L.A. Lakers NOT a top 5 team!!

[MBunge]

The Bad Boy Pistons weren't a deep team.

James Edwards?  Mark Aguire?  John Salley?  What the heck do you people mean by depth vs. top heavy?  When Jordan won his championships, he did it with centers significantly better than Joel Freakin' Anthony.

Mike

[celtsfan84]

The Bad Boy Pistons weren't a deep team.

James Edwards?  Mark Aguire?  John Salley?  What the heck do you people mean by depth vs. top heavy?  When Jordan won his championships, he did it with centers significantly better than Joel Freakin' Anthony.

Mike

I'd consider the Bad Boy Pistons to be a deep team, one of the deepest in history, in fact and concede that one.

Jordan's Bulls didn't win because of depth.  Replace his bench during any of those years with any other bench in the NBA and he'd still have 6 titles.

[Moranis]

The Bad Boy Pistons weren't a deep team.

James Edwards?  Mark Aguire?  John Salley?  What the heck do you people mean by depth vs. top heavy?  When Jordan won his championships, he did it with centers significantly better than Joel Freakin' Anthony.

Mike

Of course the Bad Boy Pistons were deep and they had 3 HOFers, which is why they are one of the all time great teams.  Depth and Top Heavy Talent = All Time Great Team.  But pretty much every champion since them has been won by a team that was top heavy i.e. reliant on 2 or 3 players at the top and where the players after that don't matter much.  There are always exceptions, but by and large NBA champions are top heavy and their depth doesn't matter.

[sofutomygaha]

Yogi, you make some very good points but also some I disagree with.

1 - Kobe and Artest are no longer elite defenders.  They have no athleticism outside of Dwight. 

True, though Gasol is still a very good defender. Remember that the Magic were an elite defensive team in spite of the fact that Howard was the only person actually playing defense. The evidence suggests that, like Lebron James, you could put Howard on any team in the NBA and they would become above average defensively.

2 - They have no legit 3 point shooting outside of Nash.  Meeks is too awful at everything else to earn time on the court.  Kobe is average.

Their shooting is definitely going to be their biggest problem. I bet that they acquire a 3-point specialist during the season.

5 - They are old.  Like the Celtics of the past few years, they may be extremely talented but old people miss games. 

Old people also tend to kick ass in the playoffs.

6 - Dwight was traded there against his will.  The CBA ensures he won't sign an extension even if he wanted to sign there.  Welcome to Dwightmare.

I think you're off base with this. They will make it a huge priority to resign him and make him their next franchise player. I think he'll do it.

9 - It's Kobe's team.  Dwight wants it to be his team.  Kobe wants the ball.

It's Nash's team. Whatever poison Kobe injects, we will see, but Dwight is the third largest personality on the team. Dwight wants to win and he wants to be liked. He will get both without having to take over.

10 - Kobe's going to take the ball away from Nash's hands and vice versa. 

This is bang-on. Kobe is the Carmelo to Howard-Nash's Lin-Chandler bromance. Best thing Kobe could do for the team is take spot up two-pointers and work on his defense. He will not do that.

11 - Mike Brown couldn't earn the respect of Lebron.  What's he going to do with Dwight and Kobe?

The most important relationship for Mike Brown is his relationship with Nash. Kobe's going to do what Kobe's going to do. Dwight will love playing with a productive Nash. Keep those two happy, Pau will be happy, Kobe will have to suck it up.

[crimson_stallion]

On the court...Howard is a clearly inferior offensive player compared to Bynum, Nash is only Steve Nash when he's dominating the ball on offense, their bench looks to be the worst of any serious title contender and Kobe has obviously (to anyone not blinded by his legacy) been declining for several years and there's no reason to think that won't continue.

Mike

Funny...that's most of the same reasons why people have underestimated Boston every year, yet we have been consistently competitive every season despite facing tough challenges.

People use the age argument against Nash and Kobe but there is a potential flaw in that logic - Nash was old last season, yet he still was one of the best pure PG's in the league and remained incredibly durable.  Every year people have been talking about Kobe being older, yet last season he still averaged what...close to 30 PPG?

likewise both Nash and Kobe (like Pierce and Rondo) are knows for being absolute warriors.  They will play through injuries that would have 90% of other guys sidelined, and they will continue to put up numbers.

