No Time Like Showtime

Theoretically possible that it’s also six days until this.

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 03:13:23 -0400

Theoretically possible that it’s also six days until this.

And six days until this.

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 03:12:57 -0400

And six days until this.

Six days until this.

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 03:12:22 -0400

Six days until this.

Darvin Ham profile

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:27:11 -0500

Darvin Ham profile:

Somehow I missed that Darvin Ham was an assistant coach on the Lakers.

"I guess people think Grant Hill is a good player or whatever, but guarding Kobe he looks so old you..."

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:00:39 -0500

“I guess people think Grant Hill is a good player or whatever, but guarding Kobe he looks so old you feel like he should be wearing gym shorts on the outside of his sweat pants.”

- Dexter Fishmore

Andrew Bynum is still awesome

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 16:16:29 -0400

Andrew Bynum is still awesome

"… it appears as if Jim Buss (son of owner Dr. Jerry Buss) is calling the shots —..."

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 01:40:29 -0400

“… it appears as if Jim Buss (son of owner Dr. Jerry Buss) is calling the shots — reaching deep into his long and storied career of being Dr. Jerry Buss’ son to pounce on and act upon his basketball instincts.”

- Kelly Dwyer, Brian Shaw is far from happy with his last days in Los Angeles, Ball Don’t Lie, July 18, 2011.

I like that “reaching deep” part.

"As I tweeted yesterday, I’m starting to get annoyed at how hard NBA owners and the Players..."

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:54:18 -0400

“As I tweeted yesterday, I’m starting to get annoyed at how hard NBA owners and the Players Association seem to be working to manage their public image during the lockout, as opposed to how hard they appear to be working to come to some sort of agreement that will bring back basketball.”

- Scott Carefoot, NBA owners’ demands on player salary reductions: Are they really ‘Draconian?’, The Basketball Jones, July 7, 2011.

Scott Carefoot apparently has some knowledge the rest of us don’t about what negotiations are and are not happening between the NBA and the union, who is talking to whom, who is on the phone chatting about what, and so forth. I mean, if he didn’t have this knowledge, he couldn’t be complaining about how hard the sides are working to make a deal, could he? Could he?¹

And yes, he says “appear”. I don’t care. It’s a weasel word. It doesn’t count. ↩

"Unfortunately, this never materialized, as Blake shot just 37.8 percent from distance, a notable dip..."

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 03:12:47 -0400

“Unfortunately, this never materialized, as Blake shot just 37.8 percent from distance, a notable dip from his career .391 mark.”

- Andy Kamenetzky, Offseason needs: Outside shooting, ESPN Land o’ Lakers, June 3, 2011.

Forgive me for this, because I try not to be this hard on people, but that’s fucking idiotic. Blake made 73 threes on 193 attempts this year. Do you know how many he would have needed to make to hit 39%? 76. The difference between Blake’s disappointing season and the season the Lakers were expecting was three three-pointers. Three. How many inches did he miss those three threes by total?

(This is leaving aside the fact that the “career .391 mark” is his career percentage now, so it includes the .378 he shot this season. If L.A. was setting expectations based on his career shooting, they were doing it by his percentage coming into the year. That’s not quite as dumb as the above, but it’s sloppy.)

Matt Barnes re-upped with the Lakers

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 04:24:38 -0400

Matt Barnes re-upped with the Lakers:

I’d missed this news before, and as much as Barnes struggled after his knee surgery, I’m glad to see him exercise his option with L.A., if for no other reason than from a fan perspective — I like watching him play and I like rooting for him. (I was also attending my first ever Lakers game on the night he got hurt, so I hope to make it up to him by attending a triple-double next season.)

"As a Dallas Cowboys fan, I can tell you the transition from Phil Jackson to Brown will likely mirror..."

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:26:16 -0400

“As a Dallas Cowboys fan, I can tell you the transition from Phil Jackson to Brown will likely mirror the one that occurred when Bill Parcels was replaced by Wade Phillips. Bill controlled a presser like few of his peers could and Wade was not in that league. At all. Following up a man that understood how to work the media with one that gave bland or straight to the point answers wasn’t easy for Wade and it was a criticism that endured through his entire tenure with the Cowboys.”

- Darius Soriano, I’d Rather Win Games Than Win Press Conferences, Forum Blue and Gold, 5/31/11.

This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my whole entire life. (Lakers Division.)

"Unlike any other league, success in the NBA lasts due to a partnership between management, coaching..."

Sun, 29 May 2011 21:22:53 -0400

“Unlike any other league, success in the NBA lasts due to a partnership between management, coaching and the players.”

- Is there any reason at all to think the first four words of that quote are true? (From “wondahbap” at Silver Screen and Roll.)

Andrew Bynum > Dwight Howard?

Sun, 29 May 2011 19:10:42 -0400

Adrian Wojnarowski wrote on Thursday that Jim Buss has put the “untouchable” tag on Andrew Bynum, presumably even if Bynum could bring Dwight Howard to L.A.

