The Los Angeles Lakers!!!

[Live and die in LA]

Let's go for that three peat! Matt Barnes you better clean your act up!

[ultimate_baller24]

Let's go for that three peat! Matt Barnes you better clean your act up!

Lakers ‘10-11 Preview

30 teams in 30 days.

by Myles Brown / @mdotbrown

Is this really necessary?

We all know the situation. Adding Steve Blake, Matt Barnes & Theo Ratliff solidified the rotation. A rested Pau Gasol will be invaluable while Kobe Bryant and Andrew Bynum are on the mend. Lamar Odom won yet another championship and as of yet, Ron Artest hasn’t lost his mind. Plainly put, the West got weaker and the Champs got better. Oh, and Sasha got engaged. There. NKobe Bryant & Pau Gasolow can we talk about something important?

This is the end.

Phil is leaving, LeBron is coming and Kobe is almost gone. This is the last year the Los Angeles Lakers will be championship favorites. Now the pomp and circumstance normally involved with such a sendoff has been usurped by the Miami Heat welcoming committee, but maybe that’s for the best. Because in the end, the Lakers don’t need to win 70 games, they just need to win more games than anyone else.

It’s not an option this time, it’s a necessity. We may not even be discussing them as defending champions had the Boston Celtics not eliminated the two teams who would’ve held home court advantage over L.A. No, this time despite the inevitable injuries, the temptation of complacency and the malaise of February, the Lakers have to come out on top. Otherwise, they’ll have to come to Boston or Miami for games 6 & 7, a far more daunting task than handling business in a seemingly meaningless mid-March matchup with Milwaukee.

Presumptuous? Yes. Probable? Yes again. That’s the problem. For all the excitment surrounding South Beach’s Superfriends, the Big Leprachaun or Phil’s last dance, much of it will be treated as a formality. We’re all just waiting for June. But if all of Phil Jackson’s teachings could be summarized with a single lesson, it would be to live in the moment. And in this, his final season, it’s imperative that his team performs as though every moment counts. Because it honestly is that simple. In order to win later, they have to win now.

This may seem-no, it is-quite short, but it’s because we’ve been here before. We know the new guys will occasionally struggle with the offense, the bench will struggle with consistency, Bynum will struggle with his recovery and Kobe will continue to struggle with his ego. We also know there will be nights when they put it all together and contraction won’t sound like a bad idea for some of their opponents. This isn’t news, we know everything about this team already. Well, everything except the ending.

And that’s the preview that matters. So come back in about eight months and we’ll do this again.

Prediction? 60-22, Conference Champs. See you in June, bitches.

lets revive this this awesome thread. .=)

[Southpaw]

As long as Bynum is healthy for the playoff run, the Lakers will take it again. He was playing in one leg last year and it was still good enough. The main reason Lakers struggled last year was we don't have a reliable bench especially when Bynum got injured and Odom was starting. Farmar and the rest couldn't hold a lead and were very inconsistent. They were exposed in the playoff. I think with the addition of Blake, Barnes and Ratliff , they are solid especially if Bynum can manage to stay healthy. Shannon Brown has been shooting well in these preseason games. If he can get his rhythm through regular season then the Lakers will be really deep. I also like the rookies that they got. Ebanks looks like a guy who is like a jack for all trades and Caracter is very skilled offensively with a soft touch around the rim and a mid range. But I think Bynum holds that key whether the Lakers will run the table again or not.

[CKR13]

Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant has confirmed that he will be available for the opening season game for the Lakers against the Houston Rockets.

[CKR13]

Los Angeles Lakers Head Coach Phil Jackson noted that injured center Andrew Bynum is expected to return to play likely around the time of Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 25th more or less).

[CKR13]

Los Angeles Lakers forward Luke Walton will start the season on the Inactive List due to partial recovery from numerous back injuries.

While rookies Derrick Caracter and Devin Ebanks will be on the Lakers active roster and both are expected to play against the Houston Rockets.

[CKR13]

The defending NBA Champions, the Los Angeles Lakers won their opening game for the 2010-2011 NBA Regular Season 112-110 over the Houston Rockets.

Kobe Bryant had 27 points, 5 rebounds and 7 assists. Teammate Pau Gasol had 29 points and 11 rebounds.

[ultimate_baller24]

LOS ANGELES – Be ready, Kobe Bryant told Steve Blake. His championship coronation nearly doused in defeat, Bryant walked out of the huddle late Tuesday and welcomed his new teammate to the Los Angeles Lakers with a simple, two-word order.

