2014-15 Lakers Season Thread (21-61) KAT

[BIG LEEMELONE]

I'm still sticking w/ what I've said about back/knee problems never getting better.

Ever.

You're talking out of your butt.

From experience, yes it can get better

 

[darthska]

And everyone wins the lottery.

Because, you know, a few people did.

 

[essential1]

And everyone wins the lottery.

Because, you know, a few people did.

'Tis True?

Because Powerball is today... I could use the win

 

[mister friendly]

I don't remember people saying Steve Nash was damaged goods when the Lakers signed him

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

You're accusing me of making a blanket statement when that's exactly what you did.

I said it CAN get better. You said NEVER

 

[pmatic]

I don't remember people saying Steve Nash was damaged goods when the Lakers signed him

Not damaged good per say (because he was still very good),but the back problems were well known. It's why Cuban let him go in 2004.

 

[darthska]

You're accusing me of making a blanket statement when that's exactly what you did.

I said it CAN get better. You said NEVER

Semantics.

This your first time talking to another person?

Obviously, there's a general understanding that the only constant in life is that you will, someday, die.

Everything else has an exception. If I say that I could eat In-N-Out anytime, anywhere, because I love it that much, only a fool with extremely limited understanding of common dialogue would approach me at the funeral of someone really close to me and offer me a double double, like, "Sooo... anytime, anywhere you say?"

Obviously, there are examples of people who have had serious back injuries and knee injuries and went on to relatively fruitful careers afterwrds.

Those instances are just so rare that 'Never, EVER' would be an appropriate showing of how rare those instances are, the same way that 'Anytime, anywhere' would be a figurative expression of how much I love it, not a literal expression.

"No one ever gets better from chronic back issues. EVER" drives my feelings home more than "Studies have shown that improvement from chronic back issues is significantly low, and the odds of maintaining 100% athleticism are increasingly reduced with every game, so much so that Nash's history of back problems presents..." blah, blah, blah.

I'll put a 'Figuratively speaking' disclaimer next time.

 

[Vincent Van Goat]

I'm saying he was healthy prior to the contract being signed in July 2012. The Lillard accident happened in November 2012.

Dog, there's no way you believe this. Nash's ability to play though the pain was amazing, but there was still, you guessed it: pain. That Suns' staff was historically great, in maintaining all of the chronic back issues he suffered. Make no mistake about it, he was not "healthy" by any stretch of the imagination his last years as a Sun. Just because he was playing at a high level, doesn't mean he was "healthy". Just means he's a warrior.

You're talking out of your butt.

You would know a lot about that 

His nerve root condition cannot improve, at best maintained. Do you have Nash's exact condition? Didn't think so, now shut your trap

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/...sh-little-equity-la-stop-fighting-prove-worth

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

No need to be a jack *** dude.

Next time say what you mean if you don't want to be misunderstood

And ho van get off my sack bruh nobody was talking to you. The knee is a bone, I'm not talking about nerves

 

[pmatic]

I stand by the belief he was healthy as can be.*

*For a dude with chronic back issues.

 

[Vincent Van Goat]

I don't remember people saying Steve Nash was damaged goods when the Lakers signed him

His back condition was well-documented, the fact that he had to lay on the floor was well established. The Suns' medical staff is like stuff of legend. They really masked the entire situation. His back issues though were published everywhere before he signed (er traded to) with LA

 

[darthska]

And out of curiosity, what is your experience of a back being better after chronic back issues?

Operative word I'll be focusing on, since semantics is such a key point for you: 'better'

'Better' means 'improved', meaning that the person could put X amount of pressure on their back before chronic back issues, and then after treatment, they could comfortably and reasonably put MORE pressure on their back, meaning there was an improvement, meaning it got...

... better.

 

[Vincent Van Goat]

I'm still sticking w/ what I've said about back/knee problems never getting better.

Ever.

You're talking out of your butt.

From experience, yes it can get better

You were saying back problems can get better.

