Category: LA Lakers

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LA Lakers

Around the Rim: Kobe takes over, downs the champs


1. L.A. K.O.’s S.A.
San Antonio didn’t have Tim Duncan or Tony Parker in the lineup on Thursday and Kobe Bryant didn’t care. Bean racked up 30 points and seven rebounds in the Lakers 102-97 win over the injury ravaged Spurs. Bruce Bowen, yes the offensively challenged Bruce Bowen, finished with a team-high 22 for the Spurs after scoring a season-high 23 against L.A. in a victory last month. The Lakers have now won four consecutive games, giving them a whole new outlook on the Pacific Division standings as they sit just three games behind the first-place Phoenix Suns. Los Angeles must quickly turn around for a track meet against the Warriors tonight, a team they defeated by 10 points last Sunday. Golden State has slipped in the standings a bit after putting together a nice run following their 0-6 start and should be desperate for a win over their division rivals. Being victorious would give the Lakers only a half game lead for second place in the Pacific.

2. Three wasn’t to be

Just when it was starting to look like Miami was on the rebound, the Gilbert Arenasless Wizards come to South Beach and win by 13, 104-91, snapping the Heat’s only win streak of the year at two games. DeShawn Stevenson led the way for Washington, scoring 26 points while Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood all finished with double-doubles in points and rebounds. The Heat’s starters were stone cold once again as the bench scored over half (46) of the teams points. Shaquille O’Neal’s begging for the ball was completely ineffective as the Diesel put up just six shots in the game for seven points to go with six boards. After the game, Pat Riley sounded like a broken record, publicly blasting his guys for their weak efforts.

There’s no excuses,” Riley said. “There are none. I have none. The players should have none. … Tonight, we didn’t hardly even try

3. Iguodala-dala bill, ya’ll!
Since Gilbert Arenas isn’t on the court at the moment, he’s decided to put on his GM hat and started blabbering about player’s contracts and who’s worth what on his blog. Now, Arenas has a lot to say on the matter, a lot; however, what really jumped out at us was Agent 0’s opinion concerning Philadelphia’s Andre Iguodala.

I know after A.I. left, you were supposed to be that No. 1 guy, but, the way he plays the game, he doesn’t have that. He’s not that type of player. He’s a second guy. An assistant coach told me a great story about him. When he was in Arizona, he said he was like 9-for-11 from the field and he apologized to the team for shooting 11 shots. From that day on, I just called him Scottie Pippen. He’s a Scottie Pippen type of player. A great, overall player. He’s your glue player. You need a superstar and then you need him. So $12 million is good for you. Nothing more and nothing less. Be happy with the $12 million.

Thursday’s Player of the Day: Kobe Bryant vs. San Antonio 38 min, 30 pts (FG: 10-24, 3FG: 1-4, FT: 9-10), 7 reb, 3 ast, 4 stl

Friday’s Game to Watch: New Orleans (14-8) @ Dallas (14-9)
New Orleans is one of the biggest surprises in the West, rushing out to a 14-8 record behind the play of Chris Paul who is averaging 21.5 points, 10.0 assists, 2.8 steals and 4.0 rebounds per game. As of now, only half a game separates these two in the Southwest Division with the NOLA sitting in second place followed the Mavs in third. Big D has gone flat after winning nine of their first 11 games, losing seven games in the last three weeks, including a 112-108 overtime contest with `Nawlins. CP3 was just shy of a triple-double with 33 points, 12 assists and nine boards. While Dallas still has one of the better records in the league, a big time win over their sudden division rival would be huge for the Mavericks’ collective psyche. Of course, the same thing can be said for the Hornets who appear to be legit for the first time since Zo and Grandmama were patrolling the paint.

Buzzer Beater: By now we’re sure that you’ve seen the new NBA self promotion commercials. You know, `NBA: Where amazing happens‘. Well, in case you were getting bored of the original commercials, here’s the league’s latest go-round with the concept.

Of course, the NBA is also `Where some really bad dancing happens‘.

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LA Lakers

Around the Rim: The showdown repeated beatdown in Tinseltown


1. The purple and gold is getting old for GS
The Lakers and Warriors came into Sunday’s game tied for second place in the Pacific Division, but Kobe Bryant exploded in the second half to ensure the tie would break in LA’s favor. Bryant scored 20 of his game-high 28 points in the final two quarters and the Lakers won their third consecutive game, 123-113. Kobe also dished out a season-high eight assists as six other Lakers finished with double-digit points. Andrew Bynum tied his career-high, scoring 20 points to go along with 11 boards and five blocked shots as Los Angeles defeated the Warriors for the ninth consecutive time and the 14th time out of 15 tries. After the game, a disappointed Baron Davis hit the nail on the head.

They’re a big team, and we just got outhustled.

“Somebody for them is always having a career game against us.

