Beaneball

Contradicting earlier language by Bynum that he didn't want the max contract, that something less would still make him happy, the Orange County Register reports that Bynum will be asking for the max (5 years, $80 million) in contract extension talks with the Lakers. Now, "asking" for the max is a whole different thing from, say, "demanding" the max. Obviously, when the league sets a max contract, that's a cap on the negotiation, and when you're a player of Bynum's caliber, you may as well start the negotiations at that point and work down from there until you reach a point the two sides can agree on. (This is obviously why the league sets a max contract in the first place.) Might Bynum be able to hold off signing an extension and extract the max from L.A.? It's possible. The media would certainly be all over the Lakers for not locking up the guy who brings what everyone thinks they need: "toughness" inside. So that's Bynum's bargaining chip. Well, that and he's set to be at worst the fourth-best center in the league (Dwight Howard, Greg Oden, Yao Ming) for the next ten years or so. On the Lakers side, they've got the fact that he's had exactly half of one good year, it's not clear how he'll play with Pau Gasol, and his future is generally not a sure thing in the least.

I think he'll eventually settle for less than the max, but not substantially less. Maybe $65-70 million over five years?

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 00:12 | |

Here's a fun rumor from Lakers Nation: Sasha Vujacic may have been offered a 5-year, $30 million contract. That is, I think, the max mid-level exception contract that can be offered. Were it true, you'd have to think the Lakers would let him go and go after Brent Barry or James Posey, as today's L.A. Times reports that those two guys are on Mitch Kupchak's list for backup plans. Vujacic is a nice player, but $6 million is a lot of money, especially over five years. Even that amount over three years wouldn't be so bad, although obviously you'd prefer something like $4 million for three years or so. Anyway, as Lakers Nation notes, it's just an unsourced rumor, so let's not get too crazy at this point.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 00:08 | |

Waa, waa, we can't take care of ourselves, waa, waa, even when these rookies have NO BARGAINING POWER AT ALL we give them too much money, waa, waa, we need rules to keep ourselves in check, waa, waa.

News to Roger: contracts for employment are not rewards. You do not earn the right to get paid a lot of money by playing well in the past, except insofar as your past play indicates that you might be a good player in the future. Roger, you have an undergraduate major in economics! I would expect you to understand this. No, Roger, I know you understand this, economics degree or otherwise. I know you're up there on the stage putting the word out that you're going to be asking for even more concessions from that giant fucking pushover Gene Upshaw at the next round of bargaining. You already own players basically in perpetuity, you don't have to give them guaranteed money in their contracts, you have a salary cap, there's no free agency to speak of, there's no trade activity, players can't celebrate the way they want to, they can't take their helmets off (and thus make themselves more recognizable and marketable personalities), retired players don't have decent health coverage, and you rule by fiat. What the hell more do you want, Roger? Back the hell up and let us enjoy our Jake Longs and Jamarcus Russells.

And by the way, if I ever hear you refer to anything causing things in the NFL to be "financially unworkable" again, I swear to god I'll say the meanest things about your mother. The league is raking in money hand over fist. Hand over fist! I don't even know what that means, but I know it means "metric asstons of money"! Jake Long wouldn't get $30 million guaranteed unless the Dolphins could afford it. You know that. So stop playing dumb and start focusing on the real problems. Like whether you're going to let Pacman Jones actually be called Adam on TV or not.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Football at 14:38 | |

It is time for me to weigh in on Ronny Turiaf. I think the Lakers can't keep him. There, I have weighed in.

Ok, no, wait. Look, I love Ronny. I love that his name is spelled "Ronny" but it's pronounced "Rony" like "Rony Seikaly". Who didn't love Rony Seikaly in NBA Jam? I love that Ronny is the best dancer in the league. I love that the fans and his teammates love him. I love that he's a monster shot blocker despite not being the biggest guy in the world. I love his hair. I love how barrel-chested he is. No, scratch that. I love how he's basically just a barrel on legs that jumps a lot. I love his energy, his infectious love for the good things his teammates do.

But you know what I don't love? I don't love that when he's on the floor, it's 4-on-5 when the Lakers have the ball. I don't love that his rebounding percentage was even below Pau Gasol's, despite his entire job being to rebound and play defense. I don't love that his skill set is basically replaceable.

