RealGM

or...Appreciation Thread!

The guy gets no love on here so I wanted to be the first to get the ball rolling. He's brought leadership to the starting group (calling out the "old hands" on bad decisions probably for the first time in their careers by another legitimate player), he's continuing the 3 pt threat at the 2 position and he's brought a midrange shot that Richardson wasn't so great at. He also helps to relieve pressure with some decent handles.

And defense! Not that he's a "lock down" defender, but he uses his vet smarts to frustrate his guy and get into their head. But not only that; as we've seen from Bonnell he's started to develop a repoire with Mek in defending the screen and rolls.

Diaw has made us better, but Raja has had a distinct positive impact on our team as well.

Give it up!

He sure has played two nice games for us in a row.

Be great if he can keep it up.

Back to back 25 pt games is pretty great. And his defense and team leadership is most valuable to the Cats. He is a great player for us, no doubt.

A hearty thanks to Raja for his work! Fine games lately and more evidence of how well this starting unit is playing together. Granted, we've got room to grow, and playing against better teams will result in more losses than wins. But if Bell's play continues to gain consistency, we certainly will have a better overall player at the 2 than J-Rich (accent on overall).

We need bench help in a big way.

Lets not forget that he has brought an added toughness to the team that we clearly lacked.

We need to find a way to make Raja's scoring a "nice to have" versus the "need to have" that it currently is.

Felton for Pres wrote:Lets not forget that he has brought an added toughness to the team that we clearly lacked.

I thought it was interesting to see how much he bothered OJ out of his game last night. There was only really a 3 or 4 min span of the game where OJ was a factor.

We need to find a way to make Raja's scoring a "nice to have" versus the "need to have" that it currently is

Totally agree.

Did you just say hes not a lock down defender? He is a top 1-3 defender at his position in the league. He is the defenation of a lock down defender. Trust me as a Lakers fan to Raja Bell is a lock down defender.
He also seems to have untapped scoring potential and seems to be pretty athletic for a 33 year old maybe because of the low miles.

^ From what some were saying Raja was talking to OJ too...not smack but intelligently and in an offhand manner. According to them it looked like it was really messing with OJ.

Bet he had some bad dreams last night.

Dexmor wrote:Did you just say hes not a lock down defender? He is a top 1-3 defender at his position in the league. He is the defenation of a lock down defender. Trust me as a Lakers fan to Raja Bell is a lock down defender.
He also seems to have untapped scoring potential and seems to be pretty athletic for a 33 year old maybe because of the low miles.

I think he's a great defender, and he can lock down some guys. I don't think he's as quick laterally as he was though, but he makes up for some of that by being cagey. Even Bell is saying that some guys are going to score on him...but his job is to make it as difficult as possible for them.

In short...he uses his brain.

spectre_ wrote:In short...he uses his brain.

Totally. I thought the same thing last night and mentioned it in the GT:

BigSlam wrote:So I've been watching Bell and I have come to the conclusion that he's not that great at on ball D. His foot speed isn't fantastic and it's not like he has super long arms or big hands that give him an advantage.

What he does do, and does really well and with relentless dedication, is play defense well before his guy even gets the ball - even of his guys isn't involved in the play.

He pushes them off their lines, keeps them off balance and takes them out of the play before they get a chance to be in the play.

In short, he makes his guy work very hard all night long.

They all say that. Bowen, Battier, Doug Christie when he was playing. They always say the same thing which is the scorers are gonna score and the only thing you can do is keep making it tough for them.
Raja Bell is a lock down defender. It's what he is known for and that hasn't changed. I am telling you saying he isn't is pretty bad. Everybody makes mistakes but this is clearly one of them.

Dexmor wrote:They all say that. Bowen, Battier, Doug Christie when he was playing. They always say the same thing which is the scorers are gonna score and the only thing you can do is keep making it tough for them.
Raja Bell is a lock down defender. It's what he is known for and that hasn't changed. I am telling you saying he isn't is pretty bad. Everybody makes mistakes but this is clearly one of them.

Hey, I'm the guy who started all this love!

I think it's nitpicking, but if you want to call him "lock down" then be my guest...I won't contradict it. Whatever he does it's helping this team immensely, and the best thing IMO is that it's rubbing off on the other guys.

I am not trying to nitpick but it's like saying Nash he's not a pass first pg but he makes good decisions. It's pretty off.

Slam...thanks for cross referencing that. I saw that as I was going thru the game thread this morning and thought it would be a great post to include in the thread.

spectre_ wrote::dontknow:

That'll learn you for trying to show some love!!

And I thought I was hard to please!!

Yup...someone always trying to rain on my parade.

That's ok though, winning puts me in a GREAT mood. I can take it!

Did anybody know he was this good offensively or is this good player on bad team inflated stats syndrome.

Raja is a very good sg for us,he showed that he had offense when he was with the suns.His def and leadership is also a plus for us.

Dexmor wrote:Did anybody know he was this good offensively or is this good player on bad team inflated stats syndrome.

That is a very, very good question.

As Spectre brought up when we traded for him, he's a carrer 41% 3pt shooter - so he could obviously always shoot the long ball and he was hitting those mid range J's last night like he knew what he was doing.

The good thing about him (and it probably goes with being a heady vet) is that he seems to know his limitations and plays within them. I doubt he'll ever really create his own offense or be an offensive force, but as a catch and shoot guy or a guy coming off the curl, he's pretty good.

Like a juice up Hammer with better D.

I'm ok with that - especially considering they were earing about the same!! Just so long as like FFP mentioned his offensive is a added bonus and we aren't totally reliant on it.

I miss Raja

rsavaj wrote:I miss Raja

I miss Jrich

May? Morrison? 2 for 1 special, hell... Raja, Sean and Adam for Jason.

Can't have Boris though. He stays... we need him for his French.