Category — Kobe

As expected, the NBA season will open with a bang.
The Heat will clash with the Celtics in the opener on Oct. 26 in Boston. The Lakers host the Rockets in the second game of the doubleheader. Both games will be broadcast on TNT.
As expected, the Christmas Day extravaganza, which will feature 5 games, concludes with an anticipated meeting of the Heat and the Lakers in L.A.
NBA.com

By the way, what is Memphis’ cut for the Lakers winning back-to-back championships?
So if you’re Dell Demps, the new Hornets’ GM, what do you do? You know Chris Paul isn’t returning when he becomes a free agent after the 2010-11 season, so do you deal him now and get some valuable pieces for a rebuilding project? Or does your ego get in the way and convince you that you can convince the NBA’s best point guard to stay? And why would he since you won’t be a contender anytime soon?
With what the Heat did, I’m sure the Lakers are drooling at the possibilities of Paul in Purple and Gold. Couldn’t you just hear the howls around the NBA if the Lakers pulled that off? Just the thought gets Gregg Popovich all riled up.
I’m sure Mitch Kupchak has already made the call. Is Lamar Odom, Andrew Bynum, Steve Blake or Derek Fisher or whoever else you want enough? How can we help you?
Unless New Orleans pulls a Memphis and just hands Paul to the Lakers, it seems doubtful. But no one imagined the Grizzlies giving the Lakers Pau Gasol.
CBS Sports.com

Reports of Tiger Woods’ demise have been exaggerated. At least financially. Woods, who reportedly lost more than $22 million in endorsements because of his affairs, continues to be the top dog when it comes to hauling in cash.
Sports Illustrated released its Top 50 of highest paid athletes. There are a few surprises. Matthew Stafford anyone?
SI.com

So we have a super team in Miami, another in L.A. and the original Big 3 in Boston. Great, how about the rest of the basketball world, what happens to those fans?
The question gets overlooked when it comes to the NBA. The logic is that great teams matter most and make for a great league.
Interesting. When it comes to baseball, that doesn’t seem to matter.
It was believed that the salary cap in the NBA would actually even the playing field, giving more teams a chance to win a championship. It is also believed that no cap makes baseball a no-win situation for the average franchise.
Again, interesting.
A quick look at the last 30 years officially tells a different story.
Since 1980, the NBA has crowned 31 champions; yet only 8 franchises have won those, with only 2 of those being 1-time winners, Miami and Philadelphia. Houston’s 2 titles came when Michael Jordan was taking a break, so you wonder what might have happened if Jordan didn’t experiment with baseball.
Compare the NBA title runs to the baseball, where all we hear about it how hard it is for teams to compete with the big boys. In the past 9 years, baseball has crowned 8 different champs. And places like Tampa Bay, Denver and Houston have hosted World Series games.
Sure, the Yankees have won more than a few, but look at the same past 30 years. Since 1980, 18 different cities have hosted World Series championship parades, more than double that of the NBA. Pro football has had 16 Super Bowl winners.
Yet the NBA doesn’t seem to be worried about such numbers, instead hoping that superstar teams and star power will continue to rise above the fact that only 4 of 5 clubs have a chance to win a championship each season.
Look at the upcoming season. Other than the Heat and Lakers, the early picks in Vegas and by hoop experts, what other teams have a chance to run the table? Maybe the aging Celtics can put together 1 more run, or the young Bulls might put up a fight, but there are not many others.
In other words, same old franchises, same old story in the NBA.

Despite Kobe Bryant recruiting him to join the Lakers, Raja Bell apparently wasn’t listening. Bell signed a 3-year deal worth $10 million today to return to the Jazz. His signing also means the Jazz won’t match the offer sheet the Blazers extended to Wes Matthews.
Salt Lake Tribune

With the Heat lurking, the Lakers had 2nd thoughts. Bluff or no bluff, the Lakers couldn’t allow a major PR disaster at the expense of the Heat and allow Derek Fisher to sign up for duty. Regardless, Fisher and the club have a verbal agreement (the Lakers haven’t announced anything) that will allow the point guard and his 5 rings to return next season. Give an assist to Kobe Bryant, who let his feelings be known last week that Fisher should return regardless of the cost to the Lakers.
DerekFisher2.com