Gasol is soft as hell, but he's big and he's skilled.  He's a great post-up big man who can shoot well from outside, he can block shots, he's an outstanding passer, a very good rebounder, and he has a huge size advantage against most guys he matches up with.  You want to see Bass or Sullinger try to defend a 7'0" and 260lb Gasol? Good luck with that.

Howard has had injuries recently and is a legit weakness potentially because he is:
1. Emotionally / mentally weak
2. Not tough (i.e. won't play through injuries)
3. Prone to.doing dumb stuff (stupid fouls, etc)
4. Prone to injury

Problem is Bynum had all those same problems, yet LA were still a pretty good team with him put there.

Downside for LA is that Howard is a worse offensive player.  Look at Howard's first preseason game with LA - it seems like he didn't score a single point that wasn't on a dunk.  I also feel its easy to get into Dwights game - he gets frustrated VERY easillu, and nobody has the potential to frustrate bigs like pur trio of Garnett, Collins and Milicic.  They are all guys who are not afraid of playing rough, and Howard has traditionally triggled to keep his cool against us as is.

MWP is more or les a liability on offence for the Lakers, bit he's still a threat.  He's a dirty player who's not afraid to commit the harshest, dirtiest flagrant fouls and he does still play strong defense against Pierce.  He has the potential to injure an opposing player every night, and if he takes Pierce out of the game it will hurt us. Lucky we have more weapons this year, so if he's taken out we can have other guys step up.

I think LA are going to be exceptional defensively once they find chemistry, but I think they will be not as great offensively.

All this depends on them staying healthy.  Jamison has been utter garbage so far in preseason and has been declining lately (plus he plays no defense), Meeks hasn't been much better and isn't that great regardless, Blake is horrible...hill may be their most effective guy off the bench, but he's no all star.

Any of their top 4 guys go down and they are probably gonna be average.  Two of those guys go down and they will struggle to win games.

[crimson_stallion]

I'd say the importance of depth is greatly overrated on this forum.  Sure, it is nice to have, and nobody is hurt from having too many good players.  But here is an interesting fact:

Game 7, Heat vs. Celtics -
How many players scored at all for the Celtics? 6
How many players scored at all for the HEAT? 6

Once again, not saying depth isn't important, and obviously we would've preferred to have more healthy and good players for Game 7 last season.  But I'd be a little more concerned with the 40 minutes from Dwight, Kobe, and Pau than with the 8 minutes from Hill, Jamison, and Meeks.

How often has a depth build trumped a top heavy build in the NBA?

You think that was by design?

You really think Doc wouldn't have loved the opportunity to play 8 quality, productive players in that series?  We had 6 guys score because after those 6 guys our next best playerwwas...Keeyon Dooling.  Or Marquis Daniels...take your pick.

[celtsfan84]

I'd say the importance of depth is greatly overrated on this forum.  Sure, it is nice to have, and nobody is hurt from having too many good players.  But here is an interesting fact:

Game 7, Heat vs. Celtics -
How many players scored at all for the Celtics? 6
How many players scored at all for the HEAT? 6

Once again, not saying depth isn't important, and obviously we would've preferred to have more healthy and good players for Game 7 last season.  But I'd be a little more concerned with the 40 minutes from Dwight, Kobe, and Pau than with the 8 minutes from Hill, Jamison, and Meeks.

How often has a depth build trumped a top heavy build in the NBA?

You think that was by design?

You really think Doc wouldn't have loved the opportunity to play 8 quality, productive players in that series?  We had 6 guys score because after those 6 guys our next best playerwwas...Keeyon Dooling.  Or Marquis Daniels...take your pick.

And yet it was still us in the Eastern Finals with the HEAT, while the 76ers sat at home.  It'd be nice if we had a guy like Thaddeus Young off the bench last year, or Lou Williams, or even Lavoy Allen.  But we played in the Conference Finals and they didn't because we have Rondo, KG, and Paul and they don't.  Similarly, the Lakers will have no problem upending deeper teams like the Nuggets, Jazz, etc...

The Pacers were deeper than the HEAT last year.  The HEAT won.

The 76ers were deeper than the Celtics last year. The Celtics won.

[nostar]

I'm not in love with the Laker bench but this is by far a better bench than they had last year. Barnes/McRoberts/Kopono are okay players but Meeks/Jamison are significant upgrades. Add in the boost to their starting 5 and it makes them a much better team than last year. They had the 6th best record last season so it stands to reason they would be a top 5 team at least unless other teams got better too, which most didn't. We are a rare exception. Certainly the Spurs are a year older and made no moves. The Thunder makes almost no moves. Chicago dropped and the Pacers probably did too. I think top 5 is very accurate to describe what the Lakers are.

