Math in LA

Next to a Celtics playoff win.... this is the next best thing, a Laker loss and the frosting is it sends them home in the second round!
Now for the ????? math.

Got this from Laker Nation


Playoffs:

-- When Kobe scores 40+ Lakers in those games have an 10-2 winning playoff record good for 91% win rate in the playoffs.

(this does NOT include last evening)

10 divided by 12 = .8333%
Even given to rounding that is off by quite a bit. Wonder if that same guy does the budget for the State of California too?

Doing baseball/basketball stats for years and computing batting averages ect I could see this was off.

beat

I'd like to salute our Lakers fan members and to express my personal sadness that the Celtics and Lakers won't be able to meet for a Final series this season. We hope you'll rejoin us in the offseason. We may have some rebuilding in common to discuss.

All the best.

Sam

sam wrote:I'd like to salute our Lakers fan members and to express my personal sadness that the Celtics and Lakers won't be able to meet for a Final series this season. We hope you'll rejoin us in the offseason. We may have some rebuilding in common to discuss.

All the best.

Sam

sam,

Here, here!

bob


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Perk aside, I feel like OKC is a very unlikable team as well. I cant help but think that Westbrook especially - has all the swagger of a champion, without any of the wins to back it up.

Would be more than happy to see San Antonio wipe the court with them.

mrkleen09 wrote:Perk aside, I feel like OKC is a very unlikable team as well. I cant help but think that Westbrook especially - has all the swagger of a champion, without any of the wins to back it up.

Would be more than happy to see San Antonio wipe the court with them.

MrKleen,

San Antonio are the masters of the short-season. You may very well get your wish.

bob
P.S. If Perk never wore green, never won a championship here, would you still think he's likable?


.

Good question Bob. If I never got to see Perk in off the court features or ready about him as a person not just a player, I probably would not like him as much as his on court persona is not very likable. So it is possible that the opposite is true of Westbrook, that he is a great kid off the court and just super intense on the court.

My impression however is that people who showboat and pull the gun in the holster CRAP when they are 22 - dont do much but get worse as they become better and more accomplished.

Go win something...then you can talk.

Artest, World Peace, whatever.. He has a history but that was not a flagrant foul.

Then add on two technicals and you get yourself a huge momentum swing.

swedeinestonia wrote:Artest, World Peace, whatever.. He has a history but that was not a flagrant foul.

Then add on two technicals and you get yourself a huge momentum swing.

Swede

Agree it was a HARD foul, he had a lot of ball, arm and body but thing is he actually went for the ball not the man.
Was going to be 2 shots turned out to be 2 shots 2 techs and possession plus I believe this was before the half latesh in the second quarter. Momentum swing somewhat but the game was still close so I hesitate to call it huge. Lakers still had time to regroup. But when 60% of your lineup play as if it's game 24 in the regular season while the other team is full throttle....??? You are gonna get butt slapped and the Lakers got buttslapped.

Watched a Laker turnover at half court. Pass from ??? to Kobe out front got picked by Westbrook, as the passer chases down Westbrook and tries to stop him by grabbing him about 12 ft out on the wing Westbrook throws in that shot as he is being hacked..... and Kobe? He is still standing near half court watching and made little to no effort to get back on D, NONE. He want others to hustle and play hard and admonishes them for anything short of "his" standard then pulls a stunt like that.

beat

mrkleen09 wrote:Good question Bob. If I never got to see Perk in off the court features or ready about him as a person not just a player, I probably would not like him as much as his on court persona is not very likable. So it is possible that the opposite is true of Westbrook, that he is a great kid off the court and just super intense on the court.

My impression however is that people who showboat and pull the gun in the holster CRAP when they are 22 - dont do much but get worse as they become better and more accomplished.

Go win something...then you can talk.

mrkleen,

Good points. I agree, especially, with the six-gun shit. Grow up.

bob

.

beat wrote:

swedeinestonia wrote:Artest, World Peace, whatever.. He has a history but that was not a flagrant foul.

Then add on two technicals and you get yourself a huge momentum swing.

