NBA Gms Vote Lakers the Favorites

[Rocky5000]

http://www.nba.com/2008/tipoff/10/21/gm ... index.html
They surveyed General Managers (27 responded) about who would win each division, conference, and the championship. While the Celtics are favored to win both the Atlantic (85.2%), and the East (74.1%), The Lakers are heavy favorites to win the title (46.2% LA, 19.2% Boston). Interestingly, the Lakers were picked unanimously to win the Pacific, and their odds of winning the west were 66.7%, less than the Cs odds of winning the east. Are the Lakers really going to be that much better than last year? Or do GMs think that our team has gotten worse?

Bynum can help them out on the boards, but their biggest weakness is defense, and I wonder how much that will improve with Bynum. His opponent PER last year was just barely below league average, 14.8.

[eatyourchildren]

1. Sans Posey and PJ Brown, hasn't your team indeed gotten worse relative to how great they were last year? Sure, Rondo and Perkins will get better, but the bench is important and everyone knows it.

2. While opposition PER is important, there are some things to consider:
- He's gotten/getting better at individual defense. He did a great job on Okafor, and a decent job on JO the other night.
- As you should know, it's not all about individual defense especially at the C position. His job as the last line of defense is to be a shot changer, which he can be by virtue of his activity and length.
- His addition allows Pau to float between PF and C(operating on the pinch post, shooting 20 ft J's), which means we can run some kind of fluid twin towers defense.

3. It's not just Bynum adding defense. Lakers are utilizing zone defenses because of the length of the lineup, meaning a lot of the court is covered by virtue of the physiques of the Lakers players. Not to mention, Kobe not having to take as many shots means better defense out of him.

[KDK_9867]

and a decent job on JO the other night.

ya but JO isn't dominant anymore

[Rocky5000]

Actually, I think our team has gotten better, Rondo and Perkins will be better, but more importantly will be Leon Powe, Ray Allen, and Tony Allen. Both Allens played injured throughout last year, Tony was recovering from his Knee injury, and Ray never got his game 100% back after the double ankle surgery.

We'll be using Powe as our primary PF backup, and he's a much better PF defender than Posey, who we used quite a bit there even though it wasn't effective. Powe has become a bit of a monster, as the Lakers witnessed first-hand, and he has the foul-draw rate of a super-star.

Our biggest weakness last year was matching up against the athletic teams like Charlotte, Denver, GS, Washington, and Atlanta. While we might only meet one of those teams in the playoffs, we've added a lot of athleticism in the draft and will be better equipped to deal with it, and we can turn the tables on slower teams.

Another problem we had was not having a true second string pg defender and ball handler, but Gabe Pruitt has stepped up this preseason, so I'm hopeful that will be a thing of the past.

I don't know how big of a deal PJ Brown is. He sucked for a large portion of the playoffs, hit a HUGE shot against the Cavs, and then played inspired defense against the Lakers. Still the guy was 38 years old, and is not irreplaceable. Most importantly we have the same starting 5 as last year, and they now have a year of experience under their belt, are playoff tested and proven, and haven't lost a step. They'll play 80% of the minutes and show no signs of slowing down.

IMO there are a lot more positives than negatives going into this season. We've shored up most of our weaknesses, whereas the Lakers have brought Bynum back and are now hoping he can solve their defensive problems. Also, the reports I've read about the Gasol-Bynum twin towers from preseason were saying that it hasn't been working out that well at all. But maybe it's been better over the last couple of games...

[Havlicek17]

I love this stuff. Lakers favored to win the championship! Wasn't that what everyone said last year? Before the finals started, 10 out of 10 experts on ESPN's website picked the Lakers. It was sooo lopsided that they switched out 2 of the experts, just so they had somebody picking the Celtics.

I love being the underdog. Let's keep the focus on the Fakers, so they can dissapoint once again and we can continue to fly under the radar and kick the snot out of everyone.

And for those 29 GM's whose teams did not win the championship last year and are now once again picking the Fakers to win it all, I have one word. "DEFENSE"

Didn't I recently read an article on Real GM, where Derek Fisher was interviewed and said that he was concerned that the Lakers were not doing enough to improve their defense. Now that guy understands what happened last year and should be a GM.

[greenbeans]

Who cares what these gms say? maybe if it was just the gms of playoff teams I'd care but these are the types of people picking Bargnani 1 and Adam Morrison 3rd overall.
grain of salt please

[eatyourchildren]

KDK: Bynum doesn't have to be great on defense NOW. He just has to be great on defense 82 games from now.

Rocky: I seriously doubt that you'd rather have this year's roster over last year's roster. I mean yes, there is upside to the team, but it's still something of a question mark. Is there much reason to believe that Tony and Ray will both be better after their surgeries and subsequence recoveries? I'm not so sure you can replace everything that Cassell (assuming he doesnt play much this year, if at all), Posey, and Brown brought to the table during that championship run with Tony Allen and Powe. Are you?

