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Can't wait to see these pg's around the league abuse the **** out of Lin
Really like Clarkson
Really like Clarkson
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At this point with the coaching situation still not decided.
I wouldn't mind at all if the Lakers went with Mark Jackson instead over Byron Scott.
dont' think he can stand being and assistant.Mark Jackson as a assistant? Motivating much?
One way for Randle to beat the length of opposing defenders is starting from the perimeter. At least it isn't something boring like getting post up after post up.Randle trying to be a point or something? :x
Clarkson tho.. lookin like a steal
This wasn’t one of our happier years at the “You Can Absolutely Win a Title If Carmelo Anthony Is Your Best Player” Fan Club headquarters. Our man missed the 2014 playoffs in the rancid Eastern Conference, then received a rude comeuppance from his new Knicks boss, Phil Jackson, who lobbied him publicly to stick around at a discount price. The Bulls couldn’t carve out enough cap space for him. The Lakers couldn’t offer a good enough supporting cast. The Rockets never gained momentum, for whatever reason. Carmelo ended up re-signing for $122 million for five years, pretending that was the plan all along … even though it wasn’t.
You know what really shocked me? Hearing Knicks fans and Lakers fans wonder whether it was a smart idea to splurge on Carmelo at all. Where are you REALLY going if he’s your best player?, they kept asking. Take my friend Lewis, a lifelong Southern California guy, one of those complicated superfans who’s nutty enough to grow a beard for the entire NHL playoffs, only he’s rational enough to freak out over Kobe’s cap-crippling two-year extension, but he’s also irrational enough to still believe the Lakers could eventually sign Kevin Love AND Kevin Durant. You can always count on him for a rationally irrational reaction, if that makes sense.
Click here for more on 2014 NBA free agency.
When news broke two weekends ago that the Lakers had become serious Carmelo contenders, I couldn’t wait for Lewis’s reaction. After all, he reacted to last March’s Marian Gaborik trade as if his Kings had just acquired Gretzky again1 — I figured Carmelo would rank highly on the Gaborik Reaction Scale. Instead, here’s the email exchange we had.
Me: Are u officially in Carmelo mode?
Lewis: God no. Hope he goes to the Knicks.
Wait a second … my rationally irrational Lakers buddy didn’t want Carmelo?
Me: You don’t mean that.
Lewis: It’s a bandaid on a broken arm. It locks them up with no flexibility for two years until Kobe goes.
He didn’t want Carmelo Anthony??? On the Lakers???
I surfed a few Lakers blogs and message boards and found similar ambivalence. Some fans wanted him, others didn’t understand the point. Many felt like the rationally irrational Lewis — they wanted the Lakers to land a top-five lottery pick (if it’s lower than that, it goes to Phoenix), wipe Nash’s expiring contract off their cap, then make a run at the Kevins (Love in 2015, Durant in 2016). That’s a smart plan, except (a) they could easily stink and STILL lose that 2015 lottery pick,2 (b) Love will probably get traded this season (and might like his new team), (c) nobody knows what Durant wants to do, and (d) nobody knows if the post–Dr. Buss Lakers are still a destination franchise.
And it’s not like the Lakers are loaded with assets; they have Julius Randle, the promise of future cap space, the allure of Los Angeles and that’s about it. They’re owned by Jimmy Boy Buss. They owe Kobe $23.5 million this season and $25 million next season — nearly 40 percent of their cap — without even knowing if he can play at a high level anymore. The best asset on that side of Staples Center is probably Ramona Shelburne’s reporting for ESPN.com; she’s better than anyone on their actual team. The Lakers may have switched bodies with the Clippers two years ago and we just haven’t realized it yet.
Knowing that, how could any Lakers fan not want one of the best scoring forwards in NBA history? Why weren’t Knicks fans freaking out that they might lose their franchise player for nothing? Why were so many Bulls fans (and I know three of them) saying things like “I’d love to get Melo, but I hate the thought of giving up Taj [Gibson] for him”?
How did Carmelo Anthony, only 30 years old and still in his prime, become the NBA’s most underappreciated and misunderstood player?
The problems start here: Carmelo Anthony is definitely better than your typical All-Star, but he’s not quite a superstar. You know what that makes him? An almost-but-not-quite-superstar. He’s not Leo DiCaprio or Will Smith — he can’t open a movie by himself. He’s more like Seth Rogen or Channing Tatum — he can open the right movie by himself. There’s a big difference.