Official NBA 2012-13 Season Thread

[CaptKirby]

You know people really hate the Lakers when the "It was the Pistons though" excuse starts popping up

You know people are blind fanboys who base their arguments, their posts, and their entire mentality of interacting with sports on illogical flim flammery when they point to a victory over the Pistons as proof positive that the ship was righted and people had overreacted. Game 5 and the Lakers still fucking suck as much as ever.

Grizzlies look good, Heat look good, Pacers are going to have a heck of a bad season. Mavericks and Wolves both being x-1 without their biggest star..talk about every single bet breaking their way for both teams.

 

[Kevin Garrett]

If Jerry Sloan ends up as the head coach of the Lakers I will have no choice but to root for them.

 

[CaptKirby]

Sloan is good enough to pick almost wherever he wants to work, I can see it happening. Mike Brown was the weirdest coaching choice ever, Spoelstra in charge of the Heat was far less uncomfortable even.

 

[religiousjedi]

Damn...Bledsoe's a freaking missile out there. And (pleasantly!) surprised at Jordan's work tonight against the Spurs! Hope he gets that double-double tonight!

 

[Randombobman]

I've never been a fan of Mike Brown, not in Cleveland, not in LA. How can you be a head coach and not know how to run an offense? smh
I really don't care WHO coaches the Lakers, as long as he gets the job done, and Brown isn't.

 

[mite b cool]

Maybe they should start blaming the players instead of the coach

 

[Da Letter El]

I was surprised the game was as close as it was given how bad of a night Pau was having on the offensive side of the court. That very fact gives me some hope for the Lakers, but even so, the offensive as a whole looked sluggish and awkward. It was either the "give the ball to kobe and watch" show that most of us are familiar with, or it was a very sluggishly run Princeton offense. Both looked bad. Lakers defense was a bit better today than in the first couple games (but still not great), but transition defense was a pretty big problem.

The Lakers bench was bad too but I don't think that should surprise anyone. Jamison and Hill are the best players coming off the bench, but they're far from enough. Blake and Hill both put in effort, but they simply just aren't that good. Jamison finally showed up, which I expect to continue, but the rest of the Lakers bench...bleh. Guess Jodie Meeks can shoot.

Think a good bit of blame should fall on Mike Brown; the Lakers starting 5 all know how to score the ball (although MWP forgets sometimes), and yet they look completely lost in this system. That falls on the coach to get a team to buy into the system. You could tell in the 4th quarter the Lakers were just like "f this" and Kobe did his own thing. Some responsibility falls on the players for not performing regardless of the offense, but it's the coach's job to get them to perform in it.

I think that more games will help general chemistry and experience with the offense, but I question whether the rewards of this offense are worth suffering through learning it. And I think that's a coaching decision that Mike Brown is very much responsible for.

 

[Vein]

Nash+Howard+Gasol+Sloan = most pick-and-rolls you'll see in your life.

...which I think the best system suited for this Lakers team. Princess offense just sucks. We'll see less of Kobe after that though.

Getting rid of Barea was the correct move.

Why? None of the West contenders can defend him. I know that he sucks now with twolves, but you'll see his value in the playoffs, which the twolves failed to reach last year...

 

[CaptKirby]

Barea was bad in the playoffs, your memory is overrating him. Up and down performances seem "good" in a microcosm when you never step back and look at how bad the bad is, he shot 43.7%, 40.5%, 41.9% in the last three playoff runs. Everybody could defend him, he just had two good games in a row and everybody got excited because people are terrible sports fans. Not only the Thunder, but even the Lakers defended him well for the most part. He shot 50% and 48% against the Lakers and Thunder, but mostly by virtue of just a 9/14 and 8/12 game in a row...take those away and he is 8/20 against the Lakers in the other 3 games and 14/34 against the Thunder in the other 4 games. Since he was fucking terrible against the Blazers and Heat, if you take away his two "great" games in a row he went 55/146 the entire rest of the playoffs, so 37.6%.

Barea contributing 1/5 games is fine if you are paying him pennies, it was not worth keeping him around at a real salary. The guy is not a good basketball player, particularly in the playoffs. Just go look at his career playoffs, the guy is fucking terrible when defenses actually bother to stifle him.

 

[darkie]

Barea was so easy to love but he really kind of sucked a lot of the time.

 

[CaptKirby]

he was likable and still had time to turn a corner, but because we won the title he was treated as having turned it...based off two games, it was just too early

 

[Vein]

Okay, okay.. I only remember Barea when he killed the Thunder and how he frustrated the Lakers defenders.