It's one thing to literally add pieces (like the Lakers are doing with Ariza and Bynum) and quite another to be replacing pieces (Powe notwithstanding).

Let's also not count on Gabe Pruitt to be a formidable backup PG yet.

[wayupnorth]

Is there much reason to believe that Tony and Ray will both be better after their surgeries and subsequence recoveries?

Is there much reason to believe they won't be better with more time recuperating? And I think everybody would be happy should Ray play on the same level he did in the Finals. As for Tony, once he gets his confidence back he will be better.

I'm not so sure you can replace everything that Cassell (assuming he doesnt play much this year, if at all), Posey, and Brown brought to the table during that championship run with Tony Allen and Powe. Are you?

I wouldn't be too worried about replacing Cassell's input as crucial as it may have seemed to you.

[eatyourchildren]

Recuperating helps 24 year olds, not 32 year olds coming off of double-ankle surgery. If Kobe, Carter, or McGrady had double ankle surgery would there be a positive forecast?
And sorry, but it will be exceedingly difficult for Tony to replace Cassell, Brown, AND Posey's production, even with Powe there.

[DEEP3CL]

Who cares what these gms say? maybe if it was just the gms of playoff teams I'd care but these are the types of people picking Bargnani 1 and Adam Morrison 3rd overall.
grain of salt please

That's what I said too greenbeans................it's not even rellevent at this point. Maybe they should just poll the GM's of teams that made the playoffs, that way it may be a better assessment and have some truth to it.

I know young guys will get high off this, but for me you still gotta go through the trials and tribulations of a full season.

[eatyourchildren]

Exactly. Besides, unless the Celtics players get wind of this themselves and it riles them up somehow, then maybe it will become an issue.

But as it stands, this GM survey could be made of responses entirely by the GM brotherhood of Jordan, McHale, and Bird, for all we know.

Sorry, as much as we all want some BOS v. LA furor, there isn't any to be had, either in-house or cross-country. Might as well throw some more action into the Gabe Pruitt thread. Everyone is acting as they should--on both sides.

[canman1971]

This is why they play the games. Everything else is just nonsense. You would get the same % right asking a class in elementary school. I still can't believe how much emphasis has been put on Posey and to a lesser extent PJ. I mean, yes the contributed. Yes, they did well. But did they do well because of how good they are or because of who they played with. PGA anyone? As long as our starting 5 is healthy come playoff time and they play defense they way they did last year, I like our chances. The Cs only issues last year came against athletic teams like Atlanta and Cleveland to a degree. They are more athletic today. They wiped the floor with the Pistons and Lakers, so I am not worried.

[eatyourchildren]

Posey has a history of playing well with great starting 5's. Dunno about Tony Allen, although House has looked good.

[Celtsfan1980]

Recuperating helps 24 year olds, not 32 year olds coming off of double-ankle surgery. If Kobe, Carter, or McGrady had double ankle surgery would there be a positive forecast?
And sorry, but it will be exceedingly difficult for Tony to replace Cassell, Brown, AND Posey's production, even with Powe there.

Cassell had production? Some would even say he was the biggest reason Boston struggled in the first two rounds. I really like Bynum and I've said this several times before, but Perkins has played better than him in the matchups. People focus on Bynum's injury, but Perkins was also injured and Garnett certainly benefits defensively when Perkins is in the game. I myself have predicted the Lakers in 7 but there are a lot of unknowns. There is a chance neither team even wins 60.

[KDK_9867]

Who cares what these gms say? maybe if it was just the gms of playoff teams I'd care but these are the types of people picking Bargnani 1 and Adam Morrison 3rd overall.
grain of salt please

the raptors made the playoffs

[greenbeans]

Who cares what these gms say? maybe if it was just the gms of playoff teams I'd care but these are the types of people picking Bargnani 1 and Adam Morrison 3rd overall.
grain of salt please

the raptors made the playoffs

So did the Atlanta Hawks

[eatyourchildren]

The Celtics, like every championship team before it, had different guys step up at each juncture of their run. KG was consistently good, but Pierce had ups and downs, Ray Allen had some well documented downs before his finals up, and the bench did as well.

In fact, that's why bench players are bench players--they not consistently good like starters are. So when you shrink the bench, or replace experienced bench with new bench, which is like shrinking the available pool of guys who can step it up for you, isn't that a bad thing?

[Rocky5000]

Haha. Wow here are the results of the questioning related to superlative coaches and players
http://www.nba.com/2008/tipoff/10/21/gm ... index.html
Who do I talk to about becoming a General Manager?

[Maple Green]

What's new?? Most of the 15 sports writers voted that Lakers win the 2008 championship. I remember 11-4 is the result of voting but the result was big slapped on the 11 sports writers.

[bballcool34]

We're used to this- won't make a difference when it's the Finals, and the Lakers lose again.

Edit: Have to add though that I'm surprised the general managers haven't learned that they shouldn't doubt the Celtics- especially against the Lakers.