But here's what I really don't love: I don't love that I'm completely uncertain about whether losing him to another team will affect the Lakers' makeup. I have no mixed feelings whatsoever about chemistry in baseball: it doesn't matter in 99% of situations. I have much more mixed feelings about chemistry in sports like basketball and football, however. On the one hand, the Shaq-Kobe thing was pretty much poisonous for at least the last three years of their five-year run, yet they won a championship and got to the Finals one other time in those three years. On the other hand, it seems hard to discount the joy this Lakers team played with in completely overachieving this season. So would removing Ronny make the team less happy? Probably. Does that matter? I really don't know.

Of course, it's not just a question of losing Turiaf's lack of skills as well as his emotion: he was actually fifth on the team last year in Win Shares Above Average and third in Defensive Win Shares, so his defensive skill set is showing up in some of these numbers. (The same numbers on the offensive side of the ledger confirm how awful he is on that side of the court.)

There's also the question of if he does get away, who actually replaces him? Supposing Lamar Odom were traded for that Chicago package that just seems better and better to me every day, the answer is "Joakim Noah and Ty Thomas". But failing that (and I'm pretty sure an Odom trade isn't forthcoming), who's out there? Jamaal Magloire? Eduardo Najera? Theo Ratliff? DeSagana Diop? Melvin Ely? (cringe) Bob Horry? Primoz Brezec? Some of these guys aren't bad: Najera, Ratliff, and Diop can all provide defensive lift off the bench, but do any of them give you things Turiaf doesn't? And if that's the case, then does it make sense to bring one of them in when you could just bring back Ronny?

Here's what it comes down to: if someone goes nuts and offers Ronny like $4 million for four years or $3.5 for five or something like that, I just don't see how L.A. can match. Since they're over the cap, double the dollar values to get the real cost out of Jerry Buss's pocket, and you see how those prices could be steep, especially given Turiaf's limited skills. It'd be crazy for someone to give Ronny that kind of money, wouldn't it? Sure, of course it would, but this is the NBA, where L.A. lost Mark Madsen to a big-money Minnesota contract a few years back, you'll recall. Turiaf's got to be twice the player Madsen is, right? (Though they're probably on the same level, dancing-wise.)

So, conclusion? It depends. That's an awful, wishy-washy conclusion, but it's true. It really depends on what kind of money is out there for him from other teams. You can't begrudge a second-rounder with a heart condition taking the biggest dollars he's likely to ever see, and I'd wish him well if he got them. I just hope that they don't come from Dr. Buss.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 00:32 | |

In other Laker news, Mitch Kupchak apparently wants to bring Sun Yue over for 2008-09. (L.A. Times story.) "The Asian Magic Johnson" may be a bit much. The thing I'm worried about is that he'll basically be the Chinese Luke Walton: good passer, can run the floor, but a liability as an outside shooter and defender. Does L.A. really need two of those guys on the team? Especially when the second one probably won't play?

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 12:10 | |

A quick rundown of the effects of yesterday's draft on the Lakers.

First, the Spurs took coveted point guard George Hill in the first round, denying him to the Lakers. To me, it was an odd pick, given that DJ White, Mario Chalmers, Chris Douglas-Roberts, and others were still on the board. In any case, though, there went any thoughts of L.A. moving up to the top of the second round to pick him. They instead ended up with Joe Crawford from Kentucky. I refuse to make a Joey Crawford joke here, because they will be (and have been) made elsewhere. Chad Ford says that he doubts he'll stick in the league. If he's not even that good, he could have a hard time pushing Coby Karl off the roster.

L.A. appears so far to have made no trades, but other teams did deals involving players that might have been coming to the Lakers. Notably, Memphis pulled off a head-scratcher of a deal, sending Mike Miller and Kevin Love to Minnesota for OJ Mayo. Minnesota can probably use Miller, so I think that takes him off the table in any Lamar Odom deal.

As an aside, can this deal possibly be explained? The full list goes like this: Marko Jaric, Antoine Walker, Greg Buckner, and OJ Mayo to Memphis for Kevin Love, Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal, and Jason Collins. Collins is a useful 10th-12th guy who can bang and play smart defense, and his contract for $6 million is expiring this year. For an undersized Minnesota team, he's a useful guy to have around. Cardinal is a bad contract, at $5.8 million for a player who doesn't really bring anything to the team, but there are only two years left on the deal. Mike Miller is, of course, Mike Miller: I've sung his praises before, so I won't do it again here. He'll be the second coming of Wally Szczerbiak in Minnesota, except he's a better all-around player. To boot, his deal is pretty reasonable, at $8.3 million for two more years. And Kevin Love is a guy Minnesota was rumored to want/need for a while. Memphis could have also used him, mostly because they don't have any good players in the front court.