As a Thunder fan, aside from Dirk and Chandler, he's the third best player I can remember from that Mavs team in that series... really (not Marion, Terry nor Kidd). He frustrated me in those times. It's like "fuck that little (BAN ME PLEASE)!"

But yeah, I won't give him that money..

 

[Vein]

DP!

.. Loss of Harden is beginning to lose it's steam on me. I feel okay now, I still think that the Thunder is the best team in the West. I think Lakers are one year too early to dominate, Spurs still can't defend us and others still did not catch up.

The replacements for Harden (Martin and Maynor) are totally okay if not better. Martin is more efficient than Harden in terms of scoring (and yes, Harden is already efficient enough), and Maynor is quickly getting to his groove as a playmaker (just watch the game today). Ibaka is taking more responsibility in terms of scoring.

But the biggest question is still Westbrook. It seems he's handling the ball now even more (with no Harden to alternate the ball to), and that's pretty scary. The barometer of this team's success this year will be Westbrook. Risky.

 

[YTP]

omg durant you stole dirks move!!!

 

[CaptKirby]

Okay, okay.. I only remember Barea when he killed the Thunder and how he frustrated the Lakers defenders.

As a Thunder fan, aside from Dirk and Chandler, he's the third best player I can remember from that Mavs team in that series... really (not Marion, Terry nor Kidd). He frustrated me in those times. It's like "fuck that little (BAN ME PLEASE)!"

But yeah, I won't give him that money..

I already conclusively proved to you that he never frustrated Thunder or Lakers defenders other than a game each :|

If you only remember him that is your fault, you remembered wrong.

I am not saying these things to try to act smug or something, you just "conceded" being correct and then immediately reiterated your misconceptions. I mean you want to act like you are better than Mark Cuban, but you could not see past something that was cut and dried a flash in the pan.

 

[Vein]

I already conclusively proved to you that he never frustrated Thunder or Lakers defenders other than a game each :|

If you only remember him that is your fault, you remembered wrong.

I am not saying these things to try to act smug or something, you just "conceded" being correct and then immediately reiterated your misconceptions. I mean you want to act like you are better than Mark Cuban, but you could not see past something that was cut and dried a flash in the pan.

Well, it's my way of saying that Barea may suck, but he still frustated many Thunder fans in that series. That's my point of view. You just don't know how much I was relieved when Mavs let him (and Chandler) go.

 

[CaptKirby]

Your team played above average defense against a guy for 4/5 games and you think he was a threat. You must get stressed out by every player on every team by that standard, any #7 man on any NBA team can matter in 1/5 games.

 

[gsninja]

DeAndre Jordan is really developing. He's getting even better at attacking the basket and his free throw shooting is SO much better. His shooting form at the line is the best it's ever looked. The Clippers have never looked more stacked than this, and Billups isn't even back yet.

Now, hopefully the Lakers improve to 2-4 after tonight. *.*

 

[symphonyx64]

Mike Brown has been fired. Discuss.

 

[religiousjedi]

Too quick in the season. In fact...they never should have brought him in at all. Or they should have cut ties with him at the end of last season.

I blame Jim Buss for these Laker woes. Grubby mittens have fractured what Dr. Buss established.

(P.S. you want a Phil understudy? Go to Brian Shaw.)

(P.P.S. DeAndre Jordan is making me happier Clipper fan.)

 

[darkie]

lol.

 

[-RatCheesy]

Who cares about Mike Brown. He's gone and now the Lakers
have to clean up after themselves.

 

[Randombobman]

Hiring Brown was one of Jimmy Buss's dumber moves. I'm betting his buddy chaz had something to do with it. Maybe now we can get a competent coach like, Jerry Sloan? I don't know how I'd feel if Eddie Jordan get's the promotion, though I could maybe see it happening.

 

[Gabe]

omg durant you stole dirks move!!!

It's a good move. I would steal it too.


RE:Mike Brown

I'm kind of shocked this happened so soon. I wasn't a fan, but it still feels too early and a bit unfair. I guess the preseason games did matter to the Buss family. Hopefully the Lakers can get someone like Phil Jackson, Brian Shaw, Mike D'Antoni, Nate McMillan or Jerry Sloan.

Still unsure what to make out of this though.

 

[gsninja]

While I'm certainly happy about this, management should've just cut Brown at the end of last season if they were gonna boot him this early. I don't think they were expecting such a bad preseason+beginning of season start, though.

All up to the players at this point to be mature and make the right choices...And win games, for fuck's sake.