RealGM

Dave McMenamin


http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/lakers/post/_/id/37129/division-preview-clips-set-to-stay-on-top

LOS ANGELES LAKERS
2012-13 record: 45-37
If absorbing Dwight Howard’s departure wasn’t enough for the Lakers to digest, the best three players remaining on the roster -- Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash and Pau Gasol -- all enter the new season with serious health questions. How will Bryant respond to Achilles surgery as a 35-year-old? Will Nash, at 39, be able to keep his body on the floor through the rigors of an 82-game season? Is there anything left in those 33-year-old knees belonging to Gasol? And is Mike D'Antoni the right man to try to keep it all together? Still, the Lakers trudged ahead without Howard, making a couple of high-talent, low-budget pickups while maintaining their coveted cap space for the summer of 2014.

A Scouts take:

"I don’t expect them to be a strong defensive team. They’ve got a lot of older, veteran guys. I just don’t know that that’s the strength of Coach D’Antoni. I think he’s a tremendous offensive coach and I know his philosophy is, ‘Well, if we outscore the opposing team then we’ve played good enough defense.’ He’s basically said that in the past."

" "I do expect the Lakers to be competitive again. I think they’re a playoff-caliber team. I don’t know if they’re going to be one of the top-tier teams in the West."

Executive take:

"Dwight being gone, it hurts you from a talent standpoint, but it might help from a chemistry standpoint -- just from the outside looking in. If you have Nash and Pau both healthy and Kobe is anywhere near 100 percent, I think they’ll see more rhythm with that offense."

" "I think Nick Young will be a good addition off the bench for them, if they bring him off the bench, give them some punch."

" "I don’t know if they have the depth to contend for a top five or six seed in the West, and if Kobe is not anywhere near 100 percent, I think it could be a challenging year for them."

Lakers 2013-14 prediction: 44-38

The obvious opinion out there seems to be how the team success is gonna all ride on what level of basketball Kobe will be able to play at this season. Same goes for Gasol and Nash as well. The F.O. did their part with little $ available to offer this offseason. Its a pretty solid breakdown of the division

I'd be happy with 44 wins

SlavaMedvedenko wrote:I'd be happy with 44 wins

For all the question marks we have going into the season that sounds about right. I just hope we find a way to as close to 50 wins as possible

... as long as our win is more than our loss then it's ok for me ... ^_^

Clippers are easily the favourites, their lineup is stacked. However, I think we'll match up better with them next season than we did last season.

Caron Butler always destroyed us last year and our big lineup could never matchup with the athletic bigs on the Clippers. I'll take Jordan Hill's defense on Griffin any day and Gasol can keep Jordan in check. Clippers will also have Reddick or Dudley on Kobe, and those guys don't scare me.

Bledsoe > Collison too.

Tiesto_Lakers wrote:Clippers are easily the favourites, their lineup is stacked. However, I think we'll match up better with them next season than we did last season.

Caron Butler always destroyed us last year and our big lineup could never matchup with the athletic bigs on the Clippers. I'll take Jordan Hill's defense on Griffin any day and Gasol can keep Jordan in check. Clippers will also have Reddick or Dudley on Kobe, and those guys don't scare me.

Bledsoe > Collison too.

Damnnnn I forgot they landed Collison also. Man how they plan to dish out those minutes next season. They got alot of names on that roster.

SlavaMedvedenko wrote:I'd be happy with 44 wins

agreed
i project them to have around 41 /.500
any extra would be a bonus

Tiesto_Lakers wrote:Clippers are easily the favourites, their lineup is stacked. However, I think we'll match up better with them next season than we did last season.

Caron Butler always destroyed us last year and our big lineup could never matchup with the athletic bigs on the Clippers. I'll take Jordan Hill's defense on Griffin any day and Gasol can keep Jordan in check. Clippers will also have Reddick or Dudley on Kobe, and those guys don't scare me.

Bledsoe > Collison too.

