but anyway, unless the lakers can get their hands on some other quasi-quality center, the lakers are probably better off WITH than WITHOUT vlade--especially when shaq comes to town and tries to make a point...

 

actually, all the kings players are the reason why the kings can't win a championship. they are great when everyone's playing great and are in sync. but the rest of the time...

 

Lakers are done as it stands, who will be there center? They have no inside presence whatsoever without Shaq.. Kobe can't do it along, look at T-Mac in Orlando last year or MJ in the mid 80's.. Best scorer in the league, bad teams.. Lakers will have some talent with Odom/Grant/Butler, but they are all undersized except for Odom at SF..

The lineup as it looks right now is: PG - Payton.. SG: Kobe... SF: Odom.. PF: Grant.. C: ????

They are going to get roughed up with that l/u in the West.

 

there are 2 true centers in the league, and houston has one, and miami just got the other.

 

pg-Gary Payton, sg-Kobe Bryant, sf-D. George, pf-Odom, c-Slava, Cook, or Grant

 

lakers will have
kobe-sg
odom-pf
d. george-sf
payton, or rush-hopefully he can convert to the position-pg
grant-c

bench=

slava
george
walton
cook
divac

 

I think the Lakers will do fine. Odom will complement Kobe pretty well. With Odom, Kobe, Butler, and George all on the same team... you'll see a lot of athleticism.

I'm betting that if they play Miami they'll just try to run Shaq to death. The Lakers don't need a real center. They just need a Luc Longly type.

 

Lakers just picked up Vlade.

Also, Malone is saying that if he's healthy he's going to sign with the Lakers.

 

yes, the lakers are planning on reintroducing "showtime" back into their games. in other words, the games will be fast paced. yes, having a dominant big guy on the team can be advantageous, but big men slow down the pace of the game. as long as you have a cohesive unit of players on the floor, then the team will have a good chance of going far in the league. people are so soon in forgetting that the detroit piston, who whipped the lakers' ass, and then some, in the finals, do not have a dominant center on the team, but due to the fact that they had a group of guys that played on the same page, they were able to not only beat the lakers, but proved that the lakers were no match at all. people tend to think that just because you have some superstars on your team, that you will without doubt dominate over other teams, but the thing is that if a team relies too much on creating strategies around the superstars, the team is in fact setting up disadvantages for themselves. it doesn't take any more than an off night from one of the superstar, or early foul trouble of one of the superstar to diminish that teams potency. with that said, i really hope that the lakers will not become "the kobe show", because if the detroit pistons have proved anything to the league is that "teams win championships, not superstars."

btw, when the lakers play miami next season, their strategy needs to be "run, run, and run some more." i bet shaq and his arthritic big toe will not be able to keep up and get frustrated. also, the lakers need to attack the basket early to get shaq in to early foul trouble so that shaq will be "passive" for a good portion of the remainder of the game.

 

yeah, if malone does go onboard, then the lakers will have a pretty solid front court with vlade at center and malone a pf. i can just see vlade taking charges and malone swiping the ball from the big men of the west, and shaq of the east.