Look on the bright side though, B. You guys sure can beat up on the Mavericks.

2. World’s Greatest Bosh

Chris Bosh missed five games with a strained groin and the Raptors proceeded to lose three of those games. Unfortunately for Houston, they had to face a healthy Bosh and ended up dropping their third game in five tries. Bosh was solid in his return, scoring 21 points, grabbing 10 rebounds and blocking four shots. Equally important to the 93-80 home victory for Toronto was their bench production, totaling 45 points and 23 rebounds. For Houston, Tracy McGrady led his squad offensively with 23 points while Carl Landry, playing in just his second career game, led the team in rebounds with seven. We don’t know how on earth a 6-foot-7 rookie outrebounds Yao Ming (six rebounds) in just 10 minutes of action, but it happened. Of course, Landry also picked up five fouls in those 10 minutes while Yao had just one in 38 minutes. But, c’mon, six boards?! He does know he’s 7-foot-6 and weighs over 300 pounds, right?

3. Even slumpbusters need slumpbusters sometimes
There’s no doubt that when a team hits a slump, they start scanning for the Clippers on their schedule. Usually, that’s an easy win. However, when you’re the Miami Heat, there is no such thing as an easy win. It took 35 points and 10 assists from Dwyane Wade, but the Heat escaped Los Angeles with a 100-94 victory, the 1,200th of Pat Riley’s career. But with a 5-15 record, there was probably no champagne corks popping in the locker room celebrating the occasion. After demanding he receive the ball more, Shaquille O’Neal finished with eight points on eight attempts and was thoroughly outplayed by the Clippers’ Chris Kaman (14 pts, 12 reb). Miami hasn’t won consecutive games yet this year and don’t expect this win to trigger a streak either because the Heat will likely get burnt by the Suns tonight.

Sunday’s Player of the Day: Brandon Roy vs. Milwaukee 45 min, 26 pts (FG: 11-13, FT: 4-4), 8 reb, 9 ast, 2 stl, 1 blk

Monday’s Game to Watch: Atlanta (9-10) @ Orlando (16-5)
A few years ago you would have been committed for saying that Orlando and Atlanta were the top two teams in the Southeast Division and playoff bound. Nowadays you can get away with it because Dwight Howard is manning the middle in the Magic Kingdom and the hatchling Hawks are beginning to spread their wings. In addition to having four double-digit scorers, led by Joe Johnson’s 20.5 points per game, Atlanta also possesses the league’s top shot blocker in Josh Smith who is getting over three swats a contest (3.56 bpg). Orlando has slowed down a bit after jumping out to a 9-2 start, but Howard seems to be just heating up. At just 22 years old, the man child has upped his scoring average from 17.6 last year to 23.5 this year and currently ranks first in the league in rebounds (15.0 rpg), second in field goal percentage (61.43%) and fourth in blocks (2.90 bpg).

Buzzer Beater: In case you missed it on Saturday, the Timberwolves upset the Suns. Yes, the Timberwolves. Al Jefferson had a huge coming out party, racking up 32 points and 20 rebounds. Needless to say, the T-Wolves were pretty stoked.

Definitely this season, it’s the biggest of all three of our victories,” Marko Jaric said.

Unfortunately for Marko and the Wolves, he could be saying the same exact thing at the end of the season.

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LA Lakers

NBA Basketball is back and so is the Chuckster’s big ol’ mouth. Yippee!


After news broke of Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson’s little spat the other day, it was just a matter of time before the Round Mound of Rebound weighed in on the situation. Especially considering that the season tips off tonight and Sir Charles just happens to have his weekly forum back. You’re going to have to tune in to TNT to see what he says live, but we already have a pretty good idea of what it might be.

What Phil Jackson said yesterday, that was like they’re at the point of no return now. There’s a point where you know you can make a marriage work, but what Phil Jackson said yesterday, that was the end of it,” Barkley said at a luncheon with fellow studio analyst Kenny Smith.

“That’s the one thing I respect most about Kevin Garnett. Even though he played on terrible teams, there is not a player in the last 10 years who played harder than Kevin Garnett. And that’s the one thing that disappoints me. Phil said that Kobe’s just going through the motions. … And if your coach tells you you’re just going through the motions, that’s pretty much the end of the straw.

“The end of the straw”??? Charles, have you been hanging out with Emmitt Smith again?

But Barkley wasn’t done with the drama in La La Land just yet.

Smith said Bryant broke “etiquette rules” by publicly criticizing teammates during his trade demand. Barkley was harder on Bryant’s actions since camp opened. Bryant skipped practices and games – Barkley called it a “sabbatical” – after Buss said he would consider trading his star, and Barkley blames both of them for creating the situation.

“When Jerry Buss comes into training camp and says they’re going to trade Kobe, Kobe says, All right, I’m going to take a week’s vacation,’ ” Barkley said.