I do think the Lakers will have some issues against faster teams and specifically teams with faster point guards. Nash has always been a wet paper towel on defense and as he ages it only gets worse. Blake isn't much better and Duhon isn't NBA caliber anymore. They will have to put Kobe on the dominant opposing guards and even that won't necessarily work. It will also tire kobe out. They would have been smart to get someone like Brandon Rush or AAron Afflalo or even a Courtney Lee type guy to slow down the Westbrooks and Chris Pauls and Ty Lawsons in the West. Howard will certainly help but in transition the Lakers will have big problems.

Anyway I have the Lakers as a top 4 team along with the defending conference champions and the Celtics.

[Neurotic Guy]

Lakers are the team to beat in the NBA because they have 4 top 20 players in their starting lineup.

The only chance other teams have will require one of the following:
1. Injury
2. Fatigue
3. Chemistry mayhem

Our 3 best players last year were 34, 33, and 25.  The Lakers Big 4 are 38, 34, 32 and 26.  There is no reason to feel assured that an injury will occur or age will catch up to them.  There is reason to hope that fatigue will play a role, but I don't see the decline of Kobe or Pau. I also see Nash as close to what he has always been.  Dwight may have back issues, but if he doesn't, I shudder to think what he'll do with this cast around him. Ugh!

I hope more than anything that either chemistry is terrible or fatigue gets the better of them.

[RebusRankin]

Is Nash really top 20?

[Neurotic Guy]

Is Nash really top 20?

Of course these rankings are subjective, but Nash was ranked #19 by ESPN in the rankings they did about a month ago.

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/8419506/2012-nba-player-rankings-16-20

[staticcc]

Heat, Celtics, Thunder, possibly Spurs who else can better than the Lakers?  That being said, they are vastly overrated.  They are the slowest team.  They have awful perimeter defense. 
1 - Kobe and Artest are no longer elite defenders.  They have no athleticism outside of Dwight. 
2 - They have no legit 3 point shooting outside of Nash.  Meeks is too awful at everything else to earn time on the court.  Kobe is average.
3 - Dwight might average 5 blocks but he'll be in constant foul trouble dealing with Westbrook, Harden, Durant, Wade, Lebron, Rondo, Bradley, Green etc.  who will blow by the Lakers back court.
4 - They have no athleticism outside of Dwight.
5 - They are old.  Like the Celtics of the past few years, they may be extremely talented but old people miss games. 
6 - Dwight was traded there against his will.  The CBA ensures he won't sign an extension even if he wanted to sign there.  Welcome to Dwightmare.
7 - Antwaun Jamison shot 40 percent from the field last year.  Jordan Hill has legal and health issues.  The rest of their bench is too abysmal to even talk about. 
8 - Pau has been in steady decline as one would expect from a man of his age and limited athleticism. 
9 - It's Kobe's team.  Dwight wants it to be his team.  Kobe wants the ball.
10 - Kobe's going to take the ball away from Nash's hands and vice versa. 
11 - Mike Brown couldn't earn the respect of Lebron.  What's he going to do with Dwight and Kobe?
I probably missed a lot more.  Let's not even mention their enormous payroll and lack of draft picks or young talent outside of Dwight who is an UFA.

Thanks..glad someone agrees with me also. Everyone keeps on saying "on paper". Last I check, "on paper" doesnt win championships

Happened last year. They are a top 5 team. But they won't make the Finals

[Mencius]

I don't know if they're top 5 or not, but I want to go on record before the preseason is over (and before the game between them and the Clippers tonight) and say that I think the Clippers will be a better team than the Lakers this year.  If everything falls in place for the Clippers, they will be a force to be reckoned with.  I like their additions of Odom, Jamaal Crawford, and to a lesser extent Grant Hill.  Plus, they're getting Chauncey back, and they've got a year of seasoning and playoff experience under their belts.  They're my pick for surprise team, even though it's not like they're not on people's radar.

[OsirusCeltics]

I wrote this on another thread. I honestly see them as a team that's gonna fall apart

1. Nash is still the worst defensive point guard in the league, and him getting older doesn't help that

2. Kobe and Dwight's personalities don't mesh

3. Kobe's on the decline

They might get to the Western Conference Finals just based off of their talent, but no way they're going to the Finals

[BASS_THUMPER]

over rated

nuff said