Poor D’Antoni – must seriously be deja vu to have all this frontcourt depth and no PG to get it to them.

Has anyone heard when Nash is coming back? Hopefully not before Thursday? Or Christmas?

Juany8: Lakers have actually been better with Howard off the court than on it, as mind blowing as that sounds. It’s starting to look kind of amusing that some people thought Kobe was going to be the 4th best player on the team, the Lakers have actually been a very good team when Kobe is playing. When he sits they become a laughable team, which at the very least is a nice sign for the playoffs if Kobe can manage to play around 40 minutes. Guess we’ll see, I do think the Lakers end up being a top 5 team in the west with a solid chance of making some noise. Right now the top 4 in the west are putting some serious separation between them and the rest of the league

Don’t actually disagree that the Knicks might be too deep and that a trade for a better quality player while sacrificing some depth might help down the road. I just don’t see the point of worrying about it right now. We are in a position where we can sit tight until the trade deadline and see if something becomes available that has great value.

I think the Lakers will remain what they are as long as D’Antoni is their coach. They’ll probably get on a roll at some point, but their schedule is going to really stiffen up now. They are 7-6 at home and 2-6 on the road. One thing we are all too aware of is how stubborn MDA is. His system will change very little and he is not a great tactical coach in terms of making adjustments or drawing up plays.

The biggest problem again is their utter lack of something resembling quality rotation players up and down the roster. Duhon is playing major minutes and will even when Nash comes back. Jamison is a perimeter shooter who isn’t all that great of a shooter. Meeks can stroke it. He and Jordan Hill are the only two bench players that should get major minutes in the NBA.

Nash-Kobe-MWP-Gasol-D12

Meeks-Hill-Jamison-Duhon/Blake

This is a…

Juany8: I just think the fact that he’s bad at everything but shooting makes him worth roughly what JR got at best

Who cares whether Novak got a million dollars a year or so more than he’s worth? It’s not like they used up cap space to get him and it’s not like they could have given the extra money to sign someone else. They were over the cap. The only reason they could give him more than vet minimum was the Bird rights, so “overpaying” him is a non-issue.

Juany8: It’s starting to look kind of amusing that some people thought Kobe was going to be the 4th best player on the team, the Lakers have actually been a very good team when Kobe is playing. When he sits they become a laughable team,

Well, when Kobe sits, who is handling the ball and initiating the offense? Steve Blake, Darius Morris and Chris Duhon. Yuck. No coach in the NBA is going to be able to win much with those three getting 20-26 mpg each. I know D’Antoni has his detractors, but I don’t think it’s fair to judge the Lakers until Steve Nash has started 10-15 games. If they’re still playing like garbage, then yes… blow the whole thing up.

I do think it’s interesting though that Kobe is playing his best basketball since maybe his late 20s, and so far is scoring at a high volume with shockingly high efficiency. I read (on grantland maybe?) that it has to do with MDA’s pushing Kobe to be the ball handler in PnR situations, where it turns out he excels (more as a scorer than a passer, but still).

It brings to mind how Melo is an A+ elite scorer as a PnR ballhandler, but for whatever reason doesn’t run that play more than once or twice per game at most.

Garson:
I remember convos last season offering Amare+Chandler for Howard when they were shopping best offers.

Now, fastforward to present day , the only reason we do that is to get Amare off the books.

Chandler straight for Howard – Would have never thought we would say no to that , but at this point its not even a question! How far we have come…

Lakers have actually been better with Howard off the court than on it, as mind blowing as that sounds. It’s starting to look kind of amusing that some people thought Kobe was going to be the 4th best player on the team, the Lakers have actually been a very good team when Kobe is playing. When he sits they become a laughable team, which at the very least is a nice sign for the playoffs if Kobe can manage to play around 40 minutes. Guess we’ll see, I do think the Lakers end up being a top 5 team in the west with a solid chance of making some noise. Right now the top 4 in the west are putting some serious separation between them and the rest of the league

Still when Amar’e and Shump comes back, who is benched? Even if you simply give Shump the backup PG minutes Prigs is getting, how are Amar’e and Melo going to split their minutes? That’s ignoring the fact that Shump isn’t exactly a good point guard, and I kind of like Prigs overall. Maybe if you gave Amar’e all the backup big minutes (basically 2 of Chandler-Melo-Amar’e are always playing) but I don’t love benching Sheed and Camby (hopefully he gets healthy and somewhat productive) in favor of Novak.

This is why I’ve been in favor of a trade, it’s not that any player on the Knicks is bad, it’s that they have too many good players that are going to get squeezed out of the rotation, and it’s only going to get worse when the best players will all increase their minutes. If you want to get a bunch of regular season wins, having good players 1-12 is awesome, if you want to win in the postseason it’s much more important to have good players from 1-8. I can’t be the only person who’s noticed that guys like Novak, Bonner, and Korver tend to become rather useless in the playoffs when the kind of space they require to shoot well is only available like twice a game.

Now, fastforward to present day , the only reason we do that is to get Amare off the books.

Chandler straight for Howard – Would have never thought we would say no to that , but at this point its not even a question! How far we have come…

lavor postell: Howard is an assclown and I would absolutely hate for that guy to be on a team I supported.

There’s at least one Laker fan who agrees with you:

Time Warner Cable needs to re-shoot that commercial they play 78 times per game, the one where Kupchack welcomes Howard into his office and then daydreams about wanting to see Howard’s jersey on the wall in 10 years, displayed among the retired numbers of all of the great Lakers.

The new ad should feature Mitch sitting Howard down, telling him he’s the most overrated piece of garbage to ever suit up in the purple and gold, and that he can’t wait until next summer when Howard’s contract expires and the Lakers no longer have to worry about his stench of loserness ever tainting their organization again.

All vitriol aside, we’ve heard talk ever since the trade about how the Lakers would do all they could to woo Howard and make sure he’d sign a long-term deal. Well after what he’s shown as a Laker, the front office should in all honesty be thanking their lucky stars this albatross is only going to be a one-year burden.

lavor postell: Lastly the Lakers and D’Antoni. It’s like watching the Knicks when they went on that horrific losing streak after acquiring Melo. Scoring like 115 a game and giving up 120. Howard is an assclown and I would absolutely hate for that guy to be on a team I supported. He really just seems to not grasp the team’s situation and how to act accordingly.

Have to start wondering how much Phil will get when Jim Buss comes crawling to him. Can the Lakers have 4 coaches in one year?

Seriously though – how bad does it have to get before MDA gets fired? obviously way too early now, but if they’re under .500 at the ASB you have to wonder whether there will be a mutiny.