Nash's can't. Guys with a lot higher education than you say so

 

[darthska]

No need to be a jack *** dude.

Agreed.

I'm still sticking w/ what I've said about back/knee problems never getting better.

Ever.

You're talking out of your butt.

You were saying? No need to what?

 

[darthska]

I stand by the belief he was healthy as can be.*

*For a dude with chronic back issues.

Fair enough. 

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

darthska

You said knee/back, my experience is with the knee so I'll speak on that. You didn't specify if you were talking about nerves, the knee is a bone not a nerve, so I will speak on knee issues. Are you still interested in hearing my take or were you talking strictly about the back?

And ho van you seem to have some type of crush on me. I'm not interested. Get the **** off my nuts and stop acting like a trick

 

[darthska]

No, I said knee/back, as you pointed out.

And as I already pointed out, you said it can get better.

I'd love to hear your experience of a knee being BETTER after significant issues.

Worth noting: 'better in relation to the knee's condition immediately after injury' is absolutely not what I was talking about, but you didn't ask for any clarification on that before telling me I was talking out of my butt. You said it can get better, so that's what I'm interested in: a story of a back or knee coming off of significant injury, and being better than it was before, or a simple "Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. My bad."

 

[Vincent Van Goat]

And ho van get off my sack bruh nobody was talking to you. 

And yet you open your trap to get into someone else's discussion on back issues where nobody was addressing you to begin with

If you don't like being proven wrong, don't post. Simple as that

 

[sea manup]

if you're a sci-fi fan or loved learning about space like i did as a kid go watch interstellar in IMAX

but back to this PG thing:

the two issues with having a PG as the best player on your team

defense due to lack of hight/size, and this whole "need to set up as many teammates as possible play basketball the right way make teammates better" BS people like to talk about

of course when you have a magic sized pg hight isnt an issue and everything ends up working pretty well, even with a PG westbrook sized you can see the matchup problems it creates for other "regular" sized pgs

one of the biggest advantages for having kobe (same goes for lebron, jordan) during our championship years is his defensive versatility, a lot of our playoff series had the same pattern. first few games we get roasted by opponents pg (ty lawson, cp3, rondo, you get the point), phil makes and adjustment puts kobe on the PG and he slows said pg down enough for us to win the series. im only using kobe examples because its a lakers thread so its something we can all remember, the same thing happened with other all time great wings (eg, lebron on rose)

it is a HUGE defensive advantage when your best player can defend all three wing positions, while most pg's due to their size will get overpowered by a top tier 2 or 3. 

last years playoffs, a major reason OKC beats the clippers is because chris paul is too small to slow down westbrook (leading to ******ed statements like "if only cp3 was 6'4"). that doesnt mean cp3 isnt a great defender for his size, he is. but guys like westbrook and utah jazz d will were just too big and strong for him to handle

of course team defense is a huge factor and can cover up for a PG's defensive struggles but you need everything to go right in order to win a championship and when your wing player has the size and defensive abilities to lock up the opponents best wing player even if its just for a short period of time, sometimes thats all you need to get to the next round

as for why there is no need for one guy to have the majority of the teams assists. 

the two examples of pgs leading their teams to championships brought up are TP and billups. both averaged around the same assist numbers as kobe/jordan/lebron during their respective championship runs.

the pistons are unique in that they didnt need an above average offensive output to win, all 4 finals games that they won they kept the lakers under 90 ppg. but even then the reason billups was so effective was because he attacked, GP couldnt stop him from scoring

same with TP and the spurs, TP doesnt have to worry about needing to set his teammates up. naturally as he attacks he will create openings for teammates to score but his primary focus is to score, not set teammates up. 

the reason the spurs dont need TP running around setting people up is because the offence and coaching does that for him. great offenses come from ball movement and rotations, not one guy running around creating open shots. everyone loves to talk about how great the spurs offence was last year, tony parker averaged five less assists per game than chris paul while the spurs as a team averaged .6 more assists per game than the clippers. 