A couple minutes later, Bryant rifled a pass behind him and into the waiting hands of Blake, positioned perfectly a step behind the 3-point line. Blake elevated and coolly buried the shot. With less than 19 seconds left, it was the difference in the Lakers’ 112-110 victory over the Houston Rockets.

Kobe Bryant thinks the Lakers have a more versatile bench than last season.

On a night he toasted his fifth championship and began his hunt for a sixth, Kobe put his fortune in the hands of a teammate with whom he’d never played a meaningful game. This was no ordinary assist, and Blake knew it.

“It was big of him,” Blake said, smiling, “to trust someone new on the court.”

It was just one shot, one game, but it’s upon moments like these that championships are built. There are Lakers who have gone entire seasons without winning Bryant’s trust. Ask Smush Parker the next time he returns from Russia.

Kobe’s competitiveness has swallowed opponents and teammates alike, and his stubbornness is equally unmatched. In Game 7 of last season’s Finals, he nearly shot the Lakers out of a title. As he’s grown older and his body begins to give way to all those miles, he’s had to learn he can’t go it alone.

The Lakers have long understood the same, which is why general manager Mitch Kupchak went back to work this summer. He gave Blake a four-year, $16 million contract and picked up a quality perimeter defender (Matt Barnes) and a veteran center (Theo Ratliff), both on the cheap. He also re-signed Derek Fisher and Shannon Brown.

As the Miami Heat assembled their super team with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, and the Boston Celtics added Jermaine O’Neal and then Shaquille O’Neal, Kupchak filled in the cracks showing on the Lakers’ roster. There’s a reason why the Lakers aren’t ready to cede this season’s title to the Eastern Conference: This team could potentially become their deepest in years.

“This year, we have a little bit better chemistry,” Bryant said, “in terms of pieces fitting together off the bench.”

Or, as he later said more succinctly: “We have guys that fit.”

Translation: They’ve signed guys who know their roles.

Blake stood idly as the evening began with last season’s team members introducing each other while receiving their 2010 championship rings. He then used his performance to show why he might need to be fitted for his own next year. His consecutive 3-pointers at the end of the third quarter reduced what had been an 11-point deficit by more than half.

Brown carried the surge – almost all of which came with Bryant on the bench – into the final quarter. Brown made four more 3-pointers – a testament, perhaps, to the work he put in over the summer. Already regarded as one of the league’s most explosive athletes (Phil Jackson praised his “up-ability”), Brown has tried to address the biggest hole in his game: his shot.

The Lakers will likely continue to lean on their bench as they try to find their health. Bryant is still working his way back from surgery on his right knee and, Jackson said, “searching for that moment where he can light himself up.” Andrew Bynum is recovering from knee surgery and isn’t expected back until late November. Fisher, now 36, will need to be preserved as best as possible for the playoffs. And Ron Artest remains prone to spells of zaniness.

Afterward, Artest stood in a corner of the locker room while filming promos for his upcoming appearance on “Larry King Live,” during which he’ll reveal plans to sell his championship ring to raise money for charity.

“I may want to keep the box,” he said.

The Lakers had reason to laugh. They’d christened their new season with a win. Some 2,600 miles to the northeast, LeBron and the Heat had limped out of Boston with their 400-member media horde trailing them. Someone asked Bryant if he had watched the Celtics’ victory. Only a little, he said.

“I don’t give two [bleeps] about that,” he said.

Bryant had seen enough of Blake and his teammates to know this season held promise. He’d driven into the lane and watched the Rockets collapse on him, leaving Blake alone, and he knew it would happen again. Bryant passed, Blake shot, and Bryant knew something else about his new teammate: “He’s not scared of anything. He likes those moments.”

Be ready? Next time, Kobe won’t even need to ask.

STEVE BLAKE IS FOR REAL!!

[DonAbritz]

not really a big fan of lakers but for them to aim for a 3-peat this season.. i'll be rooting for them unless they are playing against OKC..

best of luck!

[ultimate_baller24]

PHOENIX (AP)—Five months apart, the Los Angeles Lakers have consecutive victories in Phoenix.

The first sent the Lakers to the NBA finals and an eventual championship. This one gave Phil Jackson his 1,100th victory, something only four other coaches have accomplished.

“It’s just a number,” he said, “but it’s kind of overwhelming how many it is.”

The Lakers spoiled the Suns’ home opener 114-106 on Friday night behind Lamar Odom’s 18 points and 17 rebounds in a rematch of last season’s Western Conference finalists.

