We needed this

[That Nicka]

First of all... No one expected us to make it this far at the start of the season... Even after we got Pau Gasol no one expected us to make it to the finals... But we breezed through the western conference and beat 3 good teams. And then got our asses handed to us in the Finals.

But now we know what it takes to get here and we will be back. And one thing we can say that most teams cant is that we will be better next season. This will just make the next one that much sweeter. And you all know there will be a next one.

The fair weather fans are off the boat the the real Laker fans never die! Cant wait til next season, we will show all the haters and doubters what we can do at full strength.

GO LAKERS!!!

[iamworthy]

First of all... No one expected us to make it this far at the start of the season... Even after we got Pau Gasol no one expected us to make it to the finals... But we breezed through the western conference and beat 3 good teams. And then got our asses handed to us in the Finals.

But now we know what it takes to get here and we will be back. And one thing we can say that most teams cant is that we will be better next season. This will just make the next one that much sweeter. And you all know there will be a next one.

The fair weather fans are off the boat the the real Laker fans never die! Cant wait til next season, we will show all the haters and doubters what we can do at full strength.

GO LAKERS!!!

I agree 100%

[Bulls_Dynasty6]

You guys definitely overachieved this year. You have a bright future ahead otherwise. You weren't ready to win this series.

As MLK once said, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

Lakers will grow from this loss and win more championships than the Celtics do it the next 5 years when it's all said and done.

[milesfides]

Thanks, glad to see other fans appreciate what our team did this year.

Very classy, thanks again.

[dockingsched]

what a season. it was a lot of fun. can't wait for next season to start, a nice change from this prior off-season and all the turmoil.

[DEEP3CL]

Agreed.

Mission in the off season get a true 3 man. Lamar has to go period enough is enough time is up LO.

Drew comes back a BEAST.

[Dr Aki]

seeing as we weren't an elite team when bynum went down and only after the pau trade did we become favourites to win the west

going down to boston 4-2 in the finals

can this season still be classified as a success??

[Throwback24]

You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.

Richard Nixon.

[Dr Aki]

obviously we're not satisfied

but given the circumstances surrounding the lakers in the pre-season, with lakers being a team with little hope of getting past the 1st round and your superstar demanding a trade

if you asked me if i would take a finals loss at the championship round, id say where do i sign up??

[dockingsched]

can't wait for pau to be defended the other team's smaller big man. you'll see that soft label disappear in a nano second.

[Heyvoon24]

Despite this embarassing loss, I'm still proud of my Lakers. They grew a lot from this and have learnt a lot about themselves and what they need to work on this summer. Remember, we did all of this without our young center beast in the making, Andrew Bynum.

Lakers for life.

[That Nicka]

We just werent hungry enough... We werent ready yet... KG, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen all made it to the conference finals before in their career while Pau Gasol had never won a single playoff game before this season. Lamar never got past the 2nd round. Farmar, Turaf and Sasha had never won a playoff series.

We have gained the one thing we couldnt earn through practice and regular season games. We have gained playoff experience. Not only that, but championship level experience. We will make it back, and we will be ready.

[Dr Aki]

itd be fantastic if some of those guys could rebound like kobe did minus the attitude

[Gek]

You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.

Richard Nixon.

So kobe should cut himself?

I'm proud of our team, upset they lost, don't know any laker fan who is truly happy, but I agree. This experience to our young, rowdy team will mean a lot for their progression. Even Pau, hell, especially Pau. Lakers 2009.

[That Nicka]

This is the fastest I have EVER wanted the next season to start

[tkb]

Getting Bynum back is like making the Finals and then getting the nr 1 overall pick in the lottery. If we work hard to improve the roster this summer, we'll be awfully tough to beat next year.

[milesfides]

^Thanks to the Lakers, next season will start faster than it has in five years.

Training camp starts in a little over 3 months.

Team USA in the Beijing Olympics should tide us over in the meantime. And as much as it hurts to see the Celtics win the NBA championship, it would be awesome to see Kobe and co. represent our entire country, lifting gold medals rather than the o'brien, and redeeming USA basketball and regaining world dominance in the sport.