On the other side of the ledger is Antoine Walker, who shouldn't even play, but has three years left on his deal that's for basically the same dollars as Mike Miller. You've also got Marko Jaric, who's not a horrible player (36% from three last year), but he's not what you'd call "good" either (43% overall), and he's also got three years left on his deal at $6 million. Greg Buckner is a defensive-minded two-guard who doesn't add anything on the offensive end, with two years left on a $2.7 million per year deal. And then there's OJ Mayo, who overlapped with Randy Foye in Minnesota (i.e. they probably weren't going to keep both of them), but in Memphis, he'll compete with Javaris Crittenton, Mike Conley, and Kyle Lowry for playing time unless they just make him a straight-up shooting guard (which strikes me as a bad idea).

Ok, so what happened is Memphis, in order to get OJ Mayo, takes on two three-year deals while giving up shorter contracts, and doesn't add any players you actually want on the floor. Minnesota, by contrast, gets shorter deals, making up for some horrendous past mistakes, and gets back a very good player (Miller), a potentially very good player (Love), and a useful benchy (Collins). OJ Mayo is worth all this? I don't think we can even blame Memphis ownership for this, because I don't see a salary reduction at all here. I just see Minnesota completely ripping off Memphis.

Anyway, back to the Lakers: Richard Jefferson was also traded, so, thank goodness, he's off the table as well, unless Milwaukee wants Odom. Again, though, I'd hate this deal, even if Milwaukee included a sweetener, say by throwing in Charlie Villanueva and taking back Chris Mihm.

What about Andres Nocioni? The Bulls' only pick was Derrick Rose (since Sonny Weems is apparently headed for Denver), who hardly gets in Odom's way in Chicago, and in fact makes some of their guards expendable. The thing is that Ben Gordon and Chris Duhon are free agents, and Kirk Hinrich makes $11 million, so a deal involving him would have to also have someone like Luke Walton or Vlad Radmanovich going to Chicago, which only makes the deal worse from the Lakers' perspective. So I don't think the Derrick Rose draft pick makes an Odom-for-Nocioni swap any more likely. Does it make it less likely? I don't think that's the case, either, given that it was pretty unlikely from Chicago's perspective anyway: Nocioni, Noah, etc. is a lot to give up for Lamar Odom.

And how about Ron Artest? Well, buzz now is that he is opting out of his deal, despite his "99%" comment from last week, but he also says he won't sign for less money to play for a contender, which is the right move for a 28-year-old for whom this is likely his last chance at a big contract. Of course, if he does opt out, he'll already have gone back on one promise, so Lakers fans can have some hope that he'll go back on another and sign for the mid-level exception after all. And hey, maybe they can pull a Joe Smith under the table deal with him and promise to resign him for big money after 2009.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 11:24 | |

Did the NBA disallow trades during the draft without me noticing? I guess they must have, because there's no other explanation for the lack of activity. If they did indeed make this change, I call "lame": 3/4 of the fun of the Draft is all the trades and the crazy rumors and so forth. Are we really going to have to wait a few days to let it all shake out before we know what's happened? I say again: lame.

EDIT: Ok, so like five minutes after posting, Ric Bucher announced a Portland-Indiana trade. Happily, the Rush brothers are now teammates!

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 21:09 | |

Tonight's lineup for the Phillies has Jimmy Rollins hitting third. Baseball-Reference tells me that this is the first time Rollins has hit there this year, and the first time he's hit anywhere but first. The Lineup Analysis tool at Baseball Musings tells me that Rollins batting third is a terrible idea. In its list of best lineups, Rollins hits sixth, seventh, or eighth. This makes tons of sense. You know why? Because Jimmy Rollins has a .340 on-base percentage. The only guy with a lower on-base percentage in this lineup (by my estimations using their career numbers combined with this year's numbers to try to eliminate huge flukes like Ryan Howard's bad season thus far) is Pedro Feliz. And it's not like Rollins is making up for it in power, either. He had a .531 SLG last year, but is down to .447 this year, and has a .442 career mark. Even giving him credit for a .460 true SLG, a generous estimate, he should not be hitting in the top half of the lineup, and he most certainly should not be hitting in the lineup's premier spot.

