I think Pau has a totally legitimate beef. The last Lakers game I saw Kobe literally did not pass the ball for the last 5-7 minutes. Maybe once. He would literally take the ball in backcourt, bring it up, and then dribble around until he decided to shoot. That’s not an offense. It’s incredible that he matched his season TS% in that stretch and the Lakers didn’t get embarrassed (as in, he’s an incredibly gifted scorer and not Jamal Crawford), but with two All-NBA caliber teammates and a perennial 6th man of the year candidate on his team… pass the freaking ball. The only guy he passes to is Derek bloody Fisher. I might pass it to Fisher before Artest, but not Pau or Bynum or Odom. On the last possession, ok let Kobe shoot. For the last 5 minutes? Run a freaking offense. Along with having incredible talent, the 2nd hallmark of Phil Jackson’s coaching career has been ball-movement (defense 3rd). Kobe could give it up to his freakishly good passing frontcourt mates and then get it back in a better position to score. This would be a better game plan than going 1-on-5, in my opinion.

ess-dog,

If you can have Lee and Camby for the same money as Bosh, then sure. Camby, though, is not getting younger. Counting on him to be your team’s defense in and of himself is questionable. And, there’s the question people always raise about whether D’Antoni would a. be willing to play Lee with a 5, and b. could actually pull it off.

A friend of mine heard from a very high-up source in Toronto’s organization that they fully expect Bosh to leave. Whatever that’s worth.

I’d give Bosh a max deal in the right situation. i.e. on a good defensive team where he’d play the 4. He’s one of the best offensive PFs in the NBA.

Despite my bitterness I LOVED the 30 for 30 tonight. It was well done and wasnt as one-sided towards Reggie Miller as I thought it would be. I absolutely loved the fact they ended the show right after the credits with LJ’s 4-pt play in 1999. The 1998-2000 series’ are not as famous as the 1993-1995 series’ but was probably much better basketball to watch since with Bird as coach the Pacers were more offensively oriented than under Larry Brown (believe they were the #1 offense by efficiency ratings in 1999 and 2000) and the Knicks while they were the same under Van Gundy as they were under Riley were much easier to watch on offense thanks to the different talent on the roster under Van Gundy than under Riley. Of course the Knicks lost 2 of the 3 series in that time frame while they won 2 of the 3 series in the time frame of tonight’s 30 for 30.

If you had a James and/or Wade, then Douglas might be a good PG.
He can probably develop into a guy who could be a PG next to a Joe Johnson, too. Mike Bibby has been more of a playmaker on his career, but next to Johnson his assist rate is only in the low 20s.

@ rohank,

Anything is possible. Dennis Rodman’s rebounding was nothing special at all his rookie year. What we’ve seen from Douglas so far, though, suggest he’s not a “pure PG.” His assist rate has gone up recently to the point where it’s at least solid for a SG. He had an assist rate around 10 for a long while, which really troubled me because that’s what a forward usually puts up. If he works hard and things go well for him, he can get into that 20-25 range for assist rate and be a respectable PG. Billups started his career in the low 20s, and peaked out at 40%. That would really be a best-case for Douglas. I’m impressed enough with Douglas’ rookie campaign, though, since scoring efficiency is something that’s often either there or just isn’t.

Yeah, as someone who loves stats it really bugs me how haphazardly the NBA collects them. Some of those things probably even out, but it’s annoying.

I cannot wait until playoff basketball returns to MSG.

“Did this dude just did this?”