Tag: Los Angeles Lakers (Page 6 of 48)

Ron Artest wants out?

February 2, 2011 / John Paulsen

Marc Stein has a source that says that Ron Artest wants out of L.A.

Artest’s two main beefs?
1. He’s weary of being scapegoated for the team’s struggles and feels that he’s destined to always absorb the bulk of the blame no matter what happens because Jackson and Bryant are so dependent on the more glamorous contributions of Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom and will never publicly go after regal Laker lifer Derek Fisher.
2. As we heard at various points during his stops in Indiana, Sacramento and Houston, Artest is eventually going to squawk if he’s being marginalized in the offense, which inevitably disengages him from his defensive responsibilities.

After a so-so regular season, Artest justified his signing by coming up big in the playoffs. He followed up Kobe Bryant’s airball with a game-winning layup against the Suns in Game 5 and then hit a HUGE three-pointer against the Celtics in Game 7.

But he’s averaging just 8.1 points and 2.9 rebounds this season, which are easily career lows. The problem here is not that Artest wants out, it’s that nobody is going to trade for him. He’s 31, and his game has (seemingly) fallen off a cliff. The Lakers aren’t happy with the way he’s defending, and that might be a result of how he’s been marginalized offensively. He has three years and almost $22 million remaining on his deal, and he has a reputation for being a malcontent — who is going to want to take that contract on?

No, the Lakers are stuck with Ron Artest and Ron Artest is stuck with the Lakers.

Trevor Ariza is starting to look pretty good, isn’t he?

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Three sensible trade offers for Steve Nash

January 31, 2011 / John Paulsen

ESPN’s Chad Ford lists the 10 impact players most likely to be moved before the Feb. 24 NBA trade deadline and believe it or not, #10 on his list is Steve Nash.

The Suns have said all along that Nash is still the core of the franchise, but at 22-24, the Suns are a long way from contending for a championship. Heck, they may not even make the playoffs this season. The soon-to-be 37-year-old is still playing at a high level, so he could help a team in need of a good point guard.

So here are a few reasonable offers that might get the Suns to bite.

1. Los Angeles Lakers
The chances that the Suns would trade Nash to the Lakers are pretty slim. No one in the West really wants to help Kobe try to three-peat, but the Lakers aren’t playing very well and they have a big piece that the Suns might be interested in.

There’s a saying — don’t trade big for small — but the Lakers aren’t getting great play out of their point guard position and Nash’s shooting would be a great fit next to Kobe in the Laker backcourt. However, Nash’s propensity to dribble around until he finds the open man would take the ball out of Kobe’s hands, and that may not go over very well (or fit within the Lakers’ triangle offense). The trade would leave the Lakers very thin on the front line, and with the way that the Celtics are playing, it’s doubtful that they’re going to want to part ways with Bynum. But they’re not playing very good baskeball right now and the roster could use a shakeup. Perhaps Robin Lopez could be included to maintain the Lakers’ frontcourt depth.

For the Suns, Bynum could be a franchise cornerstone if he can just stay healthy. I have my doubts about his knees, but if the Phoenix doctors take a look at him and think that the worst is behind him, he may be worth the risk.

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Celtics beat Lakers, 109-96

January 30, 2011 / John Paulsen

Box Score

The Celtics shot 60.3% from the field and 52.9% from three-point range en route to a 13-point win over the Lakers at Staples Center. It was a very poor showing by the Laker defense, which is ranked 8th in the league in defensive efficiency and 4th in opponent FG%.

Boston’s “Big Four” showed up, and in a big way. Paul Pierce (32 points), Ray Allen (21), Kevin Garnett (18) and Rajon Rondo (10) combined to shoot 33-for-51 (64.7%) from the field. They’re going to be awfully tough to beat when they are scoring this easily.

Kobe hit 16-of-29 shots for 41 points but had ZERO assists. That pretty much tells the story, doesn’t it?

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Who is best in the clutch? (Hint: It’s not Kobe.)

January 28, 2011 / John Paulsen

TrueHoop’s Henry Abbott wrote a good piece about clutch performance and although there’s a stack of videos over at YouTube that might convince fans otherwise, Abbott argues that Kobe Bryant is not all that good in the clutch.

ESPN Stats and Information’s Alok Pattani dug through 15 years of NBA data (see table below) — Bryant’s entire career, regular season and playoffs — and found that Bryant has attempted 115 shots in the final 24 seconds of a game in which the Lakers were tied or trailed by two or fewer points. He connected on 36, and missed 79 times.

That’s a rate of 31.3%, and since the 1996-97 season (including playoff games), there are 24 players that have made a higher percentage of shots when “…trailing by one or two points, or tied, in the final 24 seconds…” with a minimum of 30 shots attempted.

Who’s the best?

Carmelo Anthony. He hits 47.7% of his shots under these circumstances. Maybe he’s worth trading for after all.

Chris Paul is second at 45.2%. In fact, Brandon Roy (40%), Deron Williams (38.9%), Dirk Nowitzki (38.5%), Tim Duncan (37.1%), LeBron James (33.3%) and Gilbert Arenas (32.5%) are all better in the clutch.

I don’t think it’s fair to compare Kobe to some of the other names on this list — like Shawn Marion, Hedo Turkoglu, Rashard Lewis or Eddie Jones — because those guys had an advantage: not everyone knew that they were going to take the last shot. If the Lakers are down, everyone in the building knows who’s going to take the last shot. This is partly because Kobe is so good at getting a shot off, but it’s also due to his unwillingness to pass the ball in clutch situations. (As Abbott notes, from 2003-2009, Kobe took 56 shots and had just one assist in the clutch.) In his book, Phil Jackson lamented about Kobe’s insistence to always take the final shot in such situations.

However, it is fair to compare Kobe to superstars like Carmelo, CP3, Dirk and LeBron (with the Cavs) because they are typically the ones taking game-winners for their teams. LeBron and Chris Paul are especially good at passing to teammates in the clutch. Kobe has that ability, but he simply doesn’t trust his teammates in clutch situations.

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