Now, as is usually the case, the manager's actual lineup is far closer to the best-case scenario than the worst case, and the difference between the real lineup and the best one (which would have Pat Burrell's .400 OBP hitting first) is about one run every 25 games, or a little over six runs for the season. It isn't, then, that big a deal. But it's still silly to have one of your lower-half hitters batting third, in the spot that should be occupied by Burrell or Ryan Howard, or even Chris Coste, who's managed near-900 OPS's in two of his three years in the big leagues (of course, his 2008 numbers are subject to decline in the second half of this season; he's also 35, so there's no reason to figure he'll keep getting better or anything).

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Baseball at 22:21 | |

Watching today's Germany-Turkey match on Tivo, I see that Baron Davis will not opt out of his contract with the Warriors, but also that Joe Dumars wants to acquire him by trading Rasheed Wallace and Chauncey Billups. Does that deal make any sense for Detroit? The move would presumably elevate Jason Maxiell to the starting lineup, which would result in a very small frontline. You don't absolutely need size to win, but it helps, and the Pistons would have basically none unless other moves were made in conjunction. Also, Maxiell is an energetic guy, but he brings nowhere near the level of skill that Rasheed does. Further, while Baron obviously upgrades the offense, he comes at a steep price: frontline defense because of the loss of Wallace; frontline scoring because of same; backcourt defense because Billups is vastly better on that end than Davis; and you're guaranteeing yourself that Rodney Stuckey will be your starting point fifteen or twenty times during the year because Davis is bound to get hurt. Isn't all of that a lot to trade for an offensive upgrade? Especially when combining improvements of Aaron Afflalo, Maxiell, Stuckey, and, especially, Tayshaun Prince might get you that same offense but without the cost? Does this really get the Pistons past the Celtics or the Cavs or Magic?

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 18:55 | |

Here's a very interesting story about the A's chasing a hot Dominican prospect named Michel Inoa. He's apparently going to get a bonus in the $4 million range, which will break international signing records. This is what makes it odd that the A's are apparently winning the battle for his services: their franchise record for such a signing is $350,000, for outfielder Robin Rosario. The Yankees are apparently also interested, which would seem to indicate, "Ok, the Yankees are going to sign him," but the A's are actually outbidding them as it currently stands. I have no idea what this means going forward -- is there something about this kid that makes him so special that the A's are willing to break their old signing bonus record ten-fold? He apparently throws in the '90's with a good curve and change, and he's 6'7", 205 pounds (so he should fill out a bit more), but aren't there lots of physically talented 16-year-olds out there?

Happily, Enrique Rojas reports that Inoa is not interested in a major league deal. I guess he's smart enough to realize that the Wily Mo Pena path is not for him: a fat up-front contract does you no good if you don't get the development time you need.

Robin Rosario, by the way, is currently playing on one of the two Oakland Dominican Summer League teams. He's hitting 182/250/318, but in just 24 plate appearances so far.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 12:01 | |

Here's a great post by Andrew Kamentezky about Shaq that pretty much sums my take on everything O'Neal. On the great Kobe-Shaq divide, it's starting to look like there is no winner: they're both assholes. The difference is that Shaq has gotten cuddly media treatment his whole career, while it's only in the last year or so that the reporters have stepped it up for Kobe.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 00:56 | |

At Foxsports, Charley Rosen says some dumb things and some smart things and some things I can't really evaluate.

While Doc Rivers did a superb job, he was way off-base in deriding Phil Jackson for "whining" about the refs after the lopsided 38-10 foul situation in Game 2. Since he's been there before, Jackson knew that the public airing of his grievance would work to his team's benefit — and it did. In fact, it always does. In other words, loudly complaining about being short-changed by the refs in a playoff series is as much a part of a coach's job description as formulating a game plan. Besides which, Jackson's protestations were entirely justified.

This paragraph is slightly incomplete, since Doc, as I noted before, did enough complaining himself during the series to get T'd up multiple times. Phil made some bold statements after the 38-10 game, and that's what Doc wants to focus the attention on, but Doc was, I think, the more visible whiner in this series.

And thank you, Charley Rosen, for acknowledging that Phil was justified in his complaints.

With all due respect, the only plausible reason for Lamar Odom's lack of on-court awareness is that he suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder.

In any case, Odom is imminently dispensable and must be dealt for someone like Ron Artest, Udonis Haslem or Shane Battier.

Dr. Rosen, folks! No, in any case, it's really hard for me to believe that these are the three best guys Rosen could come up with in a trade for Odom. Artest, maybe. I talked about him before. Haslem? My god -- he's a classic skill-less power forward, and I don't really see why that's valuable when the hole the Lakers need to fill at this point is at small forward. Battier? Nice defensive player, will knock down a shot once in a while, good glue guy, etc. Worth the massive trading chip named Lamar Odom? Not even close. L.A. can do a lot better if they decide to trade Odom.

