Originally Posted by KDOS

I was'nt convinced even when Bynum was putting 20 and 10. One of the few reasons was Kobe dealing with his nasty shooting stretch (38%FG) due to a pulled groin, and I swear a lot of questions surfaced, about this year being a possibilty as one of those down years for him, and Odom though playing good was still flashing those ever familiar non chalant and inconsistency attitude, and to make matters worst, Bynum went down and Kobe asserted himself offensively again in Seattle where he dropped 48 (?) and a game winner. It made me feel like its 2006 again. I lost hope to be honest, I said to myself, no freaking way we're going to keep this up with Kobe shooting this much and to add insult to injury a recovering Kwame Brown is still in the lineup.




I think the moment the Lakers traded Battlecat for Pau Gasol while Kobe brushed those injury talks off his shoulders (and started dropping KB24 numbers ;35 ppg 50% shooting) was the day I said, "Yeah this is it, we're back, we're going to eff teams up again". Critics say Pau's soft, he's not a great rebounder for his size, but after painfully watching Kobe take over where it amounted to nothing (however exciting it may be), all I could visualize is how great it would be to see Kobe play with someone who can take that immense pressure offensively. And Pau was just the perfect player. A big man who can finish with ease and also has a great basketball IQ. So fast forward and its no surprise here, despite the knack on him being soft and all, the Lakers have a better record with Pau than with Bynum and is on the verge of advancing deep in the playoffs.



Still, contender is one thing, a champion is another, and to be honest I still have doubts with us ending up as the latter. I just hope our players raises the intensity on defense just a little bit more. Our league leading "O" cant carry us to a championship if we play like a pretender on the other end, those Pistons or Celtics wont be easy.