NBA 2012-2013 Season Thread - Page 603

I disagree, I am going to posit that they have peaked as a team. I think young teams keep improving up to a point, and then you need some veteran leadership, both in players and coaches, to get to that next level. Also, I don't think OKC wins a chip with Russell Westbrook as the team's leading shot taker. So, I see them being a very good 50+ win team that doesn't get over the hump in their current incarnation.

i'm with rfx i think okc will get even better. they're going to work hard in the offseason like lebron buckled down last offseason after the loss to the mavericks

they're kinda of like an all shooting team with little post presence vs the lakers which has players that fit the more classic roles. i hope okc plays a princeton style offense. it could work pretty well for them even if they dont have a great passing center type center. not so sure it makes sense for the lakers.

And by the way, the Lakers have what is arguably the best team in the league, on paper. As a friend of mine likes to say, there is only one ball. Kobe is probably one of the top 4-5 players to ever play the game but he has had issues before with star teammates (Shaq) and at the end of the day, anything can happen as Dwight has now shown that he can be as big a baby as anyone. If they decide that they will each sacrifice a bit of their game for the team and do not get injured (particularly Nash and Howard), they will be dominant.

well kobe did mention moving to a princeton offense so that he wont have to do so many isolation plays. also imo the respect he has for nash makes me feel he'd be willing to share the ball a lot more than last season. imo he didnt have that much respect for his teammates last season. also the issues with shaq happened when he was a lot lot more immature. i think they'll be pretty dominant



fuuuuuu can't wait for this shit to start

Kobe is going to be the happiest he's ever been in the league. He's never played with a half way decent point guard, never. Neither has Gasol. The two of them are going to be like pigs in shit.

i'm a big kobe fan, admittedly, and i think one thing that gets lost in all the ballhog bashing is that he's always been in the position of having to be both the shooting guard and the point. Like what was he going to do: let Smush Parker, Jordan Farmar or (blessed be his name) Derek Fisher handle the ball and create? i'm with rambro: this is going to be a real kick for kobe and pau. and i think doubly for pau because he's got someone who can be a consistent rebounder alongside him. when bynum was good, he was very good, but he often elects not to be.

nah way man... this is like when there's a hot girl who's only had assholes for boyfriends finally gets a decent/normal guy to go out with her.... and she doesn't know how to deal with having a normal (non mentally abusive) relationship thats going great... so she finds a way to self sabotage it.

i'm curious how kobe is going to deal with howard (when howard starts doing "howard things" like smiling/not caring after missing free throws losing games in general).

the biggest winner in this trade is pau gasol. he knows how to play perfectly in a point guard centric offense (as evidenced by his national team exploits).

nash will has some really funky game lines this year - something like 8pts 14assist.

the thing i'm afraid of for nash is injuries - if you've watched the suns play from 2010 onward you'll see that nash actually plays something like 30min where they rest him heavily (he sometimes sits out half of the 2nd quarter and even the first 5min of the 4th quarter). this means the lakers back up needs to be competent. also what system will they need to go to when nash is out? will they switch from a pick and roll back to the triangle? there's a ton of stuff to figure out.

also we saw what happened to amare after his back issues (same type of herniated disk syndromes as well as similar surgeries) howard really will need to rely on footwork and avoid the pittfalls of overuse injuries (like subsequent hamstring/back spasms/knee issues/abdominal) that come out with compensating for a weak back following surgery.

I'll call it Heat in game 7

I agree with all of this and especially like the hot girl analogy . It will take the Lakers a year to mesh. I predict OKC over Miami in seven.

^that 2008 team's offense actually wasn't that good. it was a prime KG & co. buying into perfected zone-defense aided by statistical analysis that won them the chip.
same type of defensive strategy applied by the 2011 Mavs.

but thats where the lakers could actually be unbeatable - if they apply great zone defenses they can make up for the liabilities of nash, and kobe (who needs to rest on the Defensive end) and kill using MWP, Howard, and Gasol and have kobe be a defensive free safety in crunch time.

Howard is a complete shithead who i hate to see get rewarded for his asshattery by being placed on a killer team. i look forward to seeing a Lebron-style backlash against him next year...although i expect this to be countered somewhat by Nash's extreme likability so the Lakers won't be as hated as the Heat.