Who's Not Honoring Me Now? pt. III

Not a good week last week... 3 game losing streaks are never fun. It certainly gave some of the haters a chance to drop the Lakers down where they belong... below the, uh, Nets, Bucks, Warriors, and Nuggets?

Rank (last week) -- mostly as of Tuesday the 27th (pre Seattle win).

Lakers #5 (4) - Sagarin/USA Today [as of 11/30]
Lakers #15 (9) - Meija/CBS
Lakers #11 (7) - Stein/ESPN
Lakers #5 (4) - Hollinger/ESPN [as of 11/30]
Lakers #15 (6) - Dime Magazine/FoxSports
Lakers #15 (8) - Schuhmann/NBA.com
Lakers #14 (11) - Burns/SI
Lakers #14 (6) - Murphy/Covers.com

2nd tier

ok, so we're not elite in the west...still it was nice to handle denver, a legit 2nd tier team. this was a good game for kobe to break out of his poor shooting slump. you knew it was coming, but some of the shots he threw in tonight were beyond creative....multiple fade away turn around jumper bank shots that were money. great home win, and a good way to answer a 3 game skid by running a couple back to back.

btw - another double double for socks bynum.. can he do this for 82 games?

Big game tonight

Tough loss at Milwaukee... Lakers controlled that game until the 4th, and then no one on the Bucks could miss a shot no matter how contested.

Celtics are 9-1 having played only one good team -- Orlando -- and lost. So with the Laker game tonight, they are showing some, um... love?

"There are a lot of people talking about how the Western Conference is head over heels above the East," Pierce said. "The Lakers will be a good test for us."

Pierce added: "no homo." I love how reporters leave that stuff in, rather than editing like, "is head [and shoulders] above the East."

SWSBOGW

Nice win by the Lakers last night, but it was the Pacers so... let's talk about the Knicks.

They got trounced by the Warriors last night in front of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who actually said afterward: "I'm sorry that the New York Knicks lost. They've been playing poorly, very poorly, and I'm disappointed."

This prompted the best line of the year from one of the SportsCenter crew: "Confronted by millions around the world without clean water, even the Secretary-General is sickened by Knick basketball!"

(SWSBOGW = some would say because of global warming)

No Mo: Cook and Evans for Trevor Ariza

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Lakers traded forwards Brian Cook and Maurice Evans to Orlando today for Trevor Ariza, an athletic 6-foot-7 swingman who made a name for himself when he played at UCLA.

Sad to see Mo going... no such love for Cookie since he can't defend anyone. We're getting back a 4th-year player who was named a starter for Orlando this year, but has yet to round into form after battling foot tendinitis. I remember him being pretty good on a lousy Knicks team his rookie year. Real explosive and a good defender at 6'-8" and will probably play mostly PF considering Luke and VladRad off the bench. Which means.. Luke is the new Ko-B?

Stephon Marbury said in Ariza's rookie season: "After watching him the first week of camp, we knew we had a steal." And don't question starbury because he has some damaging info on all y'all motherfuckers.

Who's Not Honoring Me Now? part II

Lakers went 3-1 in the last week with a loss at SA, win at Houston, and home wins against Detroit and Chicago. Pretty good week, so one would assume their rank should reflect that. Not so for that idiot Marty Burns, who has the Pistons at #8 after going 2-3 on a west coast trip that included a loss at Sacramento. Otherwise some pretty decent love here.

Oh, and covers.com would like you to know that the 6-3 Lakers are 7-2 against the spread.

• Lakers #4 (8 last week) - Sagarin/USA Today
• Lakers #9 (13) - Meija/CBS
• Lakers #7 (10) - Stein/ESPN
• Lakers #4 (NR) - Hollinger/ESPN
• Lakers #?? (14) - Heisler?/LA Times (no idea where this went)
• Lakers #6 (7) - Dime Magazine/FoxSports
• Lakers #8 (10) - Schuhmann/NBA.com
• Lakers #11 (9) - Burns/SI
• Lakers #6 (12) - Murphy/Covers.com

LA Times Lakers Blog

One of the guys co-authored Fishing on the Edge, the autobiography of 2003 Bassmaster Classic champion Mike Iaconelli.

bench...

great bench play against the confused bulls squad. the walton pass to farmar was on a "whole nuba' level". kwame's injury looked ugly, but if we keep mihm and bynum healthy it's not a huge blow to the rotation. i'm praying this isn't another omen to consecutive injury plagued seasons. 6-3. great start and great heart.

Phil's Man Crush

Too appropriate for this blog not to post... Phil's comment after the SA loss:

"We call this a 'Brokeback Mountain' game because there's so much
penetration and kick-outs"

Then nobody of any importance got upset, so Phil had to apologize to "cowboys, Texans, horses." And zinged ESPN for making it an issue.

Is it me, or is that joke simply not a gay joke? You could use pretty much any movie known for sex. Which I guess they don't make anymore, except for porn or straight-to-skinemax.

Poll: Nervous Time

(from Sony who doesn't have post permissions yet)

What Makes You Most Nervous?

1. Lamar chucking up a 3
2. Fisher leading a fast break
3. Fisher driving into the paint
4. A hard interior pass to Kwame
5. Vlad guarding someone

Who's Not Honoring Me Now?

One of my pet peeves is the weekly NBA Rankings on various sites -- you can really smell the bias. The best is Sagarin's computer ranking which uses a computer algorithm based on win margin, schedule strength, etc. The worst is usually Tony Meija from CBS, who is a full hater, but the LA Times is also homer hater which may be worse:

Lakers #8 - Sagarin/USA Today (thru 11/12)
Lakers #13 - Meija/CBS (thru 11/12)
Lakers #10 - Stein/ESPN (thru 11/11)
Lakers #14 - Heisler?/LA Times (thru 11/10)
Lakers #14 - ??/FoxSports
Lakers #10 - Schuhmann/NBA.com (11/11)
Lakers #9 - Burns/SI (11/12)
Lakers #12 - Murphy/Covers.com (11/12)

post away

I think they bonked my other blog. for now this is it. post away if you have a lakers man crush (no homo).