In addition to that we have the god Nick Swaggy P young that always shows up when playing in L.A

45 wins, 7th seed ... Lakers draw Clippers IMO

I said way before the bogus Bleacher Report released their so called top 5 teams that will take a step back this year, in which they had us listed #5.

Execs can talk about top tier teams all they want. Mark and heed my words, Denver, Golden State, San Antonio, OKC and Memphis will take backwards steps. Believe that. Especially with the news of Tony Parker needing an MRI on his knee he banged up in France.

We'll be OK, I think 48 wins will be needed to clinch the 8th seed, but I can see us as high as 6th or 7th and snatching 8th on about 45 wins.

leeprettyp wrote:

Tiesto_Lakers wrote:Clippers are easily the favourites, their lineup is stacked. However, I think we'll match up better with them next season than we did last season.

Caron Butler always destroyed us last year and our big lineup could never matchup with the athletic bigs on the Clippers. I'll take Jordan Hill's defense on Griffin any day and Gasol can keep Jordan in check. Clippers will also have Reddick or Dudley on Kobe, and those guys don't scare me.

Bledsoe > Collison too.

Damnnnn I forgot they landed Collison also. Man how they plan to dish out those minutes next season. They got alot of names on that roster.

This is why I don't get why teams over load. They have too many guys that will want decent minutes. And Doc has always played limited rotations, I can see a lot of discord from that team. But Doc will keep it under raps but players will vent to the media on social outlets anyway. That stuff can rock chemistry.

Think about our 3 Peat teams, we weren't overloaded. Same think with the Kobe/Gasol back to back title winners. You only need to go 8-9 deep in regular season and that cuts down to 7-8 in playoffs.

Clippers gonna be nice in regular season play, but they still have the same issues haunting them come playoffs. No interior threats, rebounding is suspect, and just because they got Doc coaching them who's to say they're going to be better defensively ?

at .500??

some guys want the lakers to miss the POs??

Glass half empty and things dont go our way. Nash remains a gimp, Kobe becomes a gimp, Pau not finding his groove despite being the only post option, and the rest of our castaways sucking, we're entering the Wiggin's sweepstakes as a darkhorse (4th-6th worse record)!

Glass half full we're gonna sneak into the 5th-7th seed with 48-53 wins due to Nash giving 24 highly effective mins, Kobe comes back strong at an all star level, Pau giving us 20/10 due to increased usage, and our merry men all having reasonable years. Nowhere near good enough to win a chip.

Its not looking good one bit... the year we need to fork over an UNPROTECTED 1st round pick to Phoenix is gonna be scary and painful. 2 years from now with a withered husk of a Kobe and old ass man Pau, unless we get supremely luck in FA (which i highly doubt).

Personally i think we're a 50 win team. The team will play hard, we can score lots, and as long as we hustle on D, we can win a good chunk of games. Dantoni is an offensive genius... we're just gonna be winning in alot of shootouts. Playoff wise, we're pretty much screwed.

Mitch isn't a stupid, for all the criticism he gets, if/when the wheels come off midway through the season, he'll throw the tank in (it can't hurt ticket sales at that point). It might be too late by then of course.

People are really down on the Nash trade now.. But a year ago when we made it everybody was positive on it.

leeprettyp wrote:People are really down on the Nash trade now.. But a year ago when we made it everybody was positive on it.

Haha everyone was still drunk off the **** they saw Nash do to us back in the day with the suns. We all thought that MVP caliber player or something close to that would come here and get like 13 apg.

redjays wrote:

leeprettyp wrote:People are really down on the Nash trade now.. But a year ago when we made it everybody was positive on it.

Haha everyone was still drunk off the **** they saw Nash do to us back in the day with the suns. We all thought that MVP caliber player or something close to that would come here and get like 13 apg.

lol right. I just hope Steve can stay healthy this season. That leg injury was really unpredictable

Am I wrong to think Nash may avg 10apg again now that the chemistry issues are gone? Regardless if he even plays over 30mpg. If not 10 I can see maybe 8apg. But thats more of the range I'd expect if Pau stay healthy. 8-10apg