shut cp3 down and the clippers offence is stagnant, when nash has an off game the suns fall apart. tp has an off game, there are 4 other guys that know how to make plays and create good shots for teammates. thats why the triangle is so effective, thats why pop's offense won them a championship last year. 

its still super early in the season but a good example of this is the warriors offence, any one who watches basketball will tell you how much better the offence looks this year compared to last year. its only 5 games in but the warriors are averaging around 50 more passes per game than last year, yet steph is scoring more than last year while averaging 1.8 fewer assists. he is able to take advantage (like TP does) of his scoring abilities when he is no longer asked to be the teams facilitator, because a well coached offence can create way more open looks than one super star pg could ever dream of

as for cp on the lakers, of course i would have loved to have him playing for us along side kobe and hopefully dwight. with a 2012 kobe and healthy dwight cp3 would have been the third best player on the team, so it falls in line with my philosophy of there's nothing wrong with having a great pg on your team as long as the best player on your team isnt the pg (unless he's 6'8 and really bad at tweeting) 

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

Would you consider a fractured patella to be a significant injury? Because I've done that twice to each knee as well as ligament damage to the right knee. My right knee is off track meaning When I extend my right leg, you can clearly see the knee shift to the right. After all that I can jump higher than I ever have as well as squat heavy weights without incident. No tendonitis, aches pains or anything. I almost feel better than I did when I first hurt myself. After the last time I broke the right knee I was back on the court in 3 months almost like nothing happened. Part of the reason I was confident kobe could come back strong after his knee injury although I'm about a decade younger than him and never had surgery. Broken bones are generally not as serious as most believe. It won't feel exactly the same but it doesn't have to affect performance

 

[akajae]

so Lakers literally traded for Steve Nash's corpse

never wanted him here to begin with

 

[MVP]

Holy wall of text batman

 

[darthska]

Would you consider a fractured patella to be a significant injury? Because I've done that twice to each knee as well as ligament damage to the right knee. My right knee is off track meaning When I extend my right leg, you can clearly see the knee shift to the right. After all that I can jump higher than I ever have as well as squat heavy weights without incident. No tendonitits, aches pains or anything. I almost feel better than I did when I first hurt myself. After the last time I broke the right knee I was back on the court in 3 months almost like nothing happened. Part of the reason I was confident kobe could come back strong after his knee injury although I'm about a decade younger than him and never had surgery. Broken bones are generally not as serious as most believe. It won't feel exactly the same but it doesn't have to affect performance

If only 'almost better' was the same as 'better'.

But you did say you were jumping higher. What are the numbers you used for this? How high did you jump before? And now? I'd like to see, with numbers, how much better we're talking about? Or is this another thing that just 'feels' like it's better, but isn't.

And the only reason I want to be so precise is because, well, numbers eliminate the possibility of anyone talking out of their butt.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

if you're a sci-fi fan or loved learning about space like i did as a kid go watch interstellar in IMAX

but back to this PG thing:

the two issues with having a PG as the best player on your team

defense due to lack of hight/size, and this whole "need to set up as many teammates as possible play basketball the right way make teammates better" BS people like to talk about

of course when you have a magic sized pg hight isnt an issue and everything ends up working pretty well, even with a PG westbrook sized you can see the matchup problems it creates for other "regular" sized pgs

one of the biggest advantages for having kobe (same goes for lebron, jordan) during our championship years is his defensive versatility, a lot of our playoff series had the same pattern. first few games we get roasted by opponents pg (ty lawson, cp3, rondo, you get the point), phil makes and adjustment puts kobe on the PG and he slows said pg down enough for us to win the series. im only using kobe examples because its a lakers thread so its something we can all remember, the same thing happened with other all time great wings (eg, lebron on rose)

it is a HUGE defensive advantage when your best player can defend all three wing positions, while most pg's due to their size will get overpowered by a top tier 2 or 3. 