Swede

Agree it was a HARD foul, he had a lot of ball, arm and body but thing is he actually went for the ball not the man.
Was going to be 2 shots turned out to be 2 shots 2 techs and possession plus I believe this was before the half latesh in the second quarter. Momentum swing somewhat but the game was still close so I hesitate to call it huge. Lakers still had time to regroup. But when 60% of your lineup play as if it's game 24 in the regular season while the other team is full throttle....??? You are gonna get butt slapped and the Lakers got buttslapped.

Watched a Laker turnover at half court. Pass from ??? to Kobe out front got picked by Westbrook, as the passer chases down Westbrook and tries to stop him by grabbing him about 12 ft out on the wing Westbrook throws in that shot as he is being hacked..... and Kobe? He is still standing near half court watching and made little to no effort to get back on D, NONE. He want others to hustle and play hard and admonishes them for anything short of "his" standard then pulls a stunt like that.

beat

beat,

Kobe gave everything in this years playoffs.
The only other player for LA that can be said for is Jordan Hill.
That Westbrook play was going to be a foul or two points.
You can't call Kobe out for a play like that when he gave 100% effort the whole series.
I am tired as a Lakers fan for Kobe or Brown or Phil last year to have to call out Pau publically to get him motivated.
Bynum brings it only when he wants to.
In one game he can be the best big man in the game and the next game he jogs down the court all game.

TJ

On that particular play he did not hustle a lick. The pass was picked and he took 2 steps towards the basket. Meanwhile 2 Thunder players can be seen busting butt down court. If there was no foul and a miss they would have been in position to do something. So putting it out 100% as you say is a bit questionable at best. Seems he too plays hard when he wants. Does he make others better around him like so many other greats have? Doesn't seem that way. Instead he lashes out at them thru the press. I think this makes them very hesitant to play loose.

He has to be a most difficult player to play with.

Perhaps if Gasol and/or Bynum got touches on a regular basis especially early in games ( and perhaps they do) they might be a bit more consistant. Bynum does seem to have a bit of a problem with motivation regardless.

Will be interesting to see what moves are made by many teams. Lakers have no wiggle room to do much with and trading Pau might not be so easy and should they anyway? Plus finding a trade partner isn't going to be easy either. I also think the Lakers have 1 pick this year in the draft and that is the last one too. So getting a lot better quickly will be a difficult task.

beat

beat wrote:TJ

On that particular play he did not hustle a lick. The pass was picked and he took 2 steps towards the basket. Meanwhile 2 Thunder players can be seen busting butt down court. If there was no foul and a miss they would have been in position to do something. So putting it out 100% as you say is a bit questionable at best. Seems he too plays hard when he wants. Does he make others better around him like so many other greats have? Doesn't seem that way. Instead he lashes out at them thru the press. I think this makes them very hesitant to play loose.

He has to be a most difficult player to play with.

Perhaps if Gasol and/or Bynum got touches on a regular basis especially early in games ( and perhaps they do) they might be a bit more consistant. Bynum does seem to have a bit of a problem with motivation regardless.

Will be interesting to see what moves are made by many teams. Lakers have no wiggle room to do much with and trading Pau might not be so easy and should they anyway? Plus finding a trade partner isn't going to be easy either. I also think the Lakers have 1 pick this year in the draft and that is the last one too. So getting a lot better quickly will be a difficult task.

beat

beat,

Ok, Kobe gives 99% effort in games.
At almost 34 years old and the unbelievable minutes of basketball he has played in his life I would like him to take a play off once in a while.
Kobe is a demanding teammate which usually works to motivate his teammates.
Why do grown men need fellow players or coaches to motivate them?
Trading Bynum is a start in the right direction for LA.
After the Lakers last game Bynum was asked about an extension with the Lakers and he basically said that he doesn't care who he plays for.
In my honest opinion, Bynum needs counseling or medication.
Gasol gets the ball often but he always looks to pass.
Kobe begs him to shoot the ball more.

