Lakers 2015 - 2016 Thread

[HeadInjury]

The Lakers' 2016 pick is Top-3 protected. Still a possibility that they'll land in the Top 3 if the ping pong balls cooperate.

[makemelaugh]

I don't pay attention to them anymore because all of the players I liked are gone or retired, and they're basically just a mess now. The way they kept disrespecting Pau was the beginning of the end for me. Remember the painful commercial with Kupchak showing Dwight Howard the retirement banners, while his face and body language were obviously saying, "I don't even care, I'm not going to stay here."? It made me cringe every time. I knew it was all downhill from there, and it's been sad to see. I admire the diehard fans who will stick with them, but hockey is now enough for me.

[SmytheKing]

At what point do the Lakers just take Kobe out to the backyard, give him his favorite meal, and put him down? This is going to get uglier and uglier as the season goes on. Unless he gets injured again of course. He's taken more shots than anyone and over HALF of them have been 3 point attempts. HE HAS MORE 3PT ATTEMPTS THAN NICK YOUNG HAS TOTAL FIELD GOAL ATTEMPTS!!!!

Ugh.

[HeadInjury]

For the most part, Kobe is getting good looks. He's taken a few truly horrible shots, but most are makeable. The one thing I'll give him before I pronounce his career dead is that due to his shoulder injury he didn't get a chance to shoot all summer. There's a chance his shot will improve.

He's also shooting from further away because he lacks the ability to penetrate.

I'm not concerned about the record right now. I expected them to start out bad. The question to me is how well will they be playing after 20 games together? We'll see.

[TooCool]

For the most part, Kobe is getting good looks. He's taken a few truly horrible shots, but most are makeable. The one thing I'll give him before I pronounce his career dead is that due to his shoulder injury he didn't get a chance to shoot all summer. There's a chance his shot will improve.

He's also shooting from further away because he lacks the ability to penetrate.

I'm not concerned about the record right now. I expected them to start out bad. The question to me is how well will they be playing after 20 games together? We'll see.

You make an excellent point. He doesn't have that explosiveness anymore, so he definitely can't get around the defender as easily anymore. So yeah, step back jumpers is his thing now. It seems like when he does try to penetrate, he may not be able to shoot but can still dish it out with the best of them. Ridiculous to see all the Kobe hate (though I'm not surprised to begin with) when I see these articles singling out one really bad shot per game.

[SmytheKing]

For the most part, Kobe is getting good looks. He's taken a few truly horrible shots, but most are makeable. The one thing I'll give him before I pronounce his career dead is that due to his shoulder injury he didn't get a chance to shoot all summer. There's a chance his shot will improve.

He's also shooting from further away because he lacks the ability to penetrate.

I'm not concerned about the record right now. I expected them to start out bad. The question to me is how well will they be playing after 20 games together? We'll see.

Oh I don't expect this to be a great season or anything, but when Kobe is taking 30% of the shots (still) and most of them being 3's (where he's never been all that great to begin with), it's just bad for the kids and their development. Imagine the Kings having Lecavalier as the 1C and playing 25 minutes a game and putting Toffoli on the 3rd line. They've now lost two games that were very winnable and both times it came down to them shooting poorly in the 4th quarter. Kobe was 2-12 in the 4th in both of those games. Russell and Randle were combined 1-4. Four total shots for the two guys you're trying to pass the torch to, and twelve for the guy who is supposed to be facilitating that. You can talk about them needing to learn how to do it and whatever, but I recall a 19 year old shooting guard dropping air balls on Utah in an elimination game in the playoffs and he turned out ok.

He went 2-10 from the 3pt line last night. He's 32% overall right now. If they were always contested shots, that'd be one thing. The fact that he's doing so poorly on really good looks makes it even worse. Bottom line, he can't continue to be the guy taking the most shots on the team game in and game out. This is embarrassing. I honestly have no idea what Byron Scott is doing.

[Ice24]

Kobe will go out on his own terms. He has done so much for this organization that he will decide when it is time to give up the rock. Byron Scott will not decide his play. This years team has zero chance of making a run into the playoffs so Kobe will decide how the game is played for the Lakers not Byron or the fans.

[jccawdrey]

The best teams playing at the Stapler now are the (1) Kings, (2) Clippers (3) Sparks (4) the kids playing at the intermission, then the Lakers...

[HeadInjury]

I am not on the anti- Byron Scott bandwagon yet, but his decision to play Brandon Bass at center is just mind boggling.

@MarkG_Medina:
Byron said he's not planning to play Sacre or Tarik Black unless Lakers have a few more bad rebounding games happen.

https://twitter.com/markg_medina/sta...41271418593280

[SmytheKing]

I am not on the anti- Byron Scott bandwagon yet, but his decision to play Brandon Bass at center is just mind boggling.

@MarkG_Medina:
Byron said he's not planning to play Sacre or Tarik Black unless Lakers have a few more bad rebounding games happen.

https://twitter.com/markg_medina/sta...41271418593280

They're getting absolutely murdered on the interior right now. I thought they'd be at least competing in these games. Something is happening in the 4th and they just quit/fall apart.