“Jerry shouldn’t have said that. Wasn’t no doubt in my mind (Bryant) was just blowing off games and practice because he was (mad) about what Dr. Buss said. They shouldn’t have said that. He should have went to Kobe Kobe you want to be traded, we’ll try to make it work.’ But the guy’s skipping practices, going through the motions.

Okay, we haven’t even started the season yet and we’re officially sick of the Lakers. Can we just skip the games and go straight to `Where We At?‘

Links:

[AZCentral.com]: Barkley calls out Kobe

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LA Lakers

The rift is growing between the Zen Master and his pupil


The Kobe Bryant saga with the Lakers has been going on for months as the dispute over whether he’s staying or going rages on. Well, after having all off-season to hash this thing out, here we are one day from the start of the regular season and we still don’t know what is going on. What we do know is that Bryant and the Zen Master traded a few shots the other day.

After Kobe Bryant didn’t practice Saturday because of a sprained right wrist, Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson said he expected Bryant to play Tuesday night in the season opener against the Houston Rockets, but he was critical of Bryant, questioning his commitment, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

“Obviously he hasn’t thrown his heart and soul into performing on the floor,” Jackson said, the Times reported. “That hurts me a little bit. . . . He was going to work at this thing and (would) put his full being into this. Right now, he’s having a hard time doing that.”

Bryant shot back with comments of his own.

That (should be) the least of (Jackson’s) concerns or anybody’s concerns,” Bryant told the Times. “You don’t have to worry about that. . . . I’m ready to play. Period. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Bryant didn’t travel to Las Vegas with the team and his status was day-to-day, Lakers spokesman John Black said. Bryant was injured after Utah center Mehmet Okur struck him Tuesday night in an exhibition game in Anaheim.

If Bryant is anything, he’s a baller. We don’t need to go all A.I. on you, but, c’mon, we’re talking about practice. Not a game. Listen, Bryant could be in a coma for 20 years like Rip Van Winkle, wake up and go off for 55 against the Pacers. We gotta agree with Kobe on this one, when you’ve got a roster with Kwame Brown, Maurice Evans, Chris Mihm, Sasha Vujacic and Coby Karl then the last person Jackson needs to be complaining about is No. 24.

Links:

[MSNBC.com]: Jackson questions Kobe’s commitment

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LA Lakers

Is Kobe in or out? Will someone fill us in please?

We’re not even into the NBA season yet and we’ve already heard a variety of stories involving Kobe Bryant.

First, Jerry Buss opened his big, fat mouth after a lot of the summer frenzy died down and told reporters that he “would certainly listen” to any trade offers made for Bryant. Then some crazy LA news outlets started yapping about how Kobe had already cleaned out his locker. Now, we get to actually hear from the Mamba on the situation and we’re more confused than ever about this whole mess.

I don’t know, talk to Mitch and Mr. Buss about that,” Bryant replied when asked if he had played his final game for the Lakers, referring to general manager Mitch Kupchak and the team’s owner. “I’m just getting ready. If I’m here, I’m ready to strap it up.”

My job is to play the game and get ready to play the game,” he said Tuesday. “That’s what I’m doing. I guess people are just intrigued by what’s going on around here. I understand that. I have a job to do. One thing I said at training camp was that I didn’t want this to be a distraction.”

When asked whether he was unsettled by recent events, Bryant said: “It’s our understanding not to bring up the situation and not talk about it. We just wanted to keep things quiet and go about our business. It kind of caught me off guard a little bit.

“We’ve just got to get back to basics and get ready and go from there. It’s my job to play basketball. It’s not my job to worry about what management is doing or this, that or the other thing. I’m going to be ready and let them do their jobs.

Bryant has been sitting out the last couple of practices which is apparently what has all the rumors flowing, but this is getting ridiculous. When Kobe wants out, the Lakers want him to stay. Then the Lakers start talking trade and Kobe wants to play. Geez, we haven’t seen this much contrast in one place since Charlie gave life to Night Man and Day Man.

Links:

[MSNBC.com]: Kobe sits out again, denies cleaning out locker

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LA Lakers

Enjoy it while you can, Phil Jackson might be going fishing soon


Phil Jackson gave lots of advice to Michael Jordan over the years they spent together winning championships and breaking countless NBA All-Stars’ hearts in the process. Now it appears that the Zen Master might be stealing a page out MJ’s personal playbook.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Jackson is considering retirement, again, after the end of this season. Of course, he’s going to wait out the year and see how everything shakes out before he makes the leap. Basically it means that he’s going to have to see where the always indecisive Kobe Bryant ends up after the Lakers drop their first round series to the Suns, again.