Kobe Bryant scored 25 points and Pau Gasol had 21 in the Lakers’ eighth victory over Phoenix in their last 10 meetings. No coach has reached 1,100 victories faster than Jackson, who did it in 1,560 games, winning 11 championships along the way, with some help from Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal and Bryant, among others.

“He’s something else, what he’s been able to accomplish,” Bryant said. “I can’t think of any coach who has accomplished what he’s accomplished in any sport, outside of John Wooden.”

Grant Hill scored 21 points, Robin Lopez had 18 points and 14 rebounds and Jason Richardson added 17 points for the Suns, playing on consecutive nights after beating the Jazz in Utah on Thursday. In three of the last five regular-season games against the Lakers, Phoenix was playing for the second night in a row.

Goran Dragic added 15 for Phoenix. Ron Artest scored 14 points for the Lakers, while Derek Fisher and Matt Barnes(notes) added 11 apiece.

The last time the Lakers played in Phoenix, on May 29, they finished off the Suns in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals. This season’s Suns have added three new players and lost a significant one, Amare Stoudemire, who signed with the New York Knicks.

The Suns did not come away discouraged.

“I felt coming off the back-to-back, we played hard and competed,” said Hill, who also defended Bryant most of the night, “but the Lakers, they’re champs. We played hard, but we just lost to a better team.”

Coach Alvin Gentry had a similar reaction.

“We just had a couple of little missed shots, a layup here, a layup there, and they would come down and make a big shot,” Gentry said, “and, like I said, that’s why they’re the world champs.”

Los Angeles took control with a 19-6 run over the last 3 1/2 minutes of the third quarter and first 2 1/2 of the fourth.

Shannon Brownstole Dragic’s pass and scored on an emphatic breakaway stuff to cap an 11-3 Los Angeles run to end the third quarter and the Lakers led 87-79.

Barnes’ 3-pointer to start the fourth stretched the run to 14-3 and the Lakers led 90-79. Barnes made another one, from the corner on a pass from Gasol, to put Los Angeles up 95-82 with 8: 48 to play.

With Bryant on the bench, the Phoenix reserves cut it to 97-91 on Dragic’s 3-pointer from the top of the key with 7:08 to play. Then Bryant returned the Lakers held off the last gasps of the Suns.

“We’re very fortunate here,” Bryant said. “We’ve got a couple of guys that can just stop momentum, me and Pau. Whenever it got close, we just went to one of us.”

It was tied at 76 after Hedo Turkoglu, who struggled through most of his debut in Phoenix, made a driving layup, but the Lakers scored the next nine, the last on Steve Blake’s 3-pointer to make it 85-76.

Los Angeles finished the first half with an 8-2 spurt to lead 57-50. Bryant started the run with a 3 and Derek Fisher finished it with another.

NOTES: The other coaches to reach 1,100 wins are Pat Riley, Jerry Sloan, Don Nelson and Lenny Wilkens. The Lakers play six of their first eight games at home. … The Suns had won eight straight regular-season home games. … Phoenix’s starting guards, Steve Nash and Richardson, were 2 of 11 from the field in the first half and 9 of 27 overall. … Artest made 3 of 4 3-pointers in the third quarter.

[CaveLight]

Lakers will stop at nothing!

[CKR13]

Los Angeles Lakers 112 Sacramento Kings 100

Kobe Bryant with a triple double with 30 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds.

[CKR13]

Center Andrew Bynum will be cleared for full-practice next week and could return earlier than what was expected in Thanksgiving Week.

[CKR13]

Head Coach Phil Jackson was recently interviewed by ESPN about the Lakers' strong start as well as asked a provocative question if the 2010-2011 Los Angeles Lakers will try to match that of the Chicago Bulls 72 Wins during the 95-96 NBA Season.

Jackson said:

"No, we're not going to do anything like that. The season is too long. The travel is too difficult in the West conference. We just have to try and step out and get ahead of people in our division, our conference and play as it comes a long."

Jackson was then asked about how the Lakers compared to the 95-96 Bulls. Jackson said:

"Not the same defense, unfortunately. We have a lot of offensive prowess, we're very good offensively, but the defense isn't quite the same."

[CKR13]

Los Angeles Lakers 99 Minnesota Timberwolves 94

Kobe Bryant lead the way with 33 points and 6 rebounds. Pau Gasol had 18 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks.

The Lakers are now 8-0.