OK, maybe he wasn't really asking me exactly, but I'll answer him anyways. No. I don't trust the Lakers one little bit. I have hated watching the games lately, and have been lucky that there is good college basketball to satisfy my hoops desires. My friends and family know a few things about me, and right up there near the top is that I'm a huge Lakers fan. So these next few words are going to hurt me.
I haven't been impressed with how the Lakers have handled themselves ever since the Christmas Day game against Cleveland. Apart from one player, we all know who that is, the team has been rocked with inconsistency. Specifically the other guards have been disappointing as hell. Jordan Farmar continues to develop as an offensive threat, but he is insanely streaky and often looks lost on defense. Derek Fisher is no longer the one-on-one defender he used to be, and he takes too many bad shots. His shotmaking never used to be a problem because he was knocking them down, but now it feels as though he's chucking it up and clanking like never before. As for Shannon Brown, I love the athleticism, but teams are able to take him off his game just by playing a touch of defense. He was a force last season because he was constantly left alone as other teams didn't respect him. Now that teams know they have to pay a modicum of attention to the guy, he's much less effective.
Up front, Ron Artest has not been what we all had hoped he would be. So he plays good one-on-one defense, big deal. Defense is a team thing, just ask the Boston Celtics. Paul Pierce and Ray Allen were key cogs in a championship defense because the Celtics focused on the team concept. PAUL PIERCE AND RAY ALLEN! (OK... KG, James Posey, and Rajon Rondo all played big parts in that championship team and they are all great defenders, but still... Pierce and Allen were laughable defenders before that season) What good is it when you have a great one-on-one guy like Artest, but everybody else is asleep? Same goes for Kobe - who cares that he sometimes gets in that lock-down maniac mode where he squats down and hikes up his shorts and starts licking his lips? It doesn't matter if he forces a guy baseline if Pau Gasol is going to wave him by like a Matador. I'm afraid to even mention Artest's offense. How can an athlete his size barely be able to dunk? His severe lack of elevation is a problem, as he is consistently denied medium-difficulty layups by the rim. He gets blocked by the rim. How embarassing.
Pau Gasol, ugh. If he isn't a consistent part of the Lakers attack, then he starts to lose interest. Once he starts to lose interest, he starts to miss shots. The best thing for him and for the Lakers is to feed him early and often. He's a "kick them while they're down" sort of player that loves stepping on the throats of other teams, but only if it's in the midst of a full-out rout. These numbers are arbitrary, but say there's three minutes left in a close game and Gasol has had 12-15 shots all game, do I trust him to handle his business on the low block when he's facing double teams? No. I don't. Last season he was able to find a cutting Lamar Odom over and over in the hi-low game, but that seems to have vanished.
Speaking of Lamar Odom... actually, no I'd rather not. Good rebounder, spotty defender, spotty shooter, all-around enigma. Will I ever figure him out? No.
Andrew Bynum... will he play? Will he play hard? All we have is question marks surrounding LA's starting center.
What it all boils down to is this - I miss Trevor Ariza. How many big plays did that young man make during last year's playoffs? How many bad shots did Ron Artest jack up and miss during last year's playoffs? If it were up to me, I'd take Ariza 10 times out of 10 in a trade. He was an x-factor, and a game-changer. He had a Rondo-like tendency to poke the ball away from defenders, and his attitude was infectious. He inspired a thievery competition (this is not figurative language, he literally was in a competition for most steals with Kobe and Jordan Farmar) that got all the guys active on the defensive end. When Shannon Brown came over in the Radmonovic trade, he got in on the act too. Does anything get a crowd more pumped up than a pick-pocket steal that leads to a fast break and an Ariza/Bryant/Brown thunder dunk? Or how about the times those steals led to Kobe or Farmar pulling up for three (they could do that because there were three guys running the break with them) and drilling a fast-break dagger. Those are game-changing plays.
The game-changing days are over in Los Angeles.
Alright - perhaps I've been a bit harsh. If you read this far (which you haven't, because I have no readers) you are probably starting to wonder where the stats are to support my fears. Well, they aren't there. Statistically this is a good team. I think the biggest glaring stat would be the bench production, or lack thereof, but at the end of the day this team still has the most wins in a demanding Western Conference. That says a lot. I'm just not going to bet my life on them repeating as champions, and that causes me more stress than it should. I need a beer.
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