the double-team backed off, forcing Kobe into taking shots late in the clock with a long stretched out Tayshaun Prince with a hand in his face.

On top of those role players not being able to create their own shot, the times Kobe did pass them the ball and the Pistons defense hadn't recovered they just simply missed open shots. The support players in that Series were ATROCIOUS on an All-Time bad level. It wasn't until the final Game 5 that anyone on the Lakers not named Kobe or Shaq even scored in double figures. 10 Points, not one player on the Lakers roster was capable of chipping in 10 lousy points in that Series until the blow out Game 5 where Payton ended up breaking into double digits in a game that was basically garbage time before the 3rd quarter even reached it's half way point.

Yet another point to be made about this Series is that you seem to be pretending that Kobe brought the ball up the court as the PG, held the ball for 20 seconds and then jacked up a poor shot. Kobe was not the only player not feeding Shaq the ball, NONE of the Lakers players were feeding Shaq the ball and apparently the genius Phil Jackson wasn't a good enough Coach to get them to (I'm not hating on Phil but it was partly his responsibility to get the other players on the team to feed the ball to Shaq for more than 16 FG attempts, he was simply outcoached by Larry Brown in that Series by a mile). It was not Kobe's fault that the other players weren't willing to feed Shaq in the post either.

On top of all that, the Lakers defense was completely non-existent in that Series. Plain awful. They made a poor offensive team like the Pistons look like the 2000's Suns. The Pistons during that Playoff run would routinely go long stretches without being able to muster much offensive punch but against that Lakers team they looked like a well oiled offensive machine. But guess who was the most consistent Lakers defender in the Series? His name was Kobe Bryant. He gave more effort in the Game 5 blowout on the defensive end than Shaq did the entire Series. His was by far the hardest working defender on the Lakers during that Series.

And, the only game the Lakers won was on a Kobe Bryant game-winning shot. Kobe losing that Series for the Lakers is one of the greatest myths in basketball history. That Pistons team was arguably the greatest defensive team of All-Time and just completely outplayed the Lakers the entire Series, the Lakers, not Kobe Bryant. The defensive strategy the Pistons used against Kobe in that Series is something very few stars could have done much against, particularly primary jump-shooting players like Kobe. And again, Kobe wasn't the only Laker not getting Shaq the ball. Think I might make a thread about this since this claim is so used so often to degrade Kobe even though it's far from the truth and only degrades the Pistons superior effort in the Series.



Bynum is what? 10 years younger? Sure every GM in the League would rather have Bynum, he's he better long-term investment. If you asked every GM in the NBA which player they would want for the 2012 NBA season & Playoffs the answer would be Kobe by a landslide if not unanimously so.



That's a glaring exaggeration considering Bynum is a flake who is inconsistent on both ends of the floor, particularly defensively where he rarely gives maximum effort for 48 minutes.



I never said Bynum wasn't a valuable player but he is not a better or superior player to Kobe Bryant right now. The Team USA example is ridiculous at best, first it's a 3 week Tournament where the team plays what? 10 Games? Who cares? For two, not a single player on that team is giving 100% full effort on every play because they are simply so much better than their competition that they don't have to. Least of all Kobe, who is the oldest player on the team and clearly not giving 100% because he doesn't need to by any means for the team to win. Kobe isn't stupid enough to bother wearing himself down in a almost meaningless Tournament where the outcome has never been in question, the US will win Gold in a fairly easy fashion.



Yet another laughable claim Kobe haters on this board love to make: "Kobe can't win without an All-Time great big man like Pau Gasol." Pau Gasol is not one of the greatest big men of All-Time, which is one of the lame made up excuses to downplay Kobe. Pau was also not anywhere near the best big men in the NBA, ever. Top 3 is even VERY debatable.

The Lakers were not more talented than the Celtics team they beat in 2010, you seem to be pretending that 2012 Andrew Bynum was on that team, he wasn't. Bynum not only barely played that significant of a role on either Championship team (or the Finals team the year before) because of injury but also even if he was healthy he was not nearly the player he is today. Then you have a Top 5 big men in the League, Lamar Odom and an actual cancer, Ron Artest. That team was not the most talented team in the League and neither was the 2009 team (neither was the 2008 team). You're simply exaggerating a point that is ridiculous without exaggeration to begin with (all Championship team are talented). The Celtics had the most talented team in the League all 3 of those years (injuries derailed them in 2009, KG).

Look, I get it, you hate Kobe Bryant and you have a man-crush on LeBron James & your favorite team in the League is Miami so you want to downplay Dwight making the Lakers your biggest challenger. It's cool, no big deal, everyone has their favorites. But at least be reasonable and stop making shit up.

....

[RoseCity07]

Gonna be great watching hackadwight when LA plays OKC. I can just see LA blowing games against OKC because of Dwight, and on the other end KD and Westbrook getting to the line all night. Bynum was a great free throw shooter. That is going to be a problem with Dwight.

[sagr32]

Gonna be great watching hackadwight when LA plays OKC. I can just see LA blowing games against OKC because of Dwight, and on the other end KD and Westbrook getting to the line all night. Bynum was a great free throw shooter. That is going to be a problem with Dwight.Good thing the rest of our core are great FT shooters

[#1SportsFan86]

Gonna be great watching hackadwight when LA plays OKC. I can just see LA blowing games against OKC because of Dwight, and on the other end KD and Westbrook getting to the line all night. Bynum was a great free throw shooter. That is going to be a problem with Dwight.

All OKC needs to do is play Howard one on one...Perkins has already showed he can guard Howard when he was with the Celtics.

