[druneave3Participant]

I picked the Lakers to finish 5th in the West. Now it looks like they might not even make the playoffs. Then again it is hard to imagine them not sliding into the 7th or 8th spot in the West. Whatever their fate it is obvious this is not a championship team.

To start, defensive wins championships. Kobe and the Lakers haven’t guarded anyone in 3 years (See Mavericks series). Your best players sets the tone, and Kobe and his knees haven’t able been able to move laterally and stay in front of anyone for several years despite the efforts of Kobe’s knee doctor in Germany that seemed to have done wonders for him offensively, but not defensively. Weird. Add 38 year-old Steve Nash to a backcourt with Kobe and and what is your perimeter defense like? Howard has been ok defensively but it is obvious his back is an issue. A lot of people thought he would be out until December, and now say he is around 70%. Even if he was healthy I have never been a fan of the best big man in the game over the past several years. He has always said he wants to be the #1 guy, but never acted like he had what it takes to lead a team. I mean this guy is grinning from ear to ear when he hits a pedestrian mid-range jump shot. Then add him with the fiercest competitor since Jordan in Kobe? Then add a ball dominant guard in Nash with two guys who also like to have the ball on the offensive end just a little bit. Not to mention a dreadful bench, and old, bad version of Ron Artest known as Metta World Peace, and a guy they have been trying to trade for quite awhile in a- getting softer buy the day- $19 million dollar Pau Gasol. It just never added up for me. Oh yeah, your coaches are Mike Brown(for 5 games) and my least favorite coach of all time (7 seconds philosophy), Mike D’Antonni.

It will be interesting to see just how bad it will get and what efforts will be made to fix it. I would attempt to move Howard.

[Ahkasi ClayParticipant]

don’t forget you have a almost 40 year old Nash coming back from a injury to RUN a up tempo offense, Like Kobe will let him touch the ball!

[ph90702]

If it wasn’t for all of his injuries, he’d be a better center than Howard in my opinion. He was on his way to becoming a 20-10 guy year-after-year until he suffered his first knee injury against Memphis.

Also, I think the Lakers should have hired Brian Shaw after Phil Jackson retired and continued to run the triangle offense.

[TallmanNYCParticipant]

Well Howard is clearly better than Bynum this year.

I still think everything changes when Nash comes back. You go from playing very bad PGs to playing a very good PG. That’s a huge change. It is a little like when the Knicks switched from a PG combo of Tony Douglas (he was shooting a ton and hitting less than 30% at the time) and Mike Bibby to JLin. JLin put up some mad numbers but really it was getting TD and Bibby off the court some way some how that made the difference. I think Nash will be as big an impact on this team.

[220Participant]

It is pretty crazy to see how poorly the Lakers are playing right now. Even without Nash and Gasol, I would think Dwight Howard and Kobe Bryant would be good enough to have any team playing above .500 basketball, but that’s just not the case.

The other major concern is, if the Lakers play like this the whole season and miss/barely make the playoffs does waffler Dwight Howard stay? There is no way to predict what Dwight will actually do mostly because it rarely seems if he knows what he wants to do.

[ItsVictorOladipoParticipant]

You were wrong? I had them pegged to finish 2nd in the West and 3rd in the league, now that’s wrong lol

[halfdecayedParticipant]

as for dwight, I’m not sure it’s still possible for him to go to brooklyn right? Are the knicks an option for him now? loll I’d laugh my ass out if he’d join the Clippers, it would be a pretty good situation for him, but Griffin and Howard in the 4th, freethrows would be a pain in the ass for this team.

[SubZeroParticipant]

I always said they wouldn’t be as good as the Thunder, Spurs, Clippers, and Grizzlies, but I didn’t expect them to be any lower than a 5th seed. They could still reach it when Nash and Pau come back, though

[JoeWolf1]

Better than me, I thought they’d be a top seed.

[SeattleSuperChronicsParticipant]

You are tripping. The lakers will be a championship team late in the season. We haven’t even seen the real lakers. Dwight is 60% looks like a sf when he dunks in the post because of his back. Nash hasn’t even played and gasol is a hall of famer.

IMO the lakers wouldn’t mind having a lower seed. Yes home court is huge but getting the tougher teams out of the way earlier is beneficial to a older team

[omphalosParticipant]

Anyone else think he might go home to Atlanta if the Lakers don’t make the playoffs? They are going to have all the cap space in the world, and he and Horford would form a formidable inside attack to rival that of the Grizzlies. They’d have to let Josh Smith go, but at least he’d have a running mate his own age and he’d be back home in Georgia, plus the Hawks are turning some heads with their play this season.

If the Lakers don’t make the playoffs (unlikely) it’s hard to see him sticking around long-term with an ageing roster, a frustrated Kobe and a terrible coach in D’Antoni. I was watching an old NBA documentary with Ben Wallace and he was talking about how shot-blocking is easy if your perimeter guys are playing great D; if they pressure them into the lane then you can rotate and block if you have the right timing, but if you’re just standing there it’s a different story. It seems obvious, but not even Dwight can be an effective defender when his perimeter guys are playing matador D.

[IndianaBasketballParticipant]

The Lakers haven’t been very good, but I think people need to calm down. It’s Dec. 15th.

Dwight Howard isn’t even close to being the freakish athlete he was in Orlando, despite what his numbers say. They lost Steve Nash the first game of the season. They made a coaching change to a coach who is the complete opposite of the one they had before. They lost their backup point guard. Their All-Star big man has struggled with knee tendonitis and is now missing games.

They’ve had to rely heavily on Chris Duhon and Darius Morris at point, which means they have the worse point guards in basketball. Jodie Meeks, Antawn Jamison and Jordan Hill are solid players, but they have much too big of rolls right now.

This team wasn’t going to start fast even without the injuries, etc. Why are people so surprised they’re struggling so bad with them?

I think once everyone gets healthy and they get on court time together, they’ll be fine. I see them making the playoffs as a 4th/5th seed, which won’t be too bad considering the rough start. They’ll be a lot better than their record indicates when the playoffs roll around.

[KayjayParticipant]

Everyone knows what the Lakers are going/can be. But the problem with losing all these games earlier in the season means surrendering a 3 or 4th seed. And we all know how the Lakers have always been dominant on their own home court.

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