LA Lakers Hire Mike D'Antoni

[Tornicade]

Obviously D'Antoni is just riding the coattails of the genius which is Bernie Bickerstaff ... :/

or the presence of dwight howard allowing kobe going from volume scorer to keep his team in the game an efficient one that throws the death punch

 

[Jon]

The Lakers have so much talent even with Nash down, they can do whatever the heck they want ... it's clear what they wanted was to shove the Mike Brown hire down Jimmy Buss's face. They sabotaged him.

 

[Birdy89]

Kobe truly is amazing.

He is averaging 27/5/5 on 53% shooting in his 17th NBA season so far.

When you consider all the extra miles he has logged both regular and post (220 games....almost 3 seasons worth of games) season that he is still playing at this high a level is extra-ordinary.

 

[CleveRocks]

Um, they lost to Sacramento. while they danced through an easy stretch of games, they have yet to beat a decent team. what they have is Miami Light.

 

[CavsRules]

There are many many matchup challenges for the lakers in the league. Without Nash they are not better than a 500 team. So far they have managed to beat Detroit, Golden State and Sactown, all of whom will be in the lottery again this year. The only team of worth they have played is San Antonio, which they lost to inspite of ridculous efficiency from Kobe and Dwight. I personally dont see them getting past the second round in the playoffs, and in fact they might be struggling to get there if they have any further injury problems to Nash, Howard or Kobe, because the rest of their squad is right there with our bench.. And yes Memphis will wreck them, but then again, the way they are playing right now, Memphis can wreck anyone.

This is what we were saying about the Miami Heat when they first started playing, after every loss we'd point out the major flaws they had. The Lakers have their flaws, even with the star-studded lineup, but let's not kid ourselves here. They have the best team in basketball talent-wise, and a decent head coach once he gets his system installed and things get rolling. Its so early in the season that you can't make any statements right now about this team and think anybody would take them seriously.

I think one of the major issues D'Antoni and the Lakers will have to overhaul will be getting Dwight Howard involved. There isn't one player in this league that can stop that man one on one, so getting him 20+ touches should be something they need to do nightly. Yes Kobe Bryant needs to get his, but those two should be getting the majority of the touches offensively. Steve Nash will have his way with defenses considering the pressure will be on Howard and Bryant, thus allowing him to get his touches as well. Throw in Gasol and Ron Artest getting the rest of the touches, and the offense generally will workout itself. But the key for them will be to get Howard going, early and often.

Once we get past the all-star break, I believe we will be looking at a much different Laker squad than we're seeing now and for the rest of the first half of the season.

 

[Mdog1]

This is what we were saying about the Miami Heat when they first started playing, after every loss we'd point out the major flaws they had. The Lakers have their flaws, even with the star-studded lineup, but let's not kid ourselves here. They have the best team in basketball talent-wise, and a decent head coach once he gets his system installed and things get rolling. Its so early in the season that you can't make any statements right now about this team and think anybody would take them seriously.

I think one of the major issues D'Antoni and the Lakers will have to overhaul will be getting Dwight Howard involved. There isn't one player in this league that can stop that man one on one, so getting him 20+ touches should be something they need to do nightly. Yes Kobe Bryant needs to get his, but those two should be getting the majority of the touches offensively. Steve Nash will have his way with defenses considering the pressure will be on Howard and Bryant, thus allowing him to get his touches as well. Throw in Gasol and Ron Artest getting the rest of the touches, and the offense generally will workout itself. But the key for them will be to get Howard going, early and often.

Once we get past the all-star break, I believe we will be looking at a much different Laker squad than we're seeing now and for the rest of the first half of the season.

Isn't that funny that I don't particularily remember Miami being 1-4 or whatever the Lakers were before firing Brown... Now they're back to .500 and they're the best team in the league? Give me a god damned break people they're a bunch of old players, and a young stud coming off of back surgery. This is nothing like Miami what so ever.

And Kobe's having a good season 12 games in... If he keeps it up he may shoot 50%...

 

[Jon]

Isn't that funny that I don't particularily remember Miami being 1-4 or whatever the Lakers were before firing Brown...

The Heat weren't trying to get their coach fired. Wade actually liked Sploestra and convinced the other guys to give him a fair shake.

The Lakers season started when they got Brown fired and enters phase II when Nash returns.

Yes, it's way too early to call them the best team in the league and their age is a problem, but they do have a disgusting level of talent.

 

[Pioneer10]

They're defense is going to be awful against any PG's. Getting Nash back isn't going to help them against that: in fact it will probably worsen it.

 

[Jon]

They're defense is going to be awful against any PG's. Getting Nash back isn't going to help them against that: in fact it will probably worsen it.

But at least D'Antoni has the solution to that problem.... Score More Points!!!

 

[KI4MVP]

They're now 1-3 since D'Antoni took over after their 79-77 loss tonight (Kobe had a triple double, 40 points, 10 rebounds, 10 turnovers)

 

[Jon]

They're now 1-3 since D'Antoni took over after their 79-77 loss tonight (Kobe had a triple double, 40 points, 10 rebounds, 10 turnovers)

Ruh roh, they better put Bickerstaff back in charge.

 

[gnu16]

They need to wait til D'Antoni goes to 1-4.

 

[Mdog1]

The Heat weren't trying to get their coach fired. Wade actually liked Sploestra and convinced the other guys to give him a fair shake.

The Lakers season started when they got Brown fired and enters phase II when Nash returns.

Yes, it's way too early to call them the best team in the league and their age is a problem, but they do have a disgusting level of talent.

I remember there being tons of articles about LeBron trying to get Spoelstra fired so Riley would take over... No LeBron never gave Spoelstra the Kobe Bryant death stare, but it doesn't mean he wasn't trying to get him fired.

 

[Ohio]

On a somewhat related note, it is pissing me off watching Dwight shoot sub 50% from the line after what he did to us in the ECF.

 

[STAT]

All the talk of +/- in Tristan Thompson thread led me to browse most of the league.

Kobe's +/- is +24.3

Dwight's is -13.9

How long before Kobe absolutely chews him out to the media? I'm excited for this one.