[BigMic]

I remember having heard Howard to say he didn't want to be the third option in offense. Now he has KB and Gasol before him and maybe Nash !

It will be a remake of 03-04 :lol

[swag2011]

The Pistons were relevant for more than just that season, they were relevant for most of the entire 2000's decade but don't let that stop you from making things up about the 2004 Finals. Not that the Pistons relevance has anything to do with this conversation.



First of all, the Pistons entire defensive strategy was based around stopping Kobe Bryant and letting Shaq get whatever he wanted in 1 on 1 coverage against Ben Wallace. The Pistons put Ben on Shaq and asked him to do his best, they did not double team Shaq more than 10 times in that entire Series. What they did do, was put their best perimeter defender, Tayshaun Prince, on Kobe Bryant and the minute Kobe put the ball on the floor to do anything with the basketball at all Chauncey AND/or Rip AND/or whatever other perimeter player that was on the floor at the time came over and surrounded Kobe in a bracket to prevent him from driving to the basket to either get to the rim for an easier shot, get to the FT line from driving and getting fouled or get into the lane to create plays for his teammates (which was also one of Kobe's primary tasks on that Lakers team).

The Pistons focused their defense to prevent Kobe from attacking the basket and creating plays for others, something he did excellently during the Lakers 3-Peat, including getting Shaq plenty of wide open dunks when he would drive down the lane, draw the defense and just drop it right in Shaq's lap when the defense collapsed on him. They never doubled Shaq, which always was one of the ways that the Lakers 3-Point shooters got easy looks. It was a genius strategy by Larry Brown to prevent the Lakers from getting floor spacing, giving Kobe much less room to operate and forcing Shaq to beat the Pistons by himself. It was designed to cut everyone off BUT Shaq and it did exactly that. They bracketed Kobe, which was having the SG/PG stand on either side of Kobe while Tayshaun guarded him, thus not allowing Kobe to go either way around Tay because once he started one way they would step into his driving lane to stop him from getting to the basket.

By bracketing Kobe they cut off the head of the Lakers offense, yes, Shaq was a juggernaut in the paint but Kobe was both the main perimeter scorer but also the teams best and most productive playmaker. Also, doubling a perimeter player makes it easier for the help defender to recover to his man because he has less space to travel to return to his assignment. When Kobe got bracketed, he'd pass it to one of the other perimeter players but the Pistons defense had already recovered so they weren't open, then, because those players were incapable of creating their own shot they simply passed it back to Kobe after the double-team backed off, forcing Kobe into taking shots late in the clock with a long stretched out Tayshaun Prince with a hand in his face.

On top of those role players not being able to create their own shot, the times Kobe did pass them the ball and the Pistons defense hadn't recovered they just simply missed open shots. The support players in that Series were ATROCIOUS on an All-Time bad level. It wasn't until the final Game 5 that anyone on the Lakers not named Kobe or Shaq even scored in double figures. 10 Points, not one player on the Lakers roster was capable of chipping in 10 lousy points in that Series until the blow out Game 5 where Payton ended up breaking into double digits in a game that was basically garbage time before the 3rd quarter even reached it's half way point.

Yet another point to be made about this Series is that you seem to be pretending that Kobe brought the ball up the court as the PG, held the ball for 20 seconds and then jacked up a poor shot. Kobe was not the only player not feeding Shaq the ball, NONE of the Lakers players were feeding Shaq the ball and apparently the genius Phil Jackson wasn't a good enough Coach to get them to (I'm not hating on Phil but it was partly his responsibility to get the other players on the team to feed the ball to Shaq for more than 16 FG attempts, he was simply outcoached by Larry Brown in that Series by a mile). It was not Kobe's fault that the other players weren't willing to feed Shaq in the post either.

On top of all that, the Lakers defense was completely non-existent in that Series. Plain awful. They made a poor offensive team like the Pistons look like the 2000's Suns. The Pistons during that Playoff run would routinely go long stretches without being able to muster much offensive punch but against that Lakers team they looked like a well oiled offensive machine. But guess who was the most consistent Lakers defender in the Series? His name was Kobe Bryant. He gave more effort in the Game 5 blowout on the defensive end than Shaq did the entire Series. He was by far the hardest working defender on the Lakers during that Series.

And, the only game the Lakers won was on a Kobe Bryant game-winning shot.

Kobe losing that Series for the Lakers is one of the greatest myths in basketball history. That Pistons team was arguably the greatest defensive team of All-Time and just completely outplayed the Lakers the entire Series. The Lakers, not Kobe Bryant. The defensive strategy the Pistons used against Kobe in that Series is something very few stars could have done much against, particularly primarily jump-shooting players like Kobe. And again, Kobe wasn't the only Laker not getting Shaq the ball. Think I might make a thread about this since this claim is used so often to degrade Kobe even though it's far from the truth and only degrades the Pistons superior effort in the Series.



Bynum is what? 10 years younger? Sure every GM in the League would rather have Bynum, he's the better long-term investment. If you asked every GM in the NBA which player they would want for the 2012 NBA season & Playoffs the answer would be Kobe by a landslide if not unanimously so.



That's a glaring exaggeration considering Bynum is a flake who is inconsistent on both ends of the floor, particularly defensively where he rarely gives maximum effort for 48 minutes.



