Your 2008-09 Los Angeles Lakers

Is it too early to talk about the upcoming season? Now that those pesky Olympics are out of the way, let's project the rotation:

PG - Derek Fisher
SG - Kobe Bryant
SF - Lamar Odom
PF - Pau Gasol
C - Andrew Bynum

6 - Jordan Farmar
7 - Sasha Vujacic
8 - Trevor Ariza
9 - Vladamir Radmanovic
10- Luke Walton
11- Chris Mihm
12- Sun Yue
13- Josh Powell
14- Joe Crawford
15- Coby Karl
16- Dwayne Mitchell

I'd be worried about size off the bench if anyone else in the West had enough to make it an issue. I wonder how much Mihm will play... will he get Turiaf's minutes, or will Josh Powell step into that role?

What will we get out of Sun Yue this year? Will Coby even be on the roster come October? Will Ariza come back to play significant minutes off the bench? Will Luke stop sucking? Will Bynum start to decline after he turns old enough to drink legally a few days before the season opens?

And, let me get Sony started. What about Phil? Has the game passed him by? Is he watching tapes from the finals and realizing that perhaps a good team defensive scheme will be important this year?

It's Business Time

"I told them, basically, we're not going to beat any of those teams if we play like we played the last two or three games," Coach Phil Jackson said.

Word, Phil. This is the last, best chance to prove what this team is all about: 4 games on the road against NO, Houston, Dallas, and Utah. The way the Lakers are playing defense right now, 2-2 would be a godsend.

No State for Wounded Men

Take away the 3rd quarters of the last two games and the Lakers win easily, but that 66-31 combined whipping leaves a mark. I'm not sure what this means, but I've always thought halftimes were about coaching adjustments. I'm just sayin'. At least we're gone from Texas until March.

Anyway, certainly no time to panic. I think if you had asked any of us on October 30th if we'd take a 27-14 first half of the season, we'd have said Yes Please. How about a first half MVP? Yes Please. Right now we're solidly in that elite top tier, with the Spurs, Celtics, Suns, Hornets, Pistons, and Mavs. Not too shabby.

I figure a top tier team should be favored in every home game, period, and favored on the road against any team not in the top tier. That would lead to a 72-10 season, so getting upset every fourth or fifth game would lead to wins in the mid-50s -- right where the Lakers are tracking.

Here's how the season has broken down vs. this 72-win ideal:
Mo.....Ideal....Actual.....Outliers
Oct.....(1-0)....(0-1)....Losses: HOU
Nov....(12-3)...(9-6)....Losses: NO, @MIL, NJ, @UTA; Wins: @PHO
Dec....(14-0)..(10-4)....Losses: ORL, @GS, @CLE, BOS
Jan....(8-3)....(8-3).... Losses: PHO; Wins: @NO

Only three of those losses really stand out in my mind: Houston, @Milwaukee, and New Jersey. Lucky shot, couldn't miss, and one rotten egg. Again, not too shabby.

After a home game against Cleveland tomorrow, the Lakers play 10 road games in a row leading into the all-star break. That's 1 top team (DET), 3 B-teams (TOR, WAS, ORL), and a ton of mediocre teams (NY, NJ, ATL, MIA, CHA, MIN). An ideal 9-1 record mitigated by 2-3 "upsets"... 6-4 would be reasonable. Is 7-3 too much to ask in their current injured state?

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.