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It was reported a year ago that Bynum's injury is reoccurring. At this point it's not likely he'll play anything close to a full season, wouldn't surprise if he's out of the league in 5 years.
a 10 year career is not super long but its not a "bust" either. i dont think he can handle starters minutes and if he learns how to handle it, i bet he could be a beast off the bench in 20 minutes a game. it would be either that or play 5-7 more half seasons and always wondering when he will go down again.
a 10 year career is not super long but its not a "bust" either. i dont think he can handle starters minutes and if he learns how to handle it, i bet he could be a beast off the bench in 20 minutes a game. it would be either that or play 5-7 more half seasons and always wondering when he will go down again.
Excellent post.
Wow. The Lakers' won in OT last night vs. a sub-par Houston squad....to narrowly avoid their 3rd straight home loss.
Luckily for the Lakers, while the West has a lot of *good* teams, there are few great teams. They should still be able to finish 3rd and certainly no lower than 4th in the west.
It will be interesting down the stretch if they can push for the 2nd seed and thus avoid San Antonio until the finals but their logic is probably that they will have to face SA eventually so no point killing themselves to play them in the WCF instead of the 2nd round.
Wow. The Lakers' won in OT last night vs. a sub-par Houston squad....to narrowly avoid their 3rd straight home loss.
Luckily for the Lakers, while the West has a lot of *good* teams, there are few great teams. They should still be able to finish 3rd and certainly no lower than 4th in the west.
It will be interesting down the stretch if they can push for the 2nd seed and thus avoid San Antonio until the finals but their logic is probably that they will have to face SA eventually so no point killing themselves to play them in the WCF instead of the 2nd round.
i could see the lakers going for the 3rd seed for just that reason. they know they will have to face the spurs so better to do it a bit earlier rather then later and hope for more gas in the tank.
a key to last nights game, look at the minutes.......
hayes and scola played 44 and 41 minutes respectively.
odom 49, GASol 47, kobe 45 minutes. there is no reason the defending champs should be taken to over time with a sub par rockets team missing their biggest star. on top of that it took monster games from all 3 of the lakers players to get that win. i mean how many 20-20 games does odom have, GASol with 26-16, and kobe with 32, 6 rb, 11 assists to squeak by the rockets in over time. kevin martin had 30,4,4 in nearly 10 minutes less then kobe. side note, lakers MADE 10 more freethrows then the rockets, and shot a higher % in 3 and 2 pt fgs yet won by 8 in over time.
i will say it again, the lakers will be gassed out come playoffs time because the schedule just started to get a whole lot harder and no way GASol can handle the minutes after 3 years of long playoff runs with a couple international summers mixed in.
i am looking forward to thursdays game to see where the lakers and spurs are at this moment. i think the score will have similar numbers but the lakers will lose in regulation.
The thing is the Lakers are going to have to push their starters in order to maintain pace the rest of the way. Gasol complained of fatigue a few months ago, how burnt out will he be by April? Kobe is months from his 33rd birthday, how burnt out will he be? Looking at their remaining schedule, the following sticks out:
Feb 3rd: home vs Spurs
Feb 5th: away vs Hornets
Feb 10th: away vs Celtics
Feb 11th: away vs Knicks
Feb 13th: away vs Orlando
Feb 23rd: away vs Portland
Feb 27th: away vs Thunder
Mar 6th: away vs Spurs
Mar 10th: away vs Heat
Mar 12th: away vs Mavericks
Mar 14th: home vs Magic
Mar 20th: home vs Portland
Mar 27th: home vs Hornets
Mar 31st: home vs Mavericks
Apr 1st: away vs Jazz
Apr 3rd: home vs Nuggets
Apr 5th: home vs Jazz
Apr 8th: away vs Trailblazers
Apr 10th: home vs Thunder
Apr 12th: home vs Spurs
Gasol, Kobe, and Odom are gonna get alot of minutes which could wear them out with Bynum being out. Bynum is really the key to their entire season. The kid had a bruised knee and was very sore, thus he didn't play. Also, news of Artest wanting a trade is gonna be another distraction.
Good point about the Houston game. That's a heckuva lot of minutes on the Lakers top guys to eek out a win vs. Houston but I'm thinking they just can't stomach a 3 game home losing streak.
I think the Lakers 1 & 3 spots are a MUCH bigger problem than Bynum. They have NO ONE at those positions of any worth anymore and can't even spell Kobe. At least at the 4-5 positions they can play Gasol and Odom and if Bynum can play 15-20 then he can at least spell them.
There are just holes *everywhere* in this Laker team due to a number of factors.
P.S. No one is taking their bad contracts off their hands. (Artest, Walton etc.) and Artest has a few years left doesn't he? Pretty scary that this might be how the Laker's wind down Kobes remaining high-performance years....struggling with a bunch of sub-par players with longterm cap destroying contracts.
Who in their right mind takes Artest at this stage? At least 5 years ago, you could 'somewhat' justify the baggage when he was a lockdown defender and could score 20. Now...... he'll be out of the league within 2 years. No one should be trying to 'help' the Lakers, they're the damn champions. Let them figure out their issues on their own.
well remember the lakers had nothing of value to offer and got pau gasol for kwame brown and a prospect in marc gasol. marc turned out ok (not equal to his brother though) and kwame is gone gone gone. they also got a pick which i believe they turned into mike conley if i remember correctly so again nothing.
if they can pull that BS off then they can find someone to take walton and/or artest.
i find it funny, people talk about how duncan has logged so many miles, and is fading and cant play to his level anymore. they been saying that for 3-4 years now but people forget kobe is about to be 33 years old, and has logged about 2.5 seasons more minutes then duncan and played like a season and a half more games then duncan. (might be a season i dont remember off hand) but still he is no spring chicken is my point. he has held up well (better then duncan apparently) BUT he will break down eventually and i believe we are already starting to see it some. not a lot but some. i fully expect if the lakers make a long playoffs again, he will not be the same guy this time next year. he will be much more broken down.
lakers are -3.5 over the spurs tonight and an O/U of 195.5 i say spurs cover and take the over.
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