I never said Bynum wasn't a valuable player but he is not a better or superior player to Kobe Bryant right now. The Team USA example is ridiculous at best, first it's a 3 week Tournament where the team plays what? 10 Games? Who cares? For two, not a single player on that team is giving 100% full effort on every play because they are simply so much better than their competition that they don't have to. Least of all Kobe, who is the oldest player on the team and clearly not giving 100% because he doesn't need to by any means for the team to win. Kobe isn't stupid enough to bother wearing himself down in a almost meaningless Tournament where the outcome has never been in question, the US will win Gold in a fairly easy fashion.



Yet another laughable claim Kobe haters on this board love to make: "Kobe can't win without an All-Time great big man like Pau Gasol." Pau Gasol is not one of the greatest big men of All-Time, which is one of the lame made up excuses to downplay Kobe. Pau was also not anywhere near the best big men in the NBA, ever. Top 3 is even VERY debatable.

The Lakers were not more talented than the Celtics team they beat in 2010, you seem to be pretending that 2012 Andrew Bynum was on that team, he wasn't. Bynum not only barely played that significant of a role on either Championship team (or the Finals team the year before) because of injury but also even if he was healthy he was not nearly the player he is today. Then you have a Top 5 big men in the League, Lamar Odom and an actual cancer, Ron Artest. That team was not the most talented team in the League and neither was the 2009 team (neither was the 2008 team). You're simply exaggerating a point that is ridiculous without exaggeration to begin with (all Championship team are talented). The Celtics had the most talented team in the League all 3 of those years (injuries derailed them in 2009, KG).

Look, I get it, you hate Kobe Bryant and you have a man-crush on LeBron James & your favorite team in the League is Miami so you want to downplay Dwight making the Lakers your biggest challenger. It's cool, no big deal, everyone has their favorites. But at least be reasonable and stop making shit up.


WOW. :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: to a completely neutral nba fan that isn't pro kobe or pro lebron and gave an unbiased analysis. You're rare around here. this post was amazing lol :applause: :applause:

[fpliii]

this is literally a bonafide juggernaut

starters:

top 2 SG at worst in Kobe (who is at worst a top 10 scorer in the league, prolly top 5)

#1 defensive anchor and top 5 big man defender in Dwight

top 5 shooter, and top 3 game manager at worst in Nash

most polished post scorer in the league (Gasol), who is also a solid defender

top 10 perimeter defender (MWP: http://www.82games.com/1112/ROLRTG3.HTM)

bench:

double-double capable reserve big in Jordan Hill

solid scorer in Jamison (who, though he's old, has excelled as a reserve in his career)

might be adding Barbosa, who was solid with Nash

I don't know the status of the rest of their roster, but they have more guys who can contribute I'm sure. Anything short of a championship is a disappointment, and anything less than a long, hard, unlucky series loss vs OKC or Miami will rank among the biggest flops in American pro sports history.

They will only fail if:

(1) injuries are substantial (and I mean, multiple season ending types)
(2) age catches up, fast (possible)
(3) massive chemistry problems (complete incompatibility of Gasol/D12 or Kobe/Nash pairs)

not even Mike Brown can mess this up. I mean, cmon...

[KDTrey5]

:oldlol: this miami bandwagon b!tch acting like he knows the game
:applause:

[INDI]

Defer to Dwight how? Dwight is not an automatic bucket and I'm not sure if that's even his desire to be fed as much as shaq wanted to be fed. Kobe will let Nash playmake and Dwight will have his exact role from Orlando so both will have the opportunity to do they thing.


If you expect Kobe to be a spot up shooter that's wishful thinking and stupid thinking when he is a better scorer. Dang man led the league in scoring last season up until the last game and these cats want him to defer.

If Howard has this amazing scoring ability why did he never lead the league with a roster that was built for him to excel and knock down spot up shooters?

[INDI]

I remember having heard Howard to say he didn't want to be the third option in offense. Now he has KB and Gasol before him and maybe Nash !

It will be a remake of 03-04 :lol

The lakers will force Nash to make Howard the second option. Kobe and Howard will rest seperately and Kobe will retire in 3 years so Howard can have the team to himself.

He'll be fine ( especially after going to the finals for the next three seasons)

[INDI]

Defer to Dwight how? Dwight is not an automatic bucket and I'm not sure if that's even his desire to be fed as much as shaq wanted to be fed. Kobe will let Nash playmake and Dwight will have his exact role from Orlando so both will have the opportunity to do they thing.


If you expect Kobe to be a spot up shooter that's wishful thinking and stupid thinking when he is a better scorer. Dang man led the league in scoring last season up until the last game and these cats want him to defer.

If Howard has this amazing scoring ability why did he never lead the league with a roster that was built for him to excel and knock down spot up shooters?

[nayte]

The Pistons were relevant for more than just that season, they were relevant for most of the entire 2000's decade but don't let that stop you from making things up about the 2004 Finals. Not that the Pistons relevance has anything to do with this conversation.



First of all, the Pistons entire defensive strategy was based around stopping Kobe Bryant and letting Shaq get whatever he wanted in 1 on 1 coverage against Ben Wallace. The Pistons put Ben on Shaq and asked him to do his best, they did not double team Shaq more than 10 times in that entire Series. What they did do, was put their best perimeter defender, Tayshaun Prince, on Kobe Bryant and the minute Kobe put the ball on the floor to do anything with the basketball at all Chauncey AND/or Rip AND/or whatever other perimeter player that was on the floor at the time came over and surrounded Kobe in a bracket to prevent him from driving to the basket to either get to the rim for an easier shot, get to the FT line from driving and getting fouled or get into the lane to create plays for his teammates (which was also one of Kobe's primary tasks on that Lakers team).

