Upon reviewing my post from last night, I realized I need to give credit where credit is due.
Kobe was incredible. 34 points, eight rebounds, six assists on 11 of 18 shooting is a great performance. Some of the shots he hit were just mind-boggling. And he did it without alienating his team by trying to do it all himself. My knock of Kobe has never been that he doesn't have the skills... in the past, I've criticized him for taking bad shots and not playing smart.
Seems he's fixed that.
Other thoughts:
Deron was 5-5 from the 3-point line on the night. Three of them came in the last 30 seconds of the game. Uh, Deron? Maybe you could have shown some of that when it mattered.
If the Lakers win another NBA championship this season, they should be required to ship the trophy to Memphis. The Gasol for Kwame trade would have been vetoed in every fantasy league in the country if someone had tried to pull it off. I know Pau isn't exactly dominating this series (20 and 5 last night), but he does a lot for the team.
1. Now Lamar Odom is the third option on the team and not the second one. He's MUCH more comfortable in that role, as evidenced by him going off for 19 and 16 on 7-10 shooting.
2. The Lakers can now effectively play an inside-out game where if Kobe is double-teamed, he can kick it in to Gasol for an easy bucket, and vice versa. Before the trade, L.A. couldn't do that.
3. Gasol's post presence also allows the Lakers' shooters to get more wide-open looks, ie. Fisher, Vujacic, Walton, Radmanovich.
It was the trade of the decade, in my opinion. I was discussing it with a friend of mine, and he suggested that maybe there needs to be some kind of veto system for trades in the league. Maybe a rule where if 80% of the owners are against a trade, David Stern doesn't let it go through.
Problem is, Stern's ecstatic that the Lakers and Celtics are back on top (through questionable trades). He just about said as much on TNT last night before the game.
So I don't ever see it happening. I'll just add it to the list of ideas that would be good for the league that Stern will never consider. He's too busy fixing broken replay rules, I guess.
3 comments:
With Gasol, Bryant, Odom, and Bynum, who could easily play together at a high level for the next five years, the rest of the league is left to just hope that the team disintegrates from within. Seriously, the Jazz are a decent, top-third of the league team, but they look pretty silly out there. The Lakers get everything they want on offense and fill the paint on defense. The only thing that can stop LA is LA for the next half decade.
I can see players possibly deciding they want to go somewhere and get a few more points (like Marion) or more money, especially Bynum if he gets greedy. But if they can focus on winning instead of money or press, they can dominate the league. I like that, except it means Utah won't be in the finals again any time soon.
Oh, I'm fully aware of this. I plan to whine about it in a blog post later today.
If 80% of them vote, then they'll probably all say no so no teams can have a more talented player.
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