[RocketFan85]

T-Mac and AI still never had the team Kobe will have next year. T-Mac or AI never had a Lamar Odom. Odom is not a bad player at all, when he is healthy is a All-Star. Throw in Butler, Rush, George, etc. and Kobe doesn't have a horribble team. Should still be a playoff team, maybe 8 or 7 seed though.

[MemphisX]

Originally posted by JNice!


It has nothing to do with Odom/Bryant or AK47/Boozer. Utah played pretty damned well last year and that was without Matt Harpring most of the year. Bring him back plus their additions of Okur and Boozer and two rookies who should both be able to contribute right away.

Then factor in the Sloan factor ...

And at least Utah has some big men. Sorry but Brian Grant and maybe Karl Malone arent going to cut it in the West. Lakers needs some bigs desperately or they will be in trouble.

J Nice...compare the Lakers roster to Utah's and you will see that LA is probably better or equal 1 -8. The Lakers have the better coach and the Lakers still have their MLE.

Kobe>AK47
Odom>Boozer
Grant=Okur
Butler=Harpring
GP>Arroyo
Rush=Giricek
then they still have (Walton, Fox, George, Cook, Vujanic, MLE) vs (Humphries, Borchardt, Snyder, Williams, Collins?, Bell?).

The Lakers probably have just as good of talent as Houston right now. I think this lottery talk is foolish.

[jc76ers]

memphisx,

Mutombo was a scrub? Didn't they have the DPOY and 6th man of the year in that seasonn?

mutombo was alright....strictly defense and no offense. the others were scrubs. yes, mckie was a scrub even though he wins 6th man of the year. if lamar was 6th man, i'm sure he would win 6th man of the years as well. mckie couldn't beat out george lynch as the starter and lynch is the 10th on whatever team he is on now.
lets just say that GP=mutombo. sixers have no one to matchup against odom, butler, rush, etc. all the starters that left on that sixer squad are all at best the 8th man, if that, on their teams today. lynch, hill, mutombo...

kobe no doubt has a way better lineup....too bad he won't take them anywhere.

[kflo]

it's likely kobe won't have what iverson had - +4 rpg, and the #5 fg% against defense, neither of which had much to do with iverson. if the lakers end up this season +4 and #5 in defense, they will be a top 4 team in the west. it's unlikely they can pull that off though. contrary to popular belief, iverson didn't "do it alone".

[HeinzGuderian]

Rudy T is notorious for making a lot with a little. Look at the 94 Rocket champions. Outside of Hakeem the Rockets were pretty weak. OF course, Kobe is no hakeem...

Iverson had such a sick defensive team. Larry Brown is a genious, and Mutumbo, Lynch, Snow, and Iverson are all excellent defensive players. Unfortunitely Iverson was the only offensive stud on that team.

[John]

A bunch of unknowledgeable posters here seeking for an educated answer.

I said in one post long ago, with the new LA team, Kobe has to take his team to WCF, he doesnt have to win it, but he has to take his team to WCF to be on the same sentence with Vince Carter in 01 season and Allen Iverson's nba final appearance.

Kobe doesnt need to do anything to prove he is better than Pierce and T-mac, because he already is better.

[kflo]

Originally posted by John!
A bunch of unknowledgeable posters here seeking for an educated answer.

I said in one post long ago, with the new LA team, Kobe has to take his team to WCF, he doesnt have to win it, but he has to take his team to WCF to be on the same sentence with Vince Carter in 01 season and Allen Iverson's nba final appearance.

Kobe doesnt need to do anything to prove he is better than Pierce and T-mac, because he already is better.

i'm curious, oh knowlegable one, why carter leading his team to 47 wins and 1 playoff series win, has to be matched by leading the lakers to the wcf?

suppose the lakers can't rebound the basketball. would their lack of success prove kobe not up to snuff with carter or iverson, who despite contributing little in that area, enjoyed teams that dominated the boards?

it's unlikely many will be measuring kobe against carter anyway. except you, of course. no offense intended.

[Damian Necronamous]

Originally posted by RocketFan85!
Throw in Butler, Rush, George, etc. and Kobe doesn't have a horribble team. Should still be a playoff team, maybe 8 or 7 seed though.

Now that Rush and George are on "Kobe's" team, they're good? So we're going to make them sound like good players, so if the Lakers don't make the playoffs...it will be all Kobe's fault? Please no.

Those two are no better than some of the guys that T-Mac had last season (Stevenson, Howard).

[JNice]

Originally posted by MemphisX!


J Nice...compare the Lakers roster to Utah's and you will see that LA is probably better or equal 1 -8. The Lakers have the better coach and the Lakers still have their MLE.

Kobe>AK47
Odom>Boozer
Grant=Okur
Butler=Harpring
GP>Arroyo
Rush=Giricek
then they still have (Walton, Fox, George, Cook, Vujanic, MLE) vs (Humphries, Borchardt, Snyder, Williams, Collins?, Bell?).

The Lakers probably have just as good of talent as Houston right now. I think this lottery talk is foolish.

I disagree. And I disagree that the Lakers have the better coach. No coach, not one, has gotten more out of players than Jerry Sloan. That Utah team was good last year and a lot of people wondered if they would win 10 games.

Some of the comparisons are off, but you are looking at all the players as single pieces. IMO, the Utah team goes together much better and their abilities are much more balance.

And you are missing the point ... if the Lakers had a couple good bigs, they'd be fine. But right now the only guy they've got that is above CBA level is Brian Grant who even himself is a little undersized. And even if Malone comes back, will he really be good for more than 20 mins a game and can he play the whole season? I doubt it.

Houston is better because they've got Yao. Point blank. Having a skilled center the size of Yao is invaluable.

The lottery talk is not at all foolish. The Lakers could very well make the playoffs. They could also very well fall just short, or if things doing mesh, well short.

[kflo]

if the lakers are able to rebound the ball reasonably well, they will be a very good team. if they can't, they'll struggle to make the playoffs. but miami was a decent rebounding team last year, and that should translate to the lakers being decent on the boards, and thus they should be pretty good. i don't think kobe will be the culprit if this team fails. a -1.5 or greater rebounding margin will mean they will be bad. grade upwards from there.

[hobojoe]

Originally posted by MemphisX!


J Nice...compare the Lakers roster to Utah's and you will see that LA is probably better or equal 1 -8. The Lakers have the better coach and the Lakers still have their MLE.

Kobe>AK47
Odom>Boozer
Grant=Okur
Butler=Harpring
GP>Arroyo
Rush=Giricek
then they still have (Walton, Fox, George, Cook, Vujanic, MLE) vs (Humphries, Borchardt, Snyder, Williams, Collins?, Bell?).

The Lakers probably have just as good of talent as Houston right now. I think this lottery talk is foolish.

Again, comparing teams position by position and therefore deciding one team is better based on having more advantages is so ridiculous it's not even funny. Doing that tells you nothing other than which team has better individuals at each position, which in the grand scheme of things determines nothing.