Unless a team gets lucky by having a number of top 5 draft picks in a few years (like oKC had) and those picks work out, it is very difficult to improve through the draft.
Gasol and Bynum are tradeable assets.
One of them has to go.

Even 99% is hard to agree with.
He should be in a sport like tennis, or any induvidual sport, and when he looses he can blame no one but himself.

Kobe has too much of an ego that seems to consume him.

So he scores 42, how does he make the TEAM better?
After all it is a team game.


beat

PS I don't think that trading Bynum and/or Gasol will be that easy.

beat wrote:Even 99% is hard to agree with.
He should be in a sport like tennis, or any induvidual sport, and when he looses he can blame no one but himself.

Kobe has too much of an ego that seems to consume him.

So he scores 42, how does he make the TEAM better?
After all it is a team game.


beat

PS I don't think that trading Bynum and/or Gasol will be that easy.

Kobe can't make guys shoot the ball.
He scored 42 but he was efficient.
The rest of the team made less field goals then he did and attempted 10 more shots.
As an fyi, Kobe led LA in assists in the playoffs and was leading them in the regular season until they traded for Sessions.

In my opinion, Gasol and Bynum are highly tradeable assets.
They have 2 years and 1 year on their contracts.
They are very skilled big men who have played for years without a high caliber playmaker.
If you put Pau on a team like Houston or Minnesota with a guard that creates easy shots for his teammates, he would have better numbers then he has as a 3rd option in LA.
Gasol and Bynum are not under bad contracts like Stoudamire or Joe Johnson are.

When Gasol has 10 pts and 5 rebounds and shows no aggressiveness, why is it wrong to say that Pau needs to be more aggressive?
If that was KG saying that about Rondo, Celtics fans would call KG a leader.
Kobe talked about Pau's lack of aggressiveness after game 6 against Denver then Pau had 23 and 17 in game 7 and Kobe brought it up after game 4 against OKC, then Pau had 14 and 16 in game 5. Coincidence? If you watched Pau play in game 7 against Denver and in game 5 against OKC, you would say that is no coincidence.

tjmakz wrote:

beat wrote:Even 99% is hard to agree with.
He should be in a sport like tennis, or any induvidual sport, and when he looses he can blame no one but himself.

Kobe has too much of an ego that seems to consume him.

So he scores 42, how does he make the TEAM better?
After all it is a team game.


beat

PS I don't think that trading Bynum and/or Gasol will be that easy.

Kobe can't make guys shoot the ball.
He scored 42 but he was efficient.
The rest of the team made less field goals then he did and attempted 10 more shots.
As an fyi, Kobe led LA in assists in the playoffs and was leading them in the regular season until they traded for Sessions.

In my opinion, Gasol and Bynum are highly tradeable assets.
They have 2 years and 1 year on their contracts.
They are very skilled big men who have played for years without a high caliber playmaker.
If you put Pau on a team like Houston or Minnesota with a guard that creates easy shots for his teammates, he would have better numbers then he has as a 3rd option in LA.
Gasol and Bynum are not under bad contracts like Stoudamire or Joe Johnson are.

When Gasol has 10 pts and 5 rebounds and shows no aggressiveness, why is it wrong to say that Pau needs to be more aggressive?
If that was KG saying that about Rondo, Celtics fans would call KG a leader.
Kobe talked about Pau's lack of aggressiveness after game 6 against Denver then Pau had 23 and 17 in game 7 and Kobe brought it up after game 4 against OKC, then Pau had 14 and 16 in game 5. Coincidence? If you watched Pau play in game 7 against Denver and in game 5 against OKC, you would say that is no coincidence.

Highly Skilled??? Yet you want to trade um!! Good luck with getting a sack of potatoes for um! Perhaps you can get what you gave up for um! Oops that can't happen one of those guys in in prison ( quick check quess he is out on bond awating court action on the murder charge)

beat

That is an odd post.
You don't think Gasol and Bynum are highly skilled?

LA has to get younger and more athletic and giving up Bynum or Gasol would be the player to do that.

