Dave Smith On The Lakers/Suns

[JohnVancouver]

... we can call them natural born 'underachievers' like Kobe, Odom, Gasol, and Bynum.


Looking at the rosters, and assuming everyone playing at 100%, I still think PHX has the edge. The Lakers have improved with Fisher and Gasol, and Farmar coming into his own, and Odom as healthy as he will ever be but still ...

I think Shag/Amare will flat out own Gasol and Bynum.



Kupchak is a moron. Everyone is praising him for the Gasol deal, but come on, a monkey could have pulled the trigger on that deal.

You don't have to a genius to say"OK, sure" to someone offering you a sack full of money for essentially nothing. Jeez, I expected them to have to *pay* someone to take Brown off their hands

[eatyourchildren]

... we can call them natural born 'underachievers' like Kobe, Odom, Gasol, and Bynum.


Looking at the rosters, and assuming everyone playing at 100%, I still think PHX has the edge. The Lakers have improved with Fisher and Gasol, and Farmar coming into his own, and Odom as healthy as he will ever be but still ...

I think Shag/Amare will flat out own Gasol and Bynum.



Kupchak is a moron. Everyone is praising him for the Gasol deal, but come on, a monkey could have pulled the trigger on that deal.

You don't have to a genius to say"OK, sure" to someone offering you a sack full of money for essentially nothing. Jeez, I expected them to have to *pay* someone to take Brown off their hands

1. I think in starting lineups purely, arguments could be made both ways as to who has the better 1 to 5. We have Kobe, you have Nash, etc. But if you guys have another Joe Johnson moment, or worse yet, a Horry hip-check moment, you HAVE to consider roster spots 5 to 8 (maybe even 9, 10). So who is that for the Suns, beyond DJ and Barbosa? The Lakers can mix and match all day long, since we're 10 strong.

2. Can you really say with that much confidence that Shaq/Amare will flat out OWN Bynum/Gasol? In what way? Will it be a offensive+defensive shutdown? Or just overpowering offensive power? Because I don't see Shaq/Amare putting on a block party on Bynum/Gasol's pick and roll prowress. Besides, we can always have Bynum be a 6th man and have him murk Skinner.

3. Kupchack is a moron. I hope he makes moronic moves like that for the rest of his career. Sounds like sour grapes to me

[second_coming32]

Kupchak is a moron. Everyone is praising him for the Gasol deal, but come on, a monkey could have pulled the trigger on that deal.

You don't have to a genius to say"OK, sure" to someone offering you a sack full of money for essentially nothing. Jeez, I expected them to have to *pay* someone to take Brown off their hands

He wasn't offered that deal.... he convinced Chris Wallace to take the deal. That trade was dead 12 hours before the trade went down, and consumated the next day. I mean come on, the Lakers weren't the only player in the Gasol sweepstakes, 14 different teams were vying for his services, all of them offered more talent than the Lakers, but Kupchak convinced Wallace that he would be better off taking the Lakers deal. That is NOT an easy task to pull off.

Trust me, I've been one of the main people calling Kupchake a moron, Laker fans have been unrelenting on him since he took over for West...even when we were winning championships, but he fact is, you have to give credit where credit is due. The only lottery pick he's had over the last 5 years is Bynum, after that he drafted Farmar, Turiaf, Crittenton (who he parlayed into Gasol), Vujacic, Walton, Cook (who turned into Ariza)..... don't forget the robbery of Orlando, sending them Evans and Cook for Ariza. Yeah, he missed out on host of all-star talent in the draft, but what GM hasn't? Last I checked there were 28 teams that also passed on Tony Parker.

Sure there are the Butler and Atkins for Kwame trades, but he made up for that this year when he turned Kwame into Gasol. The fact of the matter is, despite all the naysayers, he's done an outstanding job rebuilding this team, and he deserves some credit. Call him a moron if you wish, but name another GM who has been able to go from Western Conference Champions, to out of the playoffs, to Contenders again, all in the space of 4 years and during that span, only miss the playoffs once. He learned well from Jerry West. Sorry, but you're not allowed to call him a moron anymore without sounding like a complete moron yourself.

[second_coming32]

...

I think Shag/Amare will flat out own Gasol and Bynum.

How? Just like they owned Gasol and Odom the other day? Everyone knows they can't defend the pick and roll and Phils gonna run them through it all day long. Nobody can stop the Lakers offense, think about it....if you stop Gasol, Bynum will have a field day, and if you stop Bynum, you have to worry about Gasol, and if you manage to stop both of them, then you have to stop Odom and Kobe, and if you double team all of them your still leaving Fisher wide open. Unfortunately, you're only allowed to keep 5 men on the court, and the Lakers have at least 3 players who demand double teams.

The Lakers can play Shaq one on one, probably with Gasol, and let Bynum worry about Stoudamire. We'll give Shaq his 15 and 10 all day, we're more worried about STAT. In the previous two meetings with the Lakers when Bynum was on the court, Stoudamire didn't do anything....Bynum had his number. The Lakers simply have too many options on defense when they are 100%, that is why everyone that is not a Suns fan sees why the Lakers have passed the Suns as the better team right now.

We'll see what happens in the playoffs, and your right....we still have to get Bynum into NBA shape, but IF that happens, the Suns have no chance, if Bynum doesn't come back, then it will be one hell of a series.