It could be a long 30 years in L.A.

"This guy, he never levitates."

Sun, 29 May 2011 18:33:54 -0400

“This guy, he never levitates.”

- So says Bernie Bickerstaff about Mike Brown. You can’t tell me how happy I am to hear that the Lakers’ new coach is not a fucking mystical being.

Mitch Kupchak: “We Needed a New Voice”

Thu, 26 May 2011 21:30:28 -0400

Mitch Kupchak: “We Needed a New Voice”:

Haha, look at adorable Mitch Kupchak pretending he had any say at all over who the head coach would be.

John Krolik on Mike Brown

Wed, 25 May 2011 14:29:55 -0400

The Brothers K give John Krolik some space to talk about Mike Brown, New Lakers Coach, and how he’ll fit with L.A.’s personnel and philosophies. I have to say that I’m calming down a little bit.

The main concern everyone has is that Brown is a terrible offensive coach, but Krolik says that Brown actually ran a good, imaginative, fluid offense when he had the personnel to do so. When his backcourt was Larry Hughes and Eric Snow, his reputation was built, and he couldn’t shake it down the road. Looking at the team’s offensive efficiency numbers in 2009 and 2010 (4th and 6th in the league), I buy this.

On the flip side, the vaunted Cavalier defense should be perhaps be, um, unvaunted a bit. They weren’t bad, certainly (3rd and 7th the last two seasons), but their low points-allowed totals were driven in no small part by their glacial pace (25th in both seasons). Obviously this plays into the perceptions of their offensive ability as well — you can score 1.11 points per possession, but if you’re only running 90 possessions in a game, your total points won’t look very impressive.

The fourth question, unfortunately, and overlapping with some of the stuff the A’s are dealing with right now, is the respect issue. Kobe Bryant certainly lobbied for Brian Shaw as the next Lakers coach, so pulling in a big outside name who LeBron clearly soured on over the course of his time in Cleveland is risky. How well the Lakers run whatever offensive system Brown institutes (or keeps, if he decides to keep running the triangle) depends largely on Kobe’s buy-in. If Bryant feels that the team isn’t utilizing its resources correctly, he might end up freelancing, and that only creates a vicious cycle, because then reporters start asking questions about whether Kobe, who just took 29 shots in a close loss to a mediocre team, is breaking the flow too much. If Brown doesn’t rein that tendency in, L.A. will go nowhere, especially given Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol’s propensities to get frustrated with a lack of touches. But if Brown calls Kobe out in the media as Phil Jackson would do from time to time, particularly if he does it without the adroit blend of brutal honesty and delicacy that Jackson often displayed, and particularly if Kobe is already feeling sour towards Brown, a bad situation could take a hard right turn to horrible.

All that said, Kobe is, whatever his occasional petulance, a professional. So is Mike Brown. If the coaching staff comes in to training camp with a working offense and a plan for how to take the team to the top, I think he’ll buy in, regardless of where Brian Shaw is working. (And I can’t imagine that’ll be in L.A.)

MIKE BROWN?!

Tue, 24 May 2011 22:29:55 -0400

MIKE BROWN?!:

Say it ain’t sooooooooooo

Hooray! Lakers trade ideas!

Tue, 24 May 2011 21:43:56 -0400

In this piece at Silver Screen and Roll, it is proposed that the Lakers give up Pau Gasol and get back a package headlined by Dorell Wright or send Lamar Odom for Marvin Williams or Tyrus Thomas. I clearly don’t understand basketball.

L.A. coaching search

Tue, 24 May 2011 20:06:02 -0400

I am excited that the Lakers coaching search appears to be coming to a quick conclusion, mainly because I hope and believe they’ll actually make a wise choice (Shaw, Person, Adelman) and not a ridiculous one (Brown, Dunleavy). If nothing else, the odds are in their favor, right? Sixty percent chance of a non-stupid selection!

Luke Walton's shot selection

Tue, 24 May 2011 19:39:57 -0400

(I have a Lakers tumblr now. I could put this on Blogger, I guess, but I like tumblr so much more as a simple interface, and I doubt I’ll be doing long game writeups and whatnot. I’m sure I won’t use it much, but this seems like a better idea than five- or six-tweet rants that take up your entire timeline, and my NBA predictions, e.g., didn’t really feel in-place over at The Woj.)

Of all the things to criticize Luke Walton about, I didn’t think his shot selection was on the list. I suppose it’s possible that Walton can be criticized on this front, but I think it would take more research than I’m willing to give it at the moment. My perception is that, if anything, Walton was too unwilling too shoot. Now, this is also a shot-selection issue, but it’s not really what we tend to mean by a shorthand critical mention of “shot selection.”

Walton didn’t actually make any shots this year, but I don’t think he took bad ones. He just missed a ton of wide open jumpers that NBA-level wings are supposed to make.