We know that Phil is desperate to get that 10th ring as a coach and go out like basketball’s version of Liberace with diamonds on every finger of his hands, but sometimes you’ve just got to know when to fold `em. It’s his legacy and he can do whatever he wants with it, but there’s no way we’d put up with Kobe’s crying as the one man show in LA continues to hover amongst mediocrity. And sorry, but a broken down Jermaine O’Neal isn’t going to bring this franchise back to glory.

We fully expect for Jackson to call it quits after this season, but we’re sure he’ll come running as soon as the next head coaching opportunity for a preassembled, championship caliber team becomes available.

Links:

[CBS2.com]: Phil Jackson Heading To Retirement?

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LA Lakers

Jerry Buss gets slapped with probation for driving drunk


Lindsey Lohan, Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton and Jerry Buss. One of these things might seem like it doesn’t belong, probably the old, wrinkly, funny looking rich guy, but actually all these celebrities share a common thread: they’ve all had to face the music after driving drunk. Even the old, wrinkly, funny looking rich guy.

On Tuesday, Lakers owner Buss pled guilty to drunken driving and got smacked with five years probation, fined $1,900, ordered to attend a first-conviction program and a Mothers Against Drunk Driving course after getting popped with a blood alcohol level of .13 percent. For a billionaire geezer, that’s basically sleeping on the lawn drunk.

Unfortunately, we have no idea what ever happened to the way, way, way younger chick who was riding in the 74-year-old’s Mercedes on the night of the arrest. All we know is that you’d have to be one cracked out, self loathing, alcohol swilling, pill popping, Bret Michaels skank to be riding in Buss’ whip at one in the morning. Wait a minute; Lindsey, Nicole, Paris…where were you last May?

Links:

[SI.com]: Lakers owner gets 5 years’ probation, fined $1,900

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LA Lakers

Its no $4 million ring, but it’s still a pretty hefty bill

Sometimes when you’re Kobe Bryant, being Kobe Bryant just gets a little dull and when that happens, Kobe Bryant simply throws his money around and, apparently, that reminds Kobe Bryant that being Kobe Bryant is pretty freakin’ cool. Like when Kobe Bryant went to the grand opening of a flashy Las Vegas nightclub on Friday and some pathetic poker player, Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari to be exact, tried to act like a baller by throwing down $2,800 for two bottles of Cristal champagne. That’s $1,400 apiece for all you non math majors out there. Well, Kobe Bryant wasn’t gonna get punk’d like that.

According to sources inside the club, Kobe wasn’t about to be shown up by some puny little card player — and kicked in for five bottles. Antonio, who’s used to upping the ante, then switched his order to ten! Go big or go home!

Kobe ended the competition when he purchased an astounding 15 bottles — and then left the club!

15 bottles! Who needs 15 bottles? Wait, they must have confused David Hasselhoff with Kobe Bryant. Easy mistake.

Links:

[TMZ]: Kobe’s $21,000 Bubbly Bill

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LA Lakers

The Kobe Bryant video is out and we feel cheated

It’s hard to believe any of the reports that you hear about Kobe Bryant anymore. One minute he wants this, the next minute he wants that; but the one thing we do know is that Bryant has a dirty potty mouth.

We know that L.A. is still trying to keep their cornerstone, but now that the Kevin Garnett trade has fallen through and the Lakers have reportedly turned their attention toward an injury prone Jermaine O’Neal, there’s only one way to make Bryant a winner again: “Ship his ass out!”

Links:

[Our Book of Scrap]: The Full “Kobe Rips The Lakers” video

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LA Lakers

$1.99 to see Kobe rant against the Lakers organization?


I know that pretty much everything is wide open in the sports blogging world but the owners of “The Kobe Video” seem so shady. While they purportedly have been offered “a lucrative offer” to destroy the tape, they feel to need to make it public because information wants to be free… or $1.99.

The big story in the tape apparently is that Bryant rips on the Lakers organization for not trading for Jason Kidd because they wanted to bold onto Andrew Bynum. OK cool. And Kobe probably curses and bunch and talks about all the assholes in the Lakers organization. For this, I’m supposed to part with $2? Especially since someone will watch the video and post it or the transcript of it anyway?

What I’m afraid of is that these opportunists will actually benefit from this and then athletes will no longer talk to fans candidly for fear of being videotaped and posted on the internet.

The video was taken around June 10th which means it’s already old news. I don’t know what it is but it just seems like this is a mildly interesting story that’s getting a lot of play for no reason. And these guys are trying to make a cheap buck out of it. I don’t begrudge people who try to make a fast buck but it should be at least clever or amusing. This is just a guy talking to Kobe while Kobe was clearly agitated about his situation. I’m not here to defend Kobe but this whole thing is cheap.

Here’s an interesting take on the Kobe video on Sports Law Blog.

Links:
[Lakers Blog]: Obviously, there are worse “amateur videos” to pop up in
[Hoops World]: Lakers: Video – Bryant Frustrated