[-SDU-]

shaq was on gasol, and amare was on odom out at the perimeter

so when gasol burnt shaq, noone was there to help

bynum comes back, shaq takes him (and yes bynum will get his), then amare takes gasol and if gasol or bynum beat their man the other suns big will be there with the help defense

this didnt happen the other day because amare followed odom out to the 3 point line

i PREFER the matchups better when bynum is back

[walkingart]

i PREFER the matchups better when bynum is back

Exactly

[dantian]

That's simply ignorant to think Bynum could defend Amare. Amare was hesitant playing the 5. Now with Shaq in the middle, Amare is not afraid of foul trouble anymore and that will have an effect on how aggressive he plays. On defense, Amare stopped both Gasol and Odom 1-on-1 very well. His main defensive problem is focus offball. Lakers set simple screens putting Amare out of defensive position that allowed Gasol's easy layups and dunks. Once the Suns coaching figure it out, it will again become Kobe beating us all by himself and failing.

[second_coming32]

That's simply ignorant to think Bynum could defend Amare. Amare was hesitant playing the 5. Now with Shaq in the middle, Amare is not afraid of foul trouble anymore and that will have an effect on how aggressive he plays. On defense, Amare stopped both Gasol and Odom 1-on-1 very well. His main defensive problem is focus offball. Lakers set simple screens putting Amare out of defensive position that allowed Gasol's easy layups and dunks. Once the Suns coaching figure it out, it will again become Kobe beating us all by himself and failing.

REALLY?!! He stopped Gasol and Odom one on one? Last I checked Gasol finished with 29 and Odom had 22, plus 11 boards. Hell if thats stopping them than by all means sir, you are correct.

Ignorant to think that Bynum can guard Stoudamire one on one eh? Let's examine that....

Game 1 this season

Stoudamire...24 minutes 7 points on 2-10 shooting, 1 rebound.
Bynum...23 minutes 14 points on 7-10 shooting, 13 rebounds

Game 2 this season

Stoudamire....19 points on 6-11 shooting, 6 rebounds
Bynum...28 points on 11-13 shooting, 12 rebounds

I think Bynum will do just fine with Stoudamire one on one. And if numbers are really do lie, then I guess you could slap ignorant on my forehead. I think you're forgetting how good Bynum is.

Bynum and Gasol cancel out Shaq and Stoudamire....

Shaq and Stoudamire are good for 40 points a game.
Bynum and Gasol are good for about 40 points a game.

Where Phoenix has an edge over almost every team in the league with their front court, it goes away when they play the lakers. I think that was pretty evident the other day.

[BurningHeart]

It all depends on if Amare can stay out of foul trouble. If he's on the court, Phoenix has the advantage. If he doesn't, the Lakers do.

Simple as that.

[Chubby Chaser]

-= original quote snipped =-

Lets agree to disagree, the Suns and Lakers are going to be diffrent teams once the playoffs begin. I know that Bynum and Ariza didn't play and that this was Shaq's first game and that is why we should take this game with a grain of salt. The only importance that this game carried is, that the Lakers have the tied breaker if we were to have the same record.

Now, I'm a huge Suns fan but I'm also realistic. The question in hand is are the Lakers potentially better than the Suns?? Any person who knows about basketball will say yes, even a Suns fan like myself. But the title is not given to the bes pontentailly team but to the team that takes care of business. We can all agree that the better teams have not won the title in the last two years.

The Mavs were better than the Heat 2 yrs agon but the Heat were the Champions of that year. Many like I can say that the Suns were a better team last yr than the Spurs but the Spurs are the Champions. What I'm a getting at is that the best teams not alway win the title. The team that gels at the right time, the teams that peaks at the right time, the team that puts themselves in position to win and catches some breaks are the teams that usually wins the title.

Now that's a homer quote if I ever heard one. Last I checked, you guys played a 7 game series, and the better team won. This isn't like football were playoffs are decided by one game. 7 game series ensures that the better of both teams win. And the spurs were definitely better. And please stop making these allegations of the Robert Horry hit on Nash and blah blah blah. It's getting old. Just take your losses. The spurs were obviously the better team last year. And I'm saying this as a basketball fan, because I dislike the spurs as much as I hate the suns.

[walkingart]

Arguments made in football allow for injuries and just being off for one week.

We lost 4-2 in a seven game series.

Our best player got split open and sat during the end of one of those losses and two key contributers were suspended for another one of those losses. If you are going to use a football analogy, that puts the series at 2-2. Hardly a team I would say is obviously better.

His comments weren't biased at all, however the point of yours Kobe D are what?

What's the D stand for?
Does it rhyme with swoosh?

[Chubby Chaser]

And what about the other two games you lost? If the suns were obviously better last year than they wouldn't of been in that position to begin with. The better team won the championship last year. Get over it. Only losing teams complain about, "bad officiating" "horrible calls" and any other scape goat reason to pass blame instead of acknowledging that they just got beat. Referees are a part of the game. There's no secret under cover agenda by Stern to stop the suns from getting a championship. Face it, Nash just hasn't gotten it done yet. He's had great talent around him, he just needs to find a way to do it.

[BurningHeart]

I didn't know the reffing in Game 3 couldn't be a scape goat. You know, the game which was so OBVIOUSLY horribly officiated just so happened to be reffed by a guy who was CHARGED WITH FIXING GAMES FOR ORGANIZED GAMBLING PURPOSES?

Get out of here with your nonsense.

[LakersSquad]

shaq was on gasol, and amare was on odom out at the perimeter

so when gasol burnt shaq, noone was there to help

bynum comes back, shaq takes him (and yes bynum will get his), then amare takes gasol and if gasol or bynum beat their man the other suns big will be there with the help defense

this didnt happen the other day because amare followed odom out to the 3 point line

i PREFER the matchups better when bynum is back

Excuse me. Pau scored 4 straight baskets on Amare when Shaq sat down.

[LakersSquad]

[quote="second_coming32"][/quote]

uh 4-6 pts of amares in game 2 and game 4 came when the game was basically over. No wonder they call him Stat