Lakers Need to Take a Trip down the Street
BREAKING NEWS: The Lakers will NOT lose in the NBA Finals next year. I personally guarantee it. How do I know?
Because the Lakers will not be in the 2009 NBA Finals.
Look for New Orleans and Utah as strong probabilities and Portland, Sacramento and even Phoenix as possibilities.
New Orleans and Utah were strong this year and with a little tweaking look for them to be even stronger next year.
Portland gave the Lakers all they could handle this year and were undefeated against the Lakers at home. Adding a healthy Greg Oden certainly won’t weaken them. If anything, Oden makes them a genuine contender for the Western Conference title.
Success in Sacramento and Phoenix depends on free agent signings, draft possibilities and trades. If the Kings can resign Artest and add an outside threat they can definitely make the playoffs and then anything can happen.
In Phoenix their hopes rest on which lottery team will be willing to trade a first-round pick for Boris Diaw and/or Leandro Barbosa.
But anyway you look at it, the Western Conference, which was a dogfight this year, will be even stronger next year.
Even with Andrew Bynum coming back healthy and confident doesn’t guarantee the Lakers a repeat. Yes, he makes the Lakers somewhat stronger. But he is still an inexperienced kid who has yet to play an entire season as a starting center.
And he can opt out of his contract next summer if the Lakers don’t re-sign him by October 21.
But the main problem with Bynum is not his knee but his confidence. Will he be able to recover mentally from his injury once he starts playing in games? Will he once again be the player he was blossoming into when he dislocated his knee?
That is by no means a given. However, the Lakers should have a good idea of just how valuable a commodity he is by October 21.
The other question involves Bynum and Pau Gasol. If Bynum does recover his form, how well will he and Gasol cohabitate the Lakers front court?
So, with these questions in mind, how can the Lakers improve? How can they become more competitive overall and more aggressive on defense?
In Los Angeles these past few days, everyone from bloggers to sports writers and talk show hosts have offered their advice. Although it isn’t their money and it isn’t their team, many are quite willing to gut the Western Conference Champions.
Just take that old wrecking ball and fling it. And let the chips lie where they may.
Of course, Lamar Odom (one year remaining at 14 million) is the number one trade rumor, followed by Sasha Vujacic (restricted free agent), then Vlad Radmanovic and Luke Walton. Both are bedded down with contracts that the Lakers will not be able to peddle.
A few have called for Gasol’s lanky frame to be thrown on the trading block along with Jordan Farmar.
Others are screaming for GM Mitch Kupchak to bring in Ron Artest, James Posey, and Chris Wilcox among others.
The cigar smoke hadn’t even cleared from the arena the other night, when Phil Jackson added to the frey. "We have to get some players if we're going to come back and repeat, to have that kind of aggressiveness that we need," Jackson said.
Speaking of smoke, Coach, that was a nice screen you threw up. Almost as nice as the screens your players allowed the Celtics to put on them.
But this is one reporter who has seen through it. One just has to look to Detroit to see the real problem and its solution.
In Detroit, which performed much better in a losing effort against the Celtics than the Lakers did, they saw immediately where the problem was. They loped off the head rather than dismembering the body limb by limb and fired head coach, Flip Saunders.
Here’s some friendly advice, Coach. No, it has nothing to do with marrying the boss’ daughter, but that’s not a bad idea if you want to stay on after next year.
You see, Coach Jackson, you are the problem. Yes, I know you have nine rings. But if you keep coaching like you have this year, you will never see Number Ten.
Those six that you got in Chicago, you didn't have to teach defense. You had Dennis Rodman and Scotty Pippin to compliment Jordan's offense. The three you got in Los Angeles, you had Shaquille O'Neal defending and Rick Fox, a natural enforcer off the bench whenever you needed him.
This year, the Lakers won the Western Conference title in spite of you. Kobe Bryant held this team together. He bailed you out a number of times with his offense because you have been unable to instill in this team the aggressive play they needed on defense.
You just sat back on your hip implants during the NBA Finals expecting Kobe Bryant to do it once more. In fact, all of the Lakers and all of Los Angeles took their cue from you and were waiting for the MVP to will his team to victory like he has done so often this year. But Kobe ran out of gas. He just couldn’t do it on his own against an entire Celtics team that played tenacious defense.
After the Celtics totally dismantled the Lakers, as usual you only had criticism to offer your team not inspiration. "I thought we played on our heels from the very get-go," you said, "They overran us. . . . We never met that energy all night tonight."
It’s up to you, Coach, to make sure your team is energized. You do that by example not by criticizing.
You also said, "We were surprised we were here, and we're glad that we had an opportunity. But whenever you get this opportunity, you don't want to let it slip away, and we did."
Again, it’s up to you, Coach, to see to it that they are not surprised, that they know they belong there.
And finally, since Kobe failed to bail you out, you called on Mitch Kupchak to do it, asking for some players that "have that kind of aggressiveness that we need."
No, Coach, it's you! You need to coach more aggressively like Doc did. You need to instill aggressiveness.
What have you done all year, but criticize. Critiquing won't get the job done. You need to demand aggressiveness, not ask for it.
When aggressiveness and competition don't come naturally to players, especially the younger ones, you need to enforce it in your practices. You need to drill it. You need to exemplify it in all of your speeches and actions.
So, here’s what you do. Gather all your players in a limo and drive two miles south on Figueroa Street to the USC campus. Then walk over to Heritage Hall and knock on the door of Strength and Conditioning Coach, Chris Carlisle.
Let Coach Carlisle take your team down to his weight room and work with them for a month or so. I guarantee they will come out of there as aggressive as any team in the NBA. No, they won’t be bulked up. But they will be stronger where they need to be and much faster.
I guarantee that Turiaf and Gasol will never be intimidated going to the rim by Kevin Garnett, Shaquille O’Neal or anyone else in the NBA.
When they are done with the weights, let Coach Carlisle take them over to Howard Jones Field to watch the USC Trojans workout. You should go along, too, Coach, and see how Pete Carroll instills a sense of competition in guys who are even younger than Andrew Bynum.
Watch closely at how they play their hearts out in practice and leave nothing on the field. You think there might be a lesson there for you to learn?
Yes, I know it’s football not basketball. But when Sasha Vujacic lets a 38 year-old man who is three inches shorter and 14 years older than him throw him to the basketball court before a home crowd at Staples Center, I think some aggressive football skills are called for.
When your team gives up a 24-point lead, which it has done several times this year, I think they have a thing or two to learn about competition. And no one anywhere can teach competitiveness like Pete Carroll can.
Sit down with him, Coach. You might learn something. And good luck on getting Number Ten.
Oh, in case you're too busy getting the pooches groomed or tweaking your triangle offense again and again, you can might learn something from this...