The Pistons focused their defense to prevent Kobe from attacking the basket and creating plays for others, something he did excellently during the Lakers 3-Peat, including getting Shaq plenty of wide open dunks when he would drive down the lane, draw the defense and just drop it right in Shaq's lap when the defense collapsed on him. They never doubled Shaq, which always was one of the ways that the Lakers 3-Point shooters got easy looks. It was a genius strategy by Larry Brown to prevent the Lakers from getting floor spacing, giving Kobe much less room to operate and forcing Shaq to beat the Pistons by himself. It was designed to cut everyone off BUT Shaq and it did exactly that. They bracketed Kobe, which was having the SG/PG stand on either side of Kobe while Tayshaun guarded him, thus not allowing Kobe to go either way around Tay because once he started one way they would step into his driving lane to stop him from getting to the basket.

By bracketing Kobe they cut off the head of the Lakers offense, yes, Shaq was a juggernaut in the paint but Kobe was both the main perimeter scorer but also the teams best and most productive playmaker. Also, doubling a perimeter player makes it easier for the help defender to recover to his man because he has less space to travel to return to his assignment. When Kobe got bracketed, he'd pass it to one of the other perimeter players but the Pistons defense had already recovered so they weren't open, then, because those players were incapable of creating their own shot they simply passed it back to Kobe after the double-team backed off, forcing Kobe into taking shots late in the clock with a long stretched out Tayshaun Prince with a hand in his face.

On top of those role players not being able to create their own shot, the times Kobe did pass them the ball and the Pistons defense hadn't recovered they just simply missed open shots. The support players in that Series were ATROCIOUS on an All-Time bad level. It wasn't until the final Game 5 that anyone on the Lakers not named Kobe or Shaq even scored in double figures. 10 Points, not one player on the Lakers roster was capable of chipping in 10 lousy points in that Series until the blow out Game 5 where Payton ended up breaking into double digits in a game that was basically garbage time before the 3rd quarter even reached it's half way point.

Yet another point to be made about this Series is that you seem to be pretending that Kobe brought the ball up the court as the PG, held the ball for 20 seconds and then jacked up a poor shot. Kobe was not the only player not feeding Shaq the ball, NONE of the Lakers players were feeding Shaq the ball and apparently the genius Phil Jackson wasn't a good enough Coach to get them to (I'm not hating on Phil but it was partly his responsibility to get the other players on the team to feed the ball to Shaq for more than 16 FG attempts, he was simply outcoached by Larry Brown in that Series by a mile). It was not Kobe's fault that the other players weren't willing to feed Shaq in the post either.

On top of all that, the Lakers defense was completely non-existent in that Series. Plain awful. They made a poor offensive team like the Pistons look like the 2000's Suns. The Pistons during that Playoff run would routinely go long stretches without being able to muster much offensive punch but against that Lakers team they looked like a well oiled offensive machine. But guess who was the most consistent Lakers defender in the Series? His name was Kobe Bryant. He gave more effort in the Game 5 blowout on the defensive end than Shaq did the entire Series. He was by far the hardest working defender on the Lakers during that Series.

And, the only game the Lakers won was on a Kobe Bryant game-winning shot.

Kobe losing that Series for the Lakers is one of the greatest myths in basketball history. That Pistons team was arguably the greatest defensive team of All-Time and just completely outplayed the Lakers the entire Series. The Lakers, not Kobe Bryant. The defensive strategy the Pistons used against Kobe in that Series is something very few stars could have done much against, particularly primarily jump-shooting players like Kobe. And again, Kobe wasn't the only Laker not getting Shaq the ball. Think I might make a thread about this since this claim is used so often to degrade Kobe even though it's far from the truth and only degrades the Pistons superior effort in the Series.



Bynum is what? 10 years younger? Sure every GM in the League would rather have Bynum, he's the better long-term investment. If you asked every GM in the NBA which player they would want for the 2012 NBA season & Playoffs the answer would be Kobe by a landslide if not unanimously so.



That's a glaring exaggeration considering Bynum is a flake who is inconsistent on both ends of the floor, particularly defensively where he rarely gives maximum effort for 48 minutes.



I never said Bynum wasn't a valuable player but he is not a better or superior player to Kobe Bryant right now. The Team USA example is ridiculous at best, first it's a 3 week Tournament where the team plays what? 10 Games? Who cares? For two, not a single player on that team is giving 100% full effort on every play because they are simply so much better than their competition that they don't have to. Least of all Kobe, who is the oldest player on the team and clearly not giving 100% because he doesn't need to by any means for the team to win. Kobe isn't stupid enough to bother wearing himself down in a almost meaningless Tournament where the outcome has never been in question, the US will win Gold in a fairly easy fashion.



Yet another laughable claim Kobe haters on this board love to make: "Kobe can't win without an All-Time great big man like Pau Gasol." Pau Gasol is not one of the greatest big men of All-Time, which is one of the lame made up excuses to downplay Kobe. Pau was also not anywhere near the best big men in the NBA, ever. Top 3 is even VERY debatable.

The Lakers were not more talented than the Celtics team they beat in 2010, you seem to be pretending that 2012 Andrew Bynum was on that team, he wasn't. Bynum not only barely played that significant of a role on either Championship team (or the Finals team the year before) because of injury but also even if he was healthy he was not nearly the player he is today. Then you have a Top 5 big men in the League, Lamar Odom and an actual cancer, Ron Artest. That team was not the most talented team in the League and neither was the 2009 team (neither was the 2008 team). You're simply exaggerating a point that is ridiculous without exaggeration to begin with (all Championship team are talented). The Celtics had the most talented team in the League all 3 of those years (injuries derailed them in 2009, KG).

