Brian Cronin:
In retrospect, the Knicks would definitely have preferred to have used the Amnesty on AMar’e instead of Billups and then signed Chandler with the money freed up by amnestying Amar’e. Amnestying Amar’e would also have opened things up with Paul possibly coming to New York. That’s all in retrospect, of course.

yeah, that’s the point… but anyway, it’s gone now.

thenamestsam: People still seem to think they’re going to be elite defensively, but to me they look like one of the worst defensive teams in the league when KG isn’t playing. There isn’t a single other guy in the rotation who protects the paint at all. If KG gets hurt at all they’re really going to struggle, and even with him healthy they’re very short up front.

Totally agree. I think it’s quite likely that Doc Rivers mostly punts the season in order to keep KG’s minutes down, then tries to flip the switch late in the season. That’s one reason I don’t think Boston wins the Atlantic — given their excellent recent playoff history and vets, I think they’re less concerned with home court than, say, we or the Nets might be.

Heat looked really great. Compared to where they were two years ago there’s just so much more depth on that team. They always have good 3 point shooters on the floor, and both Allen and Lewis (who I thought was totally washed up) look a lot better in complementary roles at this point in their careers. That team is going to be a load this year. Lebron’s cramps may be the rest of the league’s best hope.

Boston on the other hand looked vulnerable to me. I have more belief that we can get to the #2 seed than I did 24 hours ago. They are obviously going to be better offensively, but I feel like they’ve built a worse version of Miami instead of sticking to what made them good in the first place. Last night the only bigs who got minutes were KG(32), Bass(28) and Sullinger (8). I mean talk about going small. At one point Jeff Green was playing center. People still seem to think they’re going to be elite defensively, but to me they look like one of the worst defensive teams in the league when KG isn’t playing. There isn’t a single other guy in the rotation who protects the paint at all. If KG gets hurt at all they’re really going to struggle, and even with him healthy they’re very short up front.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: And that certainly is a problem. MWP is not a very good player anymore, and he’s not going to stop chucking just because he has four Hall-bound players around him. But like I said, if they shoot even league average from the stripe (a shot which, I think we can agree, has ZERO interaction effects) they win the game and we’re not even having the “Are the Lakers doomed?” conversation in the first place. It’s a minor case of confirmation bias, I think, when we react this way to one game.

Well, we’re overreacting a bit. But Dallas without Nowitzki (and Kaman) should be one of the worst teams around; i’d say they should win that game even if they shoot 12-31 from the stripe.

Most worrisome is seeing Nash stat line. Only 4 assists and 9 shots (at a low percentage). Still we have to wait if the system pans out; but i think they are misusing their talents.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: It’s a minor case of confirmation bias, I think, when we react this way to one game.

agree 100%
they’ll figure it out somehow, but if I were a betting man, I think I’d probably still take OKC and maybe even Denver over them in a 7 game series. Denver in particular has a lot of frontcourt depth and might be able to run LA out of the building, with Iguodala mostly taking Kobe out of the game.

Frank: Definitely true, but they could very well go 3-13 from 3 point rangeA LOT this year. There is very little shooting on this team outside of Nash.They have way less shooting than even the NYK.

And that certainly is a problem. MWP is not a very good player anymore, and he’s not going to stop chucking just because he has four Hall-bound players around him. But like I said, if they shoot even league average from the stripe (a shot which, I think we can agree, has ZERO interaction effects) they win the game and we’re not even having the “Are the Lakers doomed?” conversation in the first place. It’s a minor case of confirmation bias, I think, when we react this way to one game.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: If they shoot 12-31 from the line all year, they’re going to be lucky to hit .500. But there’s no possibility of that happening, even with Howard on the line 10 times a game. Last night maybe wasn’t a well-played game, but they’re not going to be a 35% FT team all year.

Definitely true, but they could very well go 3-13 from 3 point range A LOT this year. There is very little shooting on this team outside of Nash. They have way less shooting than even the NYK.

Kurt:
Regarding the Lakers: I think that would be one team D’Antoni would do well with, aside from Nash. Howard would be the roll man. He’d really make use of Gasol’s big man passing skills, Kobe might respect him enough to minimize going solo. Howard serves as rim protector so that defense won’t be so bad. Also, he’d have Kobe and Nash to serve as his veteran enforcers, so his passive-aggressiveness wouldn’t be as much of an issue.

I think D’Antoni would eventually have the same issues in LA that he had here — he doesn’t know how to manage personalities, and in LA you would have baby Howard, infant Kobe, and crazy Artest. Not sure even Nash has enough clout to keep that ship afloat.

MDA is a great offensive coach, but he had a perfect storm of low-ego high character guys in PHX (and in 10-11 here before the Melo trade). LA is not like that at all, even if a Nash/DH12 PNR would be a sight to behold.

Re: LA – honestly, I’m not sure they have enough shooting. Kobe is an average 3P shooter at best, Artest is horrible. Nash is awesome of course, but he has never liked to shoot with high volume. And their coach kinda sucks.

Miami on the other hand — Chalmers, Ray Allen, James Jones, Mike Miller, Battier, Rashard Lewis, Chris Bosh, and even Lebron are all above average 3 point shooters. That is one seriously scary team. Really their only weakness is defending a big with a real post game, but there are no more Olajuwon/Ewing types anymore.

If they shoot 12-31 from the line all year, they’re going to be lucky to hit .500. But there’s no possibility of that happening, even with Howard on the line 10 times a game. Last night maybe wasn’t a well-played game, but they’re not going to be a 35% FT team all year. If they go 70% from the line last night, they win the game, and we’re not sitting here talking about how awful Mike Brown is (although he should not be coaching that team, no way). The Lakers are going to be a good team, especially if Kobe stops taking so many shots (over the course of the season; last night he played extremely well).