last years playoffs, a major reason OKC beats the clippers is because chris paul is too small to slow down westbrook (leading to ******ed statements like "if only cp3 was 6'4"). that doesnt mean cp3 isnt a great defender for his size, he is. but guys like westbrook and utah jazz d will were just too big and strong for him to handle

of course team defense is a huge factor and can cover up for a PG's defensive struggles but you need everything to go right in order to win a championship and when your wing player has the size and defensive abilities to lock up the opponents best wing player even if its just for a short period of time, sometimes thats all you need to get to the next round


as for why there is no need for one guy to have the majority of the teams assists. 

the two examples of pgs leading their teams to championships brought up are TP and billups. both averaged around the same assist numbers as kobe/jordan/lebron during their respective championship runs.

the pistons are unique in that they didnt need an above average offensive output to win, all 4 finals games that they won they kept the lakers under 90 ppg. but even then the reason billups was so effective was because he attacked, GP couldnt stop him from scoring

same with TP and the spurs, TP doesnt have to worry about needing to set his teammates up. naturally as he attacks he will create openings for teammates to score but his primary focus is to score, not set teammates up. 

the reason the spurs dont need TP running around setting people up is because the offence and coaching does that for him. great offenses come from ball movement and rotations, not one guy running around creating open shots. everyone loves to talk about how great the spurs offence was last year, tony parker averaged five less assists per game than chris paul while the spurs as a team averaged .6 more assists per game than the clippers. 

shut cp3 down and the clippers offence is stagnant, when nash has an off game the suns fall apart. tp has an off game, there are 4 other guys that know how to make plays and create good shots for teammates. thats why the triangle is so effective, thats why pop's offense won them a championship last year. 

its still super early in the season but a good example of this is the warriors offence, any one who watches basketball will tell you how much better the offence looks this year compared to last year. its only 5 games in but the warriors are averaging around 50 more passes per game than last year, yet steph is scoring more than last year while averaging 1.8 fewer assists. he is able to take advantage (like TP does) of his scoring abilities when he is no longer asked to be the teams facilitator, because a well coached offence can create way more open looks than one super star pg could ever dream of


as for cp on the lakers, of course i would have loved to have him playing for us along side kobe and hopefully dwight. with a 2012 kobe and healthy dwight cp3 would have been the third best player on the team, so it falls in line with my philosophy of there's nothing wrong with having a great pg on your team as long as the best player on your team isnt the pg (unless he's 6'8 and really bad at tweeting) 

This makes zeros sense.

1. You build a great defense with good scheme, and rim protection, it doesn't matter which position is primarily responsible. It's irrelevant. The bad boy pistons built a great defense with a tiny back court it doesn't matter what position do it. also Magic Johnson for all his size was a poor defender. The clippers didn't lose because Chris Paul is 5'11.

2. The goal isn't getting more assists it's scoring and preventing the other team from scoring, HOW you do this is completely irrelevant. No one says you need one player to get majority of assists, thats a ridiculous strawman argument.

3. TP and Chauncey won chips as the best offensive players on the team they are PG's of average size. And of course they scored because great players are good at everything.

None of what you wrote makes any sense, it's filled with strawman arguments, arbitrary distinction that have no relationship to the actual recorded history of basketball, its as if you have no idea the difference between correlation and causation. It is akin to saying you don't want a player to score a lot of points because most of the people who lead the league in scoring don't win the chip, or saying a center who blocks shots isn't good because none of the BPG leaders won a chip its silly.

score points, and prevent the other team from scoring don't worry about positions.

Most of this seems to stem from a deep Kobe fandom and desire to totally warp everything about basketball so that its not simply that Kobe won championships that his specific type of player is the best way to do it despite what the history, logic, numbers say.

 

[bravelude]

Great discussion guys. So blake n cp3 then? That means the Cavs are favorites? What about the Spurs then?

All valid points tho. Still, until LA actually wins one with out a BIG, then there is no comparible. Not saying it can‘t happen, but there‘s no need to fade it too much. Then what abouy OKC when thru had the trio? Granted the game has changed, but still. Big guys predominately anchor success.