Look, I get it, you hate Kobe Bryant and you have a man-crush on LeBron James & your favorite team in the League is Miami so you want to downplay Dwight making the Lakers your biggest challenger. It's cool, no big deal, everyone has their favorites. But at least be reasonable and stop making shit up.

A quick question..If Kobe was double teamed so much why did he average nearly 7 shots more then Shaq, considering Shaq only had single coverage according to your post?IS that not a detriment to your team?
BTW not hating on either player, just curious.
Edit - gotta add congrats to lakers fans, somehow your team has done it again.Its a tribute that you guys can stay relevant time and time again.Commiserations for lebron fans at least for this year.
Unless somehow Rose can get healthy quick and take the bulls to the promised land..ha

[NOHCP3]

Was down with some of it until "negro coach" was mentioned... What the f*ck is this 1952?

Anyway. The only legit thing in there was the Kobe deferring point, but no one is that stupid. Also kind of agreed with the shooters that Dwight was surrounded by in Orlando, not that many great shooters other than Nash in that starting 5

[BabyBull]

This is a real actual juggernaut that makes sense logically to piece together, they have all facets of the game down at an elite level.

It's not a forced superteam like Miami, where they just overpower with talent and not fit.

[Extempo]

http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/zz194/saes329/BarrackObamagif__BarackObamaDidNotRead_d61f7e_3675 033.gif

Same. Who wants to read the "thoughts" of a Miami fan, knowing those bandwagoners and their basketball IQ.

[BlackVVaves]

Miami fans, not only do you have one of your own running rabid with undeveloped basketball "knowledge," but he also throws around racial slurs under the premise "I'm speaking in Spanish guys!"

Extreme Kobe stans prove to be disillusioned, while LeBron fan boys continue to exhibit the insecurity of a traveling business man's house wife, and the intelligence of a termite.

:facepalm

[PyrrhusX]

Anyone else excited for Clippers v Lakers? :bowdown:

[DaSeba5]

Miami fans, not only do you have one of your own running rabid with undeveloped basketball "knowledge," but he also throws around racial slurs under the premise "I'm speaking in Spanish guys!"

Extreme Kobe stans prove to be disillusioned, while LeBron fan boys continue to exhibit the insecurity of a traveling business man's house wife, and the intelligence of a termite.

:facepalm

One guy doesn't represent an entire fan base, so it is what is I guess.

[BlackVVaves]

One guy doesn't represent an entire fan base, so it is what is I guess.

It's still poor representation, nonetheless.

[RIP CITY]

A quick question..If Kobe was double teamed so much why did he average nearly 7 shots more then Shaq, considering Shaq only had single coverage according to your post?IS that not a detriment to your team?
BTW not hating on either player, just curious.

There are several reasons for this, most of which I covered in that post. For starters, outside of Fisher when he was in the game, none of the Lakers supporting cast was dumping it into Shaq down low either. Payton and ironically Kobe were the only other players that periodically would dump it into Shaq. Fisher was the only Lakers player that consistently tried to dump it in to Shaq in the Series but he was a bench player coming in behind Gary Payton.

As I mentioned in that post, alot of Kobe's shots were forced on him by teammates that were incapable of creating their own shot. His teammates often used him as their personal bail out. Anytime the clock would start to run down, the Lakers just dumped it off to Kobe because he was the only player capable creating his own shot on the perimeter. He was also able to run towards them to take the ball on a hand off, where as Shaq had to have position in the post for them to be able to get him the ball.

The Lakers were a half court heavy offense and the Pistons were an excellent transition defensive team so the Lakers would have Payton/Fisher or occasionally Bryant bring the ball up, then, as was usual during that time frame, they would usually do one of two things, dump it into Shaq or give it to Kobe to create something. When they dumped it into Shaq, he would either make his move to score, or when the double came he would kick it out to a open 3 Point shooter. When they gave it to Kobe, usually after passing it around the perimeter casually once or twice, he would begin to make a move to the basket, some sort of pull up jumper off the dribble or draw the defense to kick it out to a shooter/dump it into Shaq if his man came to help.

Larry Brown decided that the Pistons would guard Shaq straight up because it would prevent Shaq from being able to kick it out to those open shooters (again, harder for a player helping on Shaq to get back to his open shooter than it is for the perimeter players to double Kobe and get back to their open man) and of course because Ben was a good enough defender to allow him to stay with Shaq 1 on 1. Ben couldn't stop him but he did a solid job of keeping him from getting really low post position and could at least challenge his shots without always getting overpowered, relatively speaking anyway.

The Pistons were also mixing up their looks on Shaq in the post. They would switch often between having Ben front Shaq in the post and having Ben play just straight one on one defense. Ben would front Shaq in the post with Sheed staying close on the backend (this is not a double-team BTW). This was also another reason why Lakers players weren't passing Shaq the ball as much at times. They rarely tried to exploit the Shaq matchup when the Pistons were fronting Shaq, part of the reason was because most of them were incapable of making a decent lob pass over the top of Ben when he was fronting Shaq (Ben stole a couple of their weak attempts which scared them off even more).

Brown had the Pistons focus on crowding Kobe's path to the basket, which further took away open shots from the rest of the team who were almost entirely spot up shooters, reliant on Kobe's penetration & kicks or Shaq's passing out of a double team. This rendered them basically useless in the Series since not only were they not getting as many open looks but they were not hitting them when they did.