All of the media reports that Jackson was thoroughly out-coached by Rivers are absurd. Rivers simply had the far superior team and had many more options (particularly on offense) at his disposal.

I don't think that's true. I think the Lakers options on offense got outplayed in this particular series, but I don't think the Celtics offensive player are better. Sam Cassell, Leon Powe, Rajon Rondo, Kendrick Perkins, PJ Brown, etc. are nice players, useful in their own way, but not a one of them has the offensive capabilities of Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic, Vlad Radmanovic, or Derek Fisher. No, this was a "defense vs. offense" series, just like it was billed to be.

In fact, the Lakers' shooters (Sasha Vujacic, Vladamir Radmanovic and Derek Fisher) all got plenty of good-enough looks but simply failed to covert them.

Exactly! These Laker players are better offensively than the Celtics equivalents, but didn't shoot well when they had open looks in this series. Rosen seems to be saying exactly that in this sentence, contradicting the sentence that came just before it.

Also, the failure of the Lakers' screen/roll defense was primarily due to the lack of awareness of the baseline rotators, not because the defensive game plan provided the screenee with no immediate help.

Interesting. Can anyone remember a time when the Lakers' screen-and-roll defense was good? Wasn't this supposed to be the weakness of the Shaq-Kobe Lakers as well, that a team like San Antonio could exploit? People always blamed Shaq for that, for refusing to come out on the ball-handler, but maybe it's just that Phil doesn't coach S-A-R defense well enough to actually pound the scheme into the heads of his players.

Jackson only made two minor mistakes: Not giving Ira Newble enough pressure-time daylight so as to be prepared to take a turn guarding Paul Pierce; and not reacting quickly enough when the Celtics played small-ball.

The second thing I don't really have any insight on, but the first strikes me as bizarre. The noise going around is that Newble had no idea what he was doing in the triangle, and thus was not just useless but actually a problem on offense. I'm not sure that ten minutes per game for the 11th guy on the bench was really going to win the series for the Lakers anyway. I guess that's why Rosen refers to this as a "minor" mistake.

Dick Bavetta, Bob Delaney and Ken Mauer are all front-runners, homers, arrogant, grudge-holders and vastly overrated. As such, they should be prevented from ever working both conference finals and championship series forever more.

Interesting, especially given the media love-fest for Dick Bavetta (colorful, ancient) and Bob Delaney (he was undercover in the mob!).

However, despite his repeated chest-thumpings, it's one thing to play well in a 39-point blowout and quite another to succeed in the waning moments of a game that's still up for grabs. Until he does the job in the clutch, Garnett is still not a franchise player.

Thank you! Thank you, Charley Rosen! This is exactly right. Garnett celebrated throwing Lamar Odom on the floor in a blowout, celebrated scoring 26 points in a 39-point win, celebrated ... coming up small in the previous five games, missing wide-open jumpers, getting into foul trouble, having to get bailed out by Ray Allen and Paul Pierce and Leon Powe. Rosen says it right, despite everyone's claims that "Garnett has now proven himself".

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 12:59 | |

This OCR piece suggests that Lamar Odom won't be traded this offseason. I say "yea" to that.

It also floats the idea that Odom might be moved to the bench rather than being the starting small forward, so that he'd play with the second unit. Given how Phil Jackson uses his bench, this might not be a terrible idea, because he could still get Odom a lot of minutes (Odom's wasted if he's only play 20-25 minutes) and he could have him on the floor at the times when he needs him there, and he could even run a three-bigs lineup when he's comfortable with it, but could otherwise go with a rotating cast: of the Pau, Bynum, Odom group, there'd always be two on the floor, with Odom at PF, Bynum at C, and Pau switching between the two spots depending on whether he was playing with Bynum or Odom. And of course Odom could still be available to play SF or even SG (with Kobe moving to the SF spot) if Jackson wanted all three on the floor for matchups or because they were playing well or whatever other reason.

Throwing the group into training camp and seeing how it all works out sounds better to me than gambling on "I don't know if Odom will work" and trading him for an inferior player that's a more traditional small forward. This is especially true if Sasha Vujacic and Ronny Turiaf resign with the team, because then you've got the entire squad coming back: when you're talking about a young team that had a lot of success the year before, a major shake-up (which is what an Odom trade would be) might not be the best in terms of keeping them all playing on the same page together.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 15:12 | |

Here's a roundup of some stuff about the Lakers, Lamar Odom, and so forth.

