^also, he travels a lot the first 3 minutes. Every time he does that studder-step it’s a blatant travel, but if you watch more of the vid it’s not as frequent. That would annoy me if I was playing D.
God damn he creates a ton of room on his fadeaway in the lane. He consistently fades like 5 feet back. Unblockable.
One of his best, pretty darn well defended too
Check out Iguodalas missed dunk
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Check out Iguodalas missed dunk
Lol, yeah I saw that “missed” dunk during the game. What a shame that didn’t count. He got up on that one.
Oh boy Dwight Howard is a Laker.
Surprisingly Gasol is staying in LAL
To LAL: Howard
Nuggets: Igoudala
76ers: Bynum and Jason Richardson
Magic: Affalo, Harrington, Vucevic, future first rounder
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Surprisingly Gasol is staying in LAL[/quote]
When the rumors really started hitting the sports radio airwaves in the afternoon, Gasol was part of the deal. And the obvious consensus was that both Bynum and Gasol was too high a price to pay.
Needless to say, LAL fans are currently as ecstatic (and also veto-wary) as can be…
What a terrible trade and fuck the Lakers. I don’t know how their fans dealt with that horrible stretch where they didn’t make the third round of the playoffs for two whole years in a row before being title favorites again.
Why on earth would be veto wary? Stern isn’t acting as owner of either team like he was for NOH in the bizarre CP3 deal.
Seriously, the Magic held out that long for Arron Afflalo and three lottery-protected firsts (2 of which come in 2015 and later)??
One thing to watch: LAL has an embarassment of riches on offense and a smart offensive coach could write a huge variety of plays that would make them unstoppable. However, they have Mike Brown, probably the least qualified coach in the NBA in terms of a dynamic, creative offense. I can’t help but think offensively they will be less than the sum of their parts.
Defensively, they have Dwight so they will be good. He’s anchored plenty of Orlando teams with 4 crappy defenders around him and kept them in the tops in the league.
It does give me some amount of joy that one of WhiteFlash’s top 5 hated players went to LAL though. Granted, it’s somewhat of a zero-sum game because the subtraction of Bynum made it easier to add a knucklehead.
That being said, now that WF is watching Howard every night, I fully expect him to come around on DH as the 2nd best player in the NBA (and best defender) by midseason. I think a lot of people’s opinions on Howard are still stuck on the player he was 2-3 years ago when he has actually gotten a lot better. ORL isn’t televised nationally very often these days.
There won’t be enough touches to go around.
Dwight will get fed up and sign with the Mavs or Nets next offseason.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
There won’t be enough touches to go around.
Dwight will get fed up and sign with the Mavs or Nets next offseason.[/quote]
I’m not convinced Dwight will need more touches than Bynum did. Also, with Nash distributing Kobe will take less shots, period. If they start losing I’m sure he’ll demand the ball but I bet he’d be ok if they’re winning - he really wants that 6th ring to catch MJ.
Pau is the softest and least vocal so if anything it’s him that will shoot less. Also, he still is a bit of a square peg in a round hole because he’s at his best on the low block, having Dwight will give him the same spacing issues Bynum did. Don’t get me wrong, he’s good at the high post, he’s just even better at the low post.
Also, how much do we know about Dwight’s back injury/surgery? Isn’t there a chance he’ll come back and not be the best center in the league anymore? I can’t help but wonder if ORL knows something that made them want to trade him before any teams could see him in action on the court.
[quote]scj119 wrote:
Also, how much do we know about Dwight’s back injury/surgery? Isn’t there a chance he’ll come back and not be the best center in the league anymore? I can’t help but wonder if ORL knows something that made them want to trade him before any teams could see him in action on the court.[/quote]
They make them take physicals pre-trade so I doubt it.
A couple of tweets I read suggested this trade was ownership drive.
[quote]scj119 wrote:
What a terrible trade and fuck the Lakers. I don’t know how their fans dealt with that horrible stretch where they didn’t make the third round of the playoffs for two whole years in a row before being title favorites again.
[/quote]
Maybe you’ll finally not be so optimistic about league competitiveness.
You can’t win in a small or mid-sized market without serious luck in the draft. If I were Orlando I would’ve just played out this season with Dwight and let him walk for nothing. Orlando will be absolutely terrible for many years to come.
If Howard’s back heals up and he is his normal self… Just imagine how good he is going to be playing with Nash? Nash had made a lot of players look really good who were no where NEAR the same leve of Howard.
Howard is going to be playing his be’s basketball this season after coming off the injury and it being the last year of his deal.
Oh man I can’t wait for the season to start.
Will we finally get that LeBron vs Kobe Final that we’ve been wanting to see for half a decade now?
Would be amazing.
[quote]gregron wrote:
Will we finally get that LeBron vs Kobe Final that we’ve been wanting to see for half a decade now?
Would be amazing.[/quote]
Would it be really?
Kobe at 34 would have no chance against Lebron at 28.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]gregron wrote:
Will we finally get that LeBron vs Kobe Final that we’ve been wanting to see for half a decade now?
Would be amazing.[/quote]
Would it be really?
Kobe at 34 would have no chance against Lebron at 28.
[/quote]
-says everyone on the planet except Lakers fans