Chauncey and/or Rip would close in on Kobe the minute he started to put the ball on the floor, cutting off his driving angles. He would dribble a foot or two into the double or bracket (Tay guarding, Rip closing on one side, Chauncey on the other forming kind of a 3 player triangle in front of Kobe) and pass it to one of the perimeter players, Rip/Chauncey run back to their man to close out on open shots, they would dribble or pass for a minute to wait for Kobe to be able to get free enough to get the ball back and start the same process over (still mostly ignoring a dump into Shaq in the large majority of cases), by the time Kobe would get free enough for a pass or run towards them for a hand off, the clock is already starting to get low or running down completely, forcing Kobe to either make a quick move to the basket (which again would be closed off by Rip/Chauncey collapsing on him) or pull up for a contested jumper with Tayshaun (who was playing excellent defense on Kobe individually regardless of help) draped all over him, or at least with a hand up in close proximity. Tayshaun's length bothered Kobe the entire Series that way.

And then, admittedly in some of those situations Kobe settled for jumpers alittle too much and did force some shots at times too. Not nearly to the level people claim but he obviously could have shot less. But he was forced to shoot much more often than people claim by his inept teammates... he also increasingly lost confidence in them as the Series wore on because when he did get them open looks his passes were wasted as they were all shooting horribly (alot of them looking shook because when they actually got an open look they were surprised because of how well the Pistons were closing out on them during the Series). Kobe also just flat out missed some shots here and there that he normally would nail because when he did get any kind of good look he, like his teammates was a bit surprised to see the free room in front of him. I don't think it was a coincidence that the best game Kobe had in the Series is the game they won and also the game that he was able to get into the lane the most (though he really was only able to get into the lane in the 4th quarter of that game, which he took over in the final 5 minutes including the game winner).

It was an excellent design by Larry Brown because the Lakers were so reliant on Shaq/Kobe getting their teammates open looks. He said at one point during the Series something along the lines of "We can't stop Shaq no matter what we do, so we'll focus on containing Kobe as well as we can because he creates so much for others when he gets into the lane. We have to live with what Shaq does and just try to limit everyone else." It was a defense set up to stop everyone BUT Shaq, giving no one else open looks and forcing them to either shoot contested jumpers or make Shaq beat them alone. Had the Lakers forced it into Shaq more often maybe the Pistons would have been forced to double-team but none of the Lakers really did, not just Kobe.

Also, a couple of these games were not close at all and Shaq was more likely to be on the bench than Kobe in those cases for whatever reason, you'd have to ask Phil Jackson why that was.

One other point to make, and this is based on rumor, is that there was rumored to be a great divide in the Lakers locker room during the Series. Both Kobe and Shaq wanted to win Finals MVP and both were actively going for it. The team was fractured and at that point the Shaq/Kobe feud was so far gone that teammates in the locker room had basically chosen sides. Some in Kobe's favor, some in Shaq's favor, further splitting the cohesiveness of the offense as some players would defer to which ever player they liked the most. This is speculation however, not sure how factual those claims are.

[Optimus Prime]

The reason LeBron bandwagoners are so mad and scared:

1. LeBron was gifted his ring last year, like DWhistle was in 2006.

2. The Lakers are the team to beat this year and the next few years.

3. Kobe's gonna get 6, possibly 7 and 8 as well.

4. They have the best center in the league who is still young to build around after Kobe and Nash retire.

Deal with it. :pimp:

:kobe:

[riseagainst]

There are several reasons for this, most of which I covered in that post. For starters, outside of Fisher when he was in the game, none of the Lakers supporting cast was dumping it into Shaq down low either. Payton and ironically Kobe were the only other players that periodically would dump it into Shaq. Fisher was the only Lakers player that consistently tried to dump it in to Shaq in the Series.

As I mentioned in that post, alot of Kobe's shots were forced on him by teammates that were incapable of creating their own shot. His teammates often used him as their personal bail out. Anytime the clock would start to run down, the Lakers just dumped it off to Kobe because he was the only player capable creating his own shot on the perimeter. He was also able to run towards them to take the ball on a hand off, where as Shaq had to have position in the post for them to be able to get him the ball.

The Lakers were a half court heavy offense and the Pistons were an excellent transition defensive team so the Lakers would have Payton/Fisher or occasionally Bryant bring the ball up, then, as was usual during that time frame, they would usually do one of two things, dump it into Shaq or give it to Kobe to create something. When they dumped it into Shaq, he would either make his move to score, or when the double came he would kick it out to a open 3 Point shooter. When they gave it to Kobe, usually after passing it around the perimeter casually once or twice, he would begin to make a move to the basket, some sort of pull up jumper off the dribble or draw the defense to kick it out to a shooter/dump it into Shaq if his man came to help.

Larry Brown decided that the Pistons would guard Shaq straight up because it would prevent Shaq from being able to kick it out to those open shooters (again, harder for a player helping on Shaq to get back to his open shooter than it is for the perimeter players to double Kobe and get back to their open man) and of course because Ben was good enough defender to allow him to stay with Shaq 1 on 1, he couldn't stop him but he did a solid job of keeping him from getting really low post position and could at least challenge his shots without always getting overpowered, relatively speaking anyway.

The Pistons were also mixing up their looks on Shaq in the post. They would switch often between having Ben front Shaq in the post and having Ben play just straight one on one defense. Ben would front Shaq in the post with Sheed staying close on the backend (this is not a double-team BTW). This was also another reason why Lakers players weren't passing Shaq the ball as much at times. They rarely tried to exploit the Shaq matchup when the Pistons were fronting Shaq, part of the reason was because most of them were incapable of making a decent lob pass over the top of Ben when he was fronting Shaq (Ben stole a couple of their weak attempts which scared them off even more).