Derek Fisher is meeting with Pat Riley on Saturday as the Heat attempts to persuade the Laker point guard to join the circus in Miami. This surely isn’t going over well with Kobe Bryant, who said yesterday that the Lakers need to bring Fisher back whatever the costs. The Lakers’ stance is curious to say the least, knowing Fisher is the clubhouse leader and one of the more cerebral individuals in the NBA.
ESPN LA

Oh hell nah. Heat fans might disagree, but a little food for thought when they sober up tomorrow. A little Left Coast perspective, if you will.
As I mentioned to my man Jimmy G, old hoop heads like me are all giddy about the endless possibilities of another promising NBA season that remains more than 4 months away. Still, unlike what Michael Wilbon inaccurately stated, the balance of power still resides in the West.
The Heat, C’s and Magic are the cream of the crop in the East, but the West still has the 2-time defending champs, the rising Thunder and their quiet assassin Kevin Durant, the Nugs, Mavs, Jazz, Spurs and the Blazers, health being the major factor for them and their noted flasher Gred Oden withstanding.
Some folks will laugh, but the Clip Joint has some nice pieces, enough of them they could become a playoff team.
But let’s get back to everyone’s favorite flavor and surely the preseason favorite to win it all, the Heat and all their new-found bandwagon riding fans.
My 1st question: Who’s your center? Freaking Jamaal Magloire? Or a fat-meat-is-greasy rook like Dexter Pittman? While Heat fans were wetting their pants tonight, their former center Jermaine O’Neal was wetting his and signing a deal with the C’s. If you don’t believe that’s significant, you need to get out more.
My point is this: Unless Miami finds someone to plug its glaring hole in the middle (please, Chris Bosh is a forward and Andrew Bynum would eat his lunch, as Coach Quinn was fond of saying), it might not come out of the East despite the All-Star threesome the Heat now employs. Though they have plenty of time to address their weakness, they will need to address it, which is required balling, particularly in the East.
Last time we checked, Boston still have some major beef inside and Dwight Howard is still the best center in the NBA. The Heat will have to deal with that.
As far as the Lakers go and if Miami ventures this far, LeBron already slipped. He provided some incentive in an innocent way, saying “If Kendrick Perkins doesn’t go down” the NBA Finals could have had a different result. Who?
Don’t think Kobe didn’t catch that. His eyes and brains almost popped out of his head.
And like us, he’s probably drooling already. Too bad we have to wait.

That’s what tonight’s summit is being billed when the King with no rings tells the masses of his much-awaited intentions.
Sources, sources, sources…
Speaking of sources, plenty of media folks were taking Stephen A. Smith to task weeks ago when he reported that LeBron James was heading to Miami. Regardless of one’s opinion of the bombastic Smith (and folks don’t have a high one of him), he might have nailed one of the biggest free agent stories since Shaq bolted Orlando for L.A., altering the landscape of the NBA and resulting in 3 consecutive titles for the Lakers before it all crashed and burned.
No one knows where James will wind up until he makes his announcement tonight with millions glued to the set and ESPN. ESPN’s Chris Broussard is saying James is tipping his hand toward Miami. Well yeah, its Miami nice or Cleveland.
If he does shake up the basketball world and head to South Beach to join his playmates Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, it will tip off one of the most anticipated NBA seasons in years. And it’s only July.
ESPN The Magazine

The Lakers low-balling Derek Fisher is mind-blowing. They are offering him a 1-year deal worth $2.5 million, which is less than half of what Sasha Vujacic and Luke Walton each make. How insulting is that?
We were Fisher’s biggest critics during the regular season, but despite him losing a step at 35 and allowing opposing point guards blow by him like the wind in Oklahoma, his uncanny ability to deliver heroics throughout the NBA playoffs rank among the best in Laker lore.
Have Jerry Buss and Mitch Kupchak already forgotten Game 3 in Boston? That’s when D-Fish took over in the 4th quarter, when the Lakers had trouble generating much of anything offensively, and carried them to a huge victory that played as big a role in their repeat as any game of the 7-game series against the Celtics.
Just as important, as Arash Markazi mentions, Fisher is the only player on the Lakers who can make Kobe see the light when he sometimes doesn’t see at all. You can’t put a price tag on that.
Fisher also has 5 rings, just like Kobe. Without Fisher, the Lakers probably wouldn’t have won the last 2 NBA titles.
ESPN LA