Your sack of potatoes comment is grade school nonsense.
Just because you work in a prison doesn't mean that Bynum and Gasol will be in one.

TJ

If your read very carefully I said that the PEOPLE that you traded for Gasol NOT gasol himself. And one of those, Crittenton is on bond after having been charged with murder. That matter is still pending.

Where did I say they were not highly skilled?

Just don't think you will get much for either of them ie: the sack of potatoes comment.

beat

TJ,
In re: KB. No argument that he's a great player. But the fact that he makes 44% of all team's shots tells me that he, as a leader of the team, does not involve other players. Why it happens - we can argue all day and all night but the fact of the matter still remains the same: one player can win a game but not a series.
I didn't watch LAL vs OKC games, so I can only guess. And my guess is when going gets tough he falls back to me-ball. On top of that, he's got stuck with a yes-man instead of a coach (this is not a guess - 7 years in Cle pretty much confirmed that opinion). A good coach would pull him back to team-ball and made others (AB, PG, etc) to be involved.
Sorry, but if LAL want to be relevant let alone a contender they must do a lot of restructuring.

AK

I understand why a Celtics board wouldn't have any love for Kobe, but TJ is correct that Kobe was not the Lakers' problem this year and was in fact as driven, hustling, and competitive as you could ever want in the playoffs.

You absolutely cannot look at one play where Kobe didn't run all-out and claim he's not a hustler. I could go through replays and find a clip where KG didn't hustle. Finding one where Pierce didn't hustle wouldn't be much of a challenge at all. Yet I'm not about to claim KG and Pierce don't have heart. They do. So does Kobe.

Gasol and Bynum, on the other hand, are a different story. In Gasol's defense, he had to adapt more than anyone to changing from the triangle to a more traditional offense. In the triangle, he was often positioned in the low or mid post, the ball often went through him, and that played perfectly to his strengths of passing and interior moves. In Mike Brown's offense, Gasol played farther out so that Bynum could dominate the post area, and he became more of a jump shooter, which he's okay at but does not play to his strengths. But even given all that, he disappeared as a factor in many Laker losses. A couple of games ago, I practically jumped out of my seat yelling at him to shoot the ball in the closing seconds of the game and the Lakers down by one, but he instead didn't take an open 10-footer and threw a pass toward the top of the key which was intercepted and went for a dunk the other way. He was put in a difficult role in Brown's offense, but he didn't show heart throughout big chunks of games, and he didn't show it in the clutch at the ends of games. Up until this year, I've been a fan of Gasol, but this playoff run tarnished my opinion of him.

Bynum, on the other hand, doesn't have any sort of excuses. Brown made him a focal point at Gasol's expense at both ends of the court, and he showed his tremendous potential in some games, but he loafed on far too many occasions. The last game against OKC, he was awful. No rebounding presence, no defensive presence, not working to get position or make plays on offense. He's still young, so maybe he'll get to an elite level someday, but championship opportunities should not be wasted, and he wasted this one.

Remember the game against Atlanta when the Celtics didn't have Rondo or Ray and Pierce dominated the game with his individual offensive brilliance and the Hawks couldn't stop him? That's what it's like for Kobe when Gasol and Bynum don't show up. And that is the fault of Gasol and Bynum, not Kobe.

Kobe is a great player. KoME, not so much. In this series against OKC we saw a helluva lot more of KoME than Kobe.

He shot 42.6% in this series and that number went way up due to his game 5. Going into game 5 he was shooting 38.5% and taking over 30% of the Lakers' total fga. We've seen many times, over the years, how the Lakers stand around and lose all motion in their offense when KoME is playing but they are formidable when Kobe's offense flows out of the sets and not just playground one-on-one. The same thing has been seen when Paul Pierce decides he's going to do it alone for that matter. Hero ball isn't winning ball, not over a long series or couple of series. KoME doesn't trust his teammates to get the job done. That's not Ubuntu, that's not team play. That's not All for One and One for All. That's "get out of my way, ya bums, and let me win this".