Brown had the Pistons focus on crowding Kobe's path to the basket, which further took away open shots from the rest of the team who were almost entirely spot up shooters, reliant on Kobe's penetration & kicks or Shaq's passing out of a double team. This rendered them basically useless in the Series since not only were they not getting as many open looks but they were not hitting them when they did.

Chauncey and/or Rip would close in on Kobe the minute he started to put the ball on the floor, cutting off his driving angles. He would dribble a foot or two into the double or bracket (Tay guarding, Rip closing on one side, Chauncey on the other forming kind of a 3 player triangle in front of Kobe) and pass it to one of the perimeter players, Rip/Chauncey run back to their man to close out on open shots, they would dribble or pass for a minute to wait for Kobe to be able to get free enough to get the ball back and start the same process over (still mostly ignoring a dump into Shaq in the large majority of cases), by the time Kobe would get free enough for a pass or run towards them for a hand off, the clock is already starting to get low or running down completely, forcing Kobe to either make a quick move to the basket (which again would be closed off by Rip/Chauncey collapsing on him) or pull up for a contested jumper with Tayshaun (who was playing excellent defense on Kobe individually regardless of help) draped all over him, or at least with a hand up in close proximity. Tayshaun's length bothered Kobe the entire Series that way.

And then, admittedly in some of those situations Kobe settled for jumpers alittle too much and did force some shots at times too. Not nearly to the level people claim but he obviously could have shot less. But he was forced to shoot much more often than people claim by his inept teammates... he also increasingly lost confidence in them as the Series wore on because when he did get them open looks his passes were wasted as they were all shooting horribly (alot of them looking shook because when they actually got an open look they were surprised because of how well the Pistons were closing out on them during the Series). Kobe also just flat out missed some shots here and there that he normally would nail because when he did get any kind of good look he, like his teammates was a bit surprised to see the free room in front of him. I don't think it was a coincidence that the best game Kobe had in the Series is the game they won and also the game that he was able to get into the lane the most (though he really was only able to get into the lane in the 4th quarter of that game, which he took over in the final 5 minutes including the game winner).

It was an excellent design by Larry Brown because the Lakers were so reliant on Shaq/Kobe getting their teammates open looks. He said at one point during the Series something along the lines of "We can't stop Shaq no matter what we do, so we'll focus on containing Kobe as well as we can because he creates so much for others when he gets into the lane. We have to live with what Shaq does and just try to limit everyone else." It was a defense set up to stop everyone BUT Shaq, giving no one else open looks and forcing them to either shoot contested jumpers or make Shaq beat them alone. Had the Lakers forced it into Shaq more often maybe the Pistons would have been forced to double-team but none of the Lakers really did, not just Kobe.

One other point to make, and this is based on rumor, is that there was rumored to be a great divide in the Lakers locker room during the Series. Both Kobe and Shaq wanted to win Finals MVP and both were actively going for it. The team was fractured and at that point the Shaq/Kobe feud was so far gone that teammates in the locker room had basically chosen sides. Some in Kobe's favor, some in Shaq's favor, further splitting the cohesiveness of the offense as some players would defer to which ever player they liked the most. This is speculation however, not sure how factual those claims are.

wow nice post, repped.

[DirtySanchez]

wow nice post, repped.
Agreed...long as f!ck but a great read

[DaSeba5]

The reason LeBron bandwagoners are so mad and scared:

1. LeBron was gifted his ring last year, like DWhistle was in 2006.

2. The Lakers are the team to beat this year and the next few years.

3. Kobe's gonna get 6, possibly 7 and 8 as well.

4. They have the best center in the league who is still young to build around after Kobe and Nash retire.

Deal with it. :pimp:

:kobe:

Why are you such an obvious Kobe stan? If Kobe ever went to another team, would you still root for the Lakers? You're just as bad as the LeBron bandwagon fans even if you consider them to be the worst posters here.

[BlackVVaves]

Why are you such an obvious Kobe stan? If Kobe ever went to another team, would you still root for the Lakers? You're just as bad as the LeBron bandwagon fans even if you consider them to be the worst posters here.

This. In fact, this X 10.

[LakersReign]

There are a number of reasons why LA will fail and I LOL when I see this team being compared to the meet up of NBA greats LeBron/Wade/Bosh.

You need to be more worried about how the Heat are going to have to deal with a HEALTHY Wade sharing the ball more with Lebron. He only deferred to Lebron cuz he was injured. With him healthy, how many touches is Ray Allen really going to get? I'd worry about my own team if I were you

[greymatter]

There are a number of reasons why LA will fail and I LOL when I see this team being compared to the meet up of NBA greats LeBron/Wade/Bosh.

I dislike the Lakers as much as anyone else on these boards, but why the insecure butthurt? Your team just won a title. This Lakers team is only built for 1, maybe 2 seasons at most.


-Kobe Bryant. This is 2012. Not 2006, 2008, or even 2010. Kobe can still put up points, but does so in a way that is a hindrance to the team. At age 34 this guy is cancerous. High volume shooting with low percentage shots. Part of LAs problem last year was that Kobes ego was too big to allow him to defer to Andrew Bynum who was a superior player. This guy will no doubt be doing the same thing next year. It is who he is, he is incapable of change. For ****s sake he wasn't willing to defer to a prime Shaq in the 2004 Finals and cost his team a title single handly. Kobe at 34 is just not good enough to be the leader of a championship team and no way he will defer to Howard who is by far the superior player.

