Originally Posted by eric generic (Post 1086886)

I could do without Kenny but I'm a huge fan of Ernie. He always calls out Barkley's BS.

Magic is terrible and so are most of the ESPN analysts. They have better play by play too but Kerr and Albert are great.

Originally Posted by eric generic (Post 1086920)

Speaking of that crew, I'm so amazingly glad that Jackson is gone. He did nothing but spew superlatives and cliches. I wonder who will replace him.

Originally Posted by eric generic (Post 1086947)

Maybe Doris Burke. I like her, she does games now and then.

Originally Posted by eric generic (Post 1087348)

I contemplated Yao's career after he got injured against the Lakers a few years back. You're right, he was too big and not athletic enough. However, he never had anyone good to play with. When T-Mac is your Robin you got problems. He probably could've been the best player on a championship team if the team was kinda stacked, but he wasn't carrying anyone there.

Speaking of big men, Dwight free agency looms large. The Lakers could probably make a package for him. Here are some fun scenarios to think about:

Dwight goes to:

OKC for Westbrook and misc parts. With Perk / Dwight / Ibaka that's pretty formidable. Dwight entering his prime while Durant continues to blossom.

Lakers for Odom / Bynum / misc. If Kobe can maintain somewhere near he has been(maybe just reduce usage and improve efficiency) while Dwight becomes dominant on the block under Pau's tutelage, wow.

Chicago for Noah / Deng / misc(Taj?). I'm sure people would be lining up to play with Rose / Dwight.

I doubt the Heat or Knicks have the pieces to pull off a trade. As cool as Blake / Dwight could be, big time players never choose to go to the Clips.

Originally Posted by eric generic (Post 1087352)

I meant those 3 as your 4/5 rotation.

As a Lakers fan I pray for a trade to work out.

Slashing is overrated =P

Originally Posted by derek (Post 1088588)

OKC and Chicago have the best shot at getting Howard than the Lakers.

Originally Posted by Dirty (Post 1088590)

I doubt it. Bynum & Odom is the best package anyone can offer. If the Lakers throw that offer out there, nobody else has a chance in my opinion.

Originally Posted by derek (Post 1088594)

Nonsense. Odom is 31yrs old and Bynum is injury prone. Also, if Orlando is gonna want to trade with the Lakers, they will want at MINIMUM Bynum(23yrs old but injury prone) and Gasol(31yrs old). To make the salaries work, the Lakers will have to take Arenas in the deal.

Here is why OKC and Chicago have better offers.

OKC: Westbrook(21yrs old), Harden(22yrs old) or Ibaka(22yrs old) but not both, plus Perkins(26yrs old) plus a 1st rounder.

Bulls: Noah(22yrs old), Gibson(21yrs old),Boozer(28yrs old) plus 1st rounder.

Sounds to me like they have better offers than the Lakers and a better future with younger players. Also, Howard said he doesnt want to follow Shaq's path and carve his own. He doesn't want to be labelled a Shaq-lite. Lakers have no real chance of getting him.

Originally Posted by bill simmons

after wasting nearly the whole summer pointing fingers, leaking stories to reporters and doing everything except getting in a room and negotiating, billy hunter's side finally came down a little … and, of course, instead of just agreeing on a better revenue split (right now it's 57/43 for the players, but both sides know it will land somewhere around 51/49), four-year maxes for guaranteed contracts (easily achievable, and absolutely necessary because teams literally can't stop themselves from overpaying players and being crippled by their deals) and a slightly harder salary cap — three moves that would have gotten us 87 percent of the way there — a few of the newer owners (cleveland's dan gilbert and phoenix's robert sarver are the biggies) are now pushing for even more stuff and that's bogging everything down. This faction believes the players' side is crumbling because a few of the biggest nba agents (jeff schwartz, arn tellem, etc.) lost faith in hunter and are investigating the decertification process (which would be the dumbest thing they could do). These owners don't just want to win this lockout, they want to take a hatchet to 65 years of progress by nba players … who, by the way, did nothing wrong other than continue to cash in on the ridiculous contracts that owners kept giving them.

Let's take a step back and consider the stupidity of this. Sarver and gilbert both overpaid for their teams and hope to blow up the system, then create a more favorable one that would cover up the fact that they overpaid for their teams. In gilbert's case, he coddled lebron for years, overpaid just about every player on his team (did daniel gibson write his deal himself?), showed no roster savvy whatsoever (his front office was really the bizarro sam presti), crippled his own cap season after season, then flipped out when lebron finally said, "i gotta get out of here, i need to play with better players"5 … and now he blames "the system" for what happened because there are apparently no mirrors in his house. Sarver overpaid for the suns, realized it about a year later, then spent the next few years pinching pennies … which would have been fine if he didn't have a legitimate chance to win the title from 2005 to 2008 and also in 2010. He's the kind of guy who watched steve kerr build a team that came within a couple of breaks of making the 2010 finals, then offered kerr a pay cut. His fans hate him; hell, his own players hate him. When i made a few sarver/gilbert tweets yesterday, steve nash retweeted one of the anti-sarver tweets.

Why do two owners with clear agendas like sarver and gilbert have any input here? It's a great question. The nfl had three of its best and most ruthless owners (bob kraft, jerry jones and jerry richardson) handling its lockout; the nba has the likes of sarver, gilbert, new york's james dolan and minnesota's glen taylor involved. Have you watched how they run their teams? For god's sake, taylor just splurged on a coach (rick adelman) who told him in no uncertain terms, "i am not answering to your current gm," so instead of firing that gm (david kahn, the least respected gm in the league by a landslide), taylor decided, "ok, you don't have to answer to him" and kept both guys!!!!!!!! And dolan is dolan — he's basically the train from unstoppable at all times. Why should i expect those four owners to have great insight into solving something as complicated as a labor dispute?

And are we really missing games over this? You should have labor stoppages only because of real issues — like what we had in 1964, when the players nearly sat out the all-star game in boston because they were being treated so badly, or in 1998, when the players were suddenly making so much money that the owners needed a better way to protect themselves. We're not even close to that. I can tell you right now where we're ending up: 51/49 split, four-year max deals, slightly harder cap. So effing get there already. Enough with the posturing. And by the way, both sides could mention the fans once in a while, or show at least a little urgency that they're about to blow all momentum from one of the best seasons in the history of the league. If they think anyone except for die-hard basketball fans will care that there's no nba in october, november and december — when we'll be focused on the baseball playoffs, the nfl and college football — then they're even more delusional than i thought. I hate everybody in this. Seriously. Both sides make me want to throw up. That was your anusol nba lockout watch for this week.

Originally Posted by eric generic (Post 1129838)

CP3 to the Lakers for Odom and Gasol...

As a Lakers fan, this scares me. Goodbye unmatchable front line. If they somehow land Howard, I'd be fine =D

Originally Posted by eric generic (Post 1134281)

The Mavs personnel sorta seem like a team that wins it once. They just aren't talented enough to repeat. Then you compound that with their collective age and things don't look so rosy.