Kobe's competitiveness is what fuels him, what makes him a great player, competitor and champion. It is also what makes him a locker room cancer sometimes. When D-Fish was in purple-and-gold, he could be the soothing senior citizen voice, the moderator, that players listened to and that had Kobe's respect. With D-Fish gone, who can blunt Kobe's verbal outbursts? Nobody. Not the mild-mannered, gentlemanly Gasol, not the immature man-child Bynum and certainly not the coach who let LeBum ride him in Cleveland and has no rings to wave in Kobe's face.

There is much talk in the LA press and Laker boards about the need to get younger and more athletic. I agree, but I also think they have a glaring hole in maturity too that needs to be filled. They need a D-Fish. They need someone who can look Kobe in the eye and say "I'm going to the HOF too and/or I've got one or more of these rings too" (obviously, in Fisher's case, we're talking about rings, not HOF). There are only a few such players in the league right now and most of them are in San Antonio and Boston. Two of those players in green have expiring contracts. Personally, I hope Danny does what it takes to keep them, but either one would be a solution to this particular Laker problem.

bob


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bobheckler wrote:Kobe is a great player. KoME, not so much. In this series against OKC we saw a helluva lot more of KoME than Kobe.

He shot 42.6% in this series and that number went way up due to his game 5. Going into game 5 he was shooting 38.5% and taking over 30% of the Lakers' total fga. We've seen many times, over the years, how the Lakers stand around and lose all motion in their offense when KoME is playing but they are formidable when Kobe's offense flows out of the sets and not just playground one-on-one. The same thing has been seen when Paul Pierce decides he's going to do it alone for that matter. Hero ball isn't winning ball, not over a long series or couple of series. KoME doesn't trust his teammates to get the job done. That's not Ubuntu, that's not team play. That's not All for One and One for All. That's "get out of my way, ya bums, and let me win this".

Kobe's competitiveness is what fuels him, what makes him a great player, competitor and champion. It is also what makes him a locker room cancer sometimes. When D-Fish was in purple-and-gold, he could be the soothing senior citizen voice, the moderator, that players listened to and that had Kobe's respect. With D-Fish gone, who can blunt Kobe's verbal outbursts? Nobody. Not the mild-mannered, gentlemanly Gasol, not the immature man-child Bynum and certainly not the coach who let LeBum ride him in Cleveland and has no rings to wave in Kobe's face.

There is much talk in the LA press and Laker boards about the need to get younger and more athletic. I agree, but I also think they have a glaring hole in maturity too that needs to be filled. They need a D-Fish. They need someone who can look Kobe in the eye and say "I'm going to the HOF too and/or I've got one or more of these rings too" (obviously, in Fisher's case, we're talking about rings, not HOF). There are only a few such players in the league right now and most of them are in San Antonio and Boston. Two of those players in green have expiring contracts. Personally, I hope Danny does what it takes to keep them, but either one would be a solution to this particular Laker problem.

bob


.

Bob,

Kobe had a fabulous game 4 through 3 quarters against OKC and simply ran out of gas.
That's why he shot 2 for 10 mostly bad shots from the outside because he can't get past OKC's defenders when he is tired.
Kobe had one of his best games of the year in game 5 even though he had 0 assists.
Barnes and Sessions were terrible in almost every game in the playoffs.
LA can't win with Kobe giving max effort, Bynum giving max effort when he wants to and Pau giving max effort when Kobe calls him out.
LA has personality issues with Artest, Bynum and Barnes. One, two or all three have to go.
When Bynum is mentally engaged Kobe is more then willing to pass to Bynum as he did at the end of the Celtics/Lakers games.
Does anybody realize that when Sessions can't get the ball to the bigs or the bigs pass it out and don't want to shoot, who do they look to when the shot clock is expiring? Kobe not KoME.
Kobe has taken more then his fair share of poor shots this season but this playoff loss is not on him.
I would love to see how more efficient Kobe's career could have been if he played with an elite point guard.

tjmakz wrote:

bobheckler wrote:Kobe is a great player. KoME, not so much. In this series against OKC we saw a helluva lot more of KoME than Kobe.