Agree with this for the most part. Bynum is more efficient, and should be getting the ball more when he's shooting 70+% late in a close game while Kobe is 3/17. But let's not get stupid calling him "superior". Kobe's still a better player, but he's just a bigger bonehead these days because he can't accept that he's not the player he was 4+ years ago.



-Spacing in the paint. Dwight Howard is an inferior offensive low post threat to Bynum. His footwork just isn't on the same level, and thus he takes longer to get to his spot and make his move. With Orlando it wasn't a problem because they simply surrounded him with 4 three point shooters. In LA his only reliable shooter will be Steve Nash and Gasol will be clogging the paint making it easier to collapse on Howard. Howard is not that good of a passer and this could be problematic.

Yet Howard has shot 60% twice in his career while getting doubled and tripled far more than Bynum ever has in his career. Bynum has better touch and mechanics on his release. You overrate Bynum's footwork. Howard has a far superior back to the backet spin move.


-Steve Nash. Remember how Steve Nash's career jump started when he signed with Phoenix? Yeah, that's because he went to a team thats offense was specifically catered to his skill set. In Los Angeles he will not be the main focal point, the second point, or even the third. Nash will be forced to play with a primary halfcourt team such as he did with Dallas, or even in Phoenix when the Suns catered to Shaq with a halfcourt offense and Nash's stats suffered greatly. He'll be good, but your not getting the MVP or even the 2012 Suns Nash.

Haven't seen him play a single minute yet. Too soon to be making this assumption. He'll be playing with the 2 best pick and roll big men in the game.


-Mike Brown. Just another typical negro coach that is incapable of doing his job. Let's be real, this guy sucks complete ****. Nothing more needs to be said.

In the end this team probably won't even beat the Thunder, let alone my World Champion Heat squad.



Negro? Ah I see. Blacks are better off playing the game rather than working with Xs and Os. :facepalm

[PistolPete44]

So much wrong.
yea , so much wrong

[Screamingdoom]

Wow OP, you a prophet

[talkingconch]

Wow OP, you a prophet
Nothing OP said was right except for spacing/Dwight setting up. Theres nothing prophetic about that, everyone already knows Bynum's offensive game is more detailed.

Useless bump

Nash being out nearly 20 games, Gasol injury, Coach firing and Back-From-Surgery Dwight is what killed the Lakers.

[Kiddlovesnets]

People must be yelling hard at the OP when he made the thread, but now when you look back at it this is just hilarious.
:oldlol:

[sekachu]

[QUOTE=MiamiThrice]There are a number of reasons why LA will fail and I LOL when I see this team being compared to the meet up of NBA greats LeBron/Wade/Bosh.

-Kobe Bryant. This is 2012. Not 2006, 2008, or even 2010. Kobe can still put up points, but does so in a way that is a hindrance to the team. At age 34 this guy is cancerous. High volume shooting with low percentage shots. Part of LAs problem last year was that Kobes ego was too big to allow him to defer to Andrew Bynum who was a superior player. This guy will no doubt be doing the same thing next year. It is who he is, he is incapable of change. For ****s sake he wasn't willing to defer to a prime Shaq in the 2004 Finals and cost his team a title single handly. Kobe at 34 is just not good enough to be the leader of a championship team and no way he will defer to Howard who is by far the superior player.

-Spacing in the paint. Dwight Howard is an inferior offensive low post threat to Bynum. His footwork just isn't on the same level, and thus he takes longer to get to his spot and make his move. With Orlando it wasn't a problem because they simply surrounded him with 4 three point shooters. In LA his only reliable shooter will be Steve Nash and Gasol will be clogging the paint making it easier to collapse on Howard. Howard is not that good of a passer and this could be problematic.

-Steve Nash. Remember how Steve Nash's career jump started when he signed with Phoenix? Yeah, that's because he went to a team thats offense was specifically catered to his skill set. In Los Angeles he will not be the main focal point, the second point, or even the third. Nash will be forced to play with a primary halfcourt team such as he did with Dallas, or even in Phoenix when the Suns catered to Shaq with a halfcourt offense and Nash's stats suffered greatly. He'll be good, but your not getting the MVP or even the 2012 Suns Nash.

-Mike Brown. Just another typical negro coach that is incapable of doing his job. Let's be real, this guy sucks complete ****. Nothing more needs to be said.

In the end this team probably won't even beat the Thunder, let alone my World Champion Heat squad.


Shxt Just got real :bowdown:

[Kews1]

Nothing OP said was right except for spacing/Dwight setting up. Theres nothing prophetic about that, everyone already knows Bynum's offensive game is more detailed.

Useless bump

Nash being out nearly 20 games, Gasol injury, Coach firing and Back-From-Surgery Dwight is what killed the Lakers.

the kobe stuff was pretty on point

[Lebron23]

The reason LeBron bandwagoners are so mad and scared:

1. LeBron was gifted his ring last year, like DWhistle was in 2006.

2. The Lakers are the team to beat this year and the next few years.

3. Kobe's gonna get 6, possibly 7 and 8 as well.

4. They have the best center in the league who is still young to build around after Kobe and Nash retire.

Deal with it. :pimp:

:kobe:


You are really the biggest idiot in this forum. Lakers are officially done. Nice prediction by the op. Jeff needs to unban Rg's account.

[RoundMoundOfReb]

Holy shit. op is a prophet. everything he sAid wAs true.

kobe - true
spacing - true
nAsh - sucked in 3 games under mike brown
mike brown - fired after like 8 games.

[strifed169]

nice