Mark Heisler says that Lamar Odom is a candidate to be traded. Heisler makes the point that everyone, myself included, has been making: Lamar is probably miscast as a small forward, in no small part because of his shaky outside shooting. He mentions the new-to-me bit that Odom was actually part of the Gasol trade until the Grizzlies' owner asked that he be taken out in favor of players that would give more (and quicker) cap relief (i.e. Kwame Brown). Heisler then simply states as a given that the Lakers will "surely shop him this off-season." Unfortunately, he mentions no potential trade partners, no small forwards that might come back in the deal, and so on.

In the same story, Heisler refers to Kobe Bryant as "the best there ever was at creating a shot," which, come to think of it, sounds about right. I wasn't privy to the fantastic Jordan years, since I was too young, but I've seen things on tape, and he didn't do the things that Kobe does with regularity. Kobe's up-fakes and step-throughs and slithery drives and over-the-head layups to avoid shot-blockers, and sideways jumpers falling out of bounds are, if not things that no one else does, at least things that no one else does with the regularity and the success that Kobe does them. Instead of tearing Bryant down as "not Jordan" or whatever else you want to say, we really should be appreciating the most beautiful individual basketball player many of us are likely to ever see. I've said it before: if LeBron James-type ball is the future of the league, then count me out. There's no artistry, no jazz in his game. Kobe is Charlie Parker, LeBron is a small-town basement-show-playing hardcore band. That band may be brilliant in its own way, but subtle and a beautiful sight to behold it is not.

I won't link to each and every one, but the L.A. Times Lakers Blog has links to audio taken from the press conferences given after (or, in Jordan Farmar's case, before) their exit interviews.

The same blog also reported that Trevor Ariza will be back in a Laker uniform next year, as he exercised his player option.

Forum Blue and Gold has an excellent breakdown of the Laker roster, including their salary situation for next year. It mentions something I didn't realize, which is that Chris Mihm has a player option for next year. Given that he hardly played, and that the option is for $2.7M, he's certain to exercise it. I had, in my previous post, marked him as a guy that wouldn't be on the team, but that's clearly not that case. That clouds the picture a little bit regarding a potential multi-player Lamar Odom trade, but not too much to really be a concern.

That post also contains some particularly good tidbits breaking down Odom's game as a small forward, including a quote from David Thorpe, one of ESPN's best analysts (a guy who can actually talk about what's going on on the floor).

The Press-Enterprise says that Sasha Vujacic may want the full $5.8M mid-level exception, which strikes me both as too much money and also something the Lakers would have to pay. Who's out there who can bring what Vujacic brings off the bench for this team?

NJ.com writes about a potential Richard Jefferson-for-Lamar Odom swap, which strikes me as a little bit hopeful from their perspective. Here's hoping Mitch Kupchak finds something better if he insists on dealing Odom.

The Orange County Register's Lakers Blog has a story that reminds me why I like Lamar Odom so much: "Odom was in one of the more down-in-the-dumps moods I’ve ever seen him. He said the first thing that happened in his exit meeting with Mitch Kupchak and Phil Jackson was Kupchak apologizing for a local newspaper column suggesting Odom will be shopped by the Lakers this summer." This is a guy who works and works throughout the game and the season and just gets ragged on mercilessly by the fans. He clearly wants to win, and he seems to like the situation he's in with the Lakers, as a strong supporting member of an excellent team: that he's down about potentially being traded is a good thing in my mind. Unfortunately, wanting to be here and actually fitting in with what the Lakers want to do are two different things.

That same story also has a bit about how Richard Jefferson is a strong defender against Paul Pierce, which could help the Lakers in a potential rematch. If Mitch Kupchak or Phil Jackson give even one second to thinking about whether their third-best player, a guy they are considering trading Lamar Odom for, matches up with Paul Pierce, a player the Lakers are guaranteed to see exactly twice next year, they ought to be fired for gross negligence. You don't build your team with an eye toward a Finals appearance that may never happen for the Lakers (especially if you think Odom-for-Jefferson actually weakens the team overall) and is probably even less likely to happen for the Celtics.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 22:42 | |

Ok, y'all, I've turned off Serendipity comments and started using Haloscan commenting and trackbacking. Hopefully Haloscan will do a sufficient job of filtering out spam while at the same time allowing through anyone who actually wants to leave a real comment. If there are any troubles, email me.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in The Blog at 02:41 | |