He shot 42.6% in this series and that number went way up due to his game 5. Going into game 5 he was shooting 38.5% and taking over 30% of the Lakers' total fga. We've seen many times, over the years, how the Lakers stand around and lose all motion in their offense when KoME is playing but they are formidable when Kobe's offense flows out of the sets and not just playground one-on-one. The same thing has been seen when Paul Pierce decides he's going to do it alone for that matter. Hero ball isn't winning ball, not over a long series or couple of series. KoME doesn't trust his teammates to get the job done. That's not Ubuntu, that's not team play. That's not All for One and One for All. That's "get out of my way, ya bums, and let me win this".

Kobe's competitiveness is what fuels him, what makes him a great player, competitor and champion. It is also what makes him a locker room cancer sometimes. When D-Fish was in purple-and-gold, he could be the soothing senior citizen voice, the moderator, that players listened to and that had Kobe's respect. With D-Fish gone, who can blunt Kobe's verbal outbursts? Nobody. Not the mild-mannered, gentlemanly Gasol, not the immature man-child Bynum and certainly not the coach who let LeBum ride him in Cleveland and has no rings to wave in Kobe's face.

There is much talk in the LA press and Laker boards about the need to get younger and more athletic. I agree, but I also think they have a glaring hole in maturity too that needs to be filled. They need a D-Fish. They need someone who can look Kobe in the eye and say "I'm going to the HOF too and/or I've got one or more of these rings too" (obviously, in Fisher's case, we're talking about rings, not HOF). There are only a few such players in the league right now and most of them are in San Antonio and Boston. Two of those players in green have expiring contracts. Personally, I hope Danny does what it takes to keep them, but either one would be a solution to this particular Laker problem.

bob


.

Bob,

Kobe had a fabulous game 4 through 3 quarters against OKC and simply ran out of gas.
That's why he shot 2 for 10 mostly bad shots from the outside because he can't get past OKC's defenders when he is tired.
Kobe had one of his best games of the year in game 5 even though he had 0 assists.
Barnes and Sessions were terrible in almost every game in the playoffs.
LA can't win with Kobe giving max effort, Bynum giving max effort when he wants to and Pau giving max effort when Kobe calls him out.
LA has personality issues with Artest, Bynum and Barnes. One, two or all three have to go.
When Bynum is mentally engaged Kobe is more then willing to pass to Bynum as he did at the end of the Celtics/Lakers games.
Does anybody realize that when Sessions can't get the ball to the bigs or the bigs pass it out and don't want to shoot, who do they look to when the shot clock is expiring? Kobe not KoME.
Kobe has taken more then his fair share of poor shots this season but this playoff loss is not on him.
I would love to see how more efficient Kobe's career could have been if he played with an elite point guard.

TJ,

If the rumors about the Gasol-for-Rondo trade last year came true, you would have.

btw, welcome back.


bob


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sinus007 wrote:TJ,
In re: KB. No argument that he's a great player. But the fact that he makes 44% of all team's shots tells me that he, as a leader of the team, does not involve other players. Why it happens - we can argue all day and all night but the fact of the matter still remains the same: one player can win a game but not a series.
I didn't watch LAL vs OKC games, so I can only guess. And my guess is when going gets tough he falls back to me-ball. On top of that, he's got stuck with a yes-man instead of a coach (this is not a guess - 7 years in Cle pretty much confirmed that opinion). A good coach would pull him back to team-ball and made others (AB, PG, etc) to be involved.
Sorry, but if LAL want to be relevant let alone a contender they must do a lot of restructuring.

AK

Kobe always has involved other players.
He is just as much of a playmaker as Jordan was.
They are first scorers, second playmakers.

LA could have had Phil Jackson, Red and Popovich sitting on LA's bench as coaches and LA was not going to beat OKC.
You just can't make a statement about me-ball when the teams best shooter and scorer takes the most shots.
Have you ever seen how many shot per games Jordan shot?
His shots at times dwarf Kobe's.