L.O., You Got to Go: The Lakers Must Trade Lamar Odom

You love his length, his versatility, his perfect basketball body.
You admire his humility and humanity.
You see his old-school selflessness on the court, how he passes first and prioritizes his teammates, how he deflects credit and accepts blame, and you think that he must be a very chill dude.
You empathize with his private struggles, particularly the tragic loss of his baby son.
You like almost everything about Lamar Odom, who he is, how he comports himself, how he plays hurt, his grace in the face of personal pain, and so you take absolutely no pleasure in what must be said if the Lakers are going to be anything more than what they’ve been since Odom arrived in Los Angeles, and that is average:
L.O., you got to go.
I could muddy up this story with stats: How he doesn’t make shots when they count in the fourth quarter, how he underperforms on the road; heck, I could stat you straight into a column coma. But there is only one stat and one only that matters:
Into the fourth year of their partnership, the Lakers are a .500 team fronted by Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom.
The chemistry, it’s not consistently there. The talented tandem, they play well on the same nights too infrequently. The results after three full seasons: one disaster (32 wins in ‘05) followed by two first-round playoff exits.
L.A.’s 9-8 start now in the face of a tough schedule holds some promise. And with the development of both Andrew Bynum and Jordan Farmar, plus the reacquisition of smart locker-room leader Derek Fisher, the Lakers win total SHOULD improve from the low 40’s of the past two years.
But significant progress, like 50-plus wins and a conference finals… I just don’t sense that’s going to happen while Kobe and Lamar are together.
Before you start with the emails, I’m not blaming Odom entirely. Kobe obviously isn’t easy to play with. Superman doesn’t do sidekicks. Plus for $10 million (growing to $12 million) a year to date the owner’s daughter, Phil Jackson hasn’t used those Hall of Fame credentials to instill any kind of real defensive mindset into his recent Laker teams, and that’s a big issue too.
Injuries have factored in as well. And I could argue that except for Odom, who would start on most but not every NBA team, the Lakers currently do not have one other forward who is a bona fide NBA starter, so it’s a weak position for the team.
Then there is fit. As in square peg, round hole. The Lakers need a real number two scorer to take pressure off Kobe. A guy who can pour in 18-20 a night, and go off for 35 when it’s needed. That’s not the role Odom naturally fills, nor one where his game best flourishes. (It’s more a job for Caron Butler, but that’s another column entirely…)
But except maybe for that one pre-Shaq in South Beach year when they did OK in Miami, I’m just not convinced Lamar is a winning player.
No one expected Odom to have Shaq-like impact after The Trade That Changed the Lakers, but in watching every Laker game since L.O. came to L.A., there have been too many missed jumpers, too often coming in the clutch. And those disappearing acts on the road? Lots of them, too. They do not happen with All-Star level players. All lead you to the inescapable conclusion that, after nine years in the league, despite the tantalizing talent, Lamar isn’t an All-Star caliber performer and never will be.
At least not alongside Kobe.
So much talent, so many skills, so much potential…but so much of it consistently unfulfilled with the Lakers.
Thing is, NBA teams are like scientific templates for 11th grade high school science teachers. They are one big, ongoing chemistry experiment. PJ and the Lakers have been in the lab with Kobe and L.O. for quite a while now, like 3 1/2 years, and all they really have to show for it is the smell of sulfur.
To be perfectly clear, I’m not suggesting the Lakers should have traded Odom and Bynum for J Kidd. Kidd’s a little long in the tooth for that. I’m glad they didn’t trade that pair for Jermaine O’Neal. The poor man’s O’Neal is only marginally better than Lamar straight up when healthy, and there’ve been some recent knee issues that indicate he isn’t physically sound at all.
What I am suggesting is that it’s time for the Lakers to commit to changing the chemistry, to acknowledge that Kobe and L.O. are a perfectly ordinary .500 partnership, to admit that it’s time to find a different, better, more productive way to go.
Artest? A gamble but intriguing.
Kirilenko, that’d be a no-brainer, but if the Jazz were dumb enough to do that, owner Larry Miller also has a nice used car to sell you.
Mitch Kupchak knows far better than I do what’s out there now in the way of a trade. It may be something. It may be nothing. But it’s reaching the point where every option should be explored fully. I know, it’s quite possible Mitch will tell you, don’t worry, it’ll be OK, we’ll be fine when Kwame comes back to anchor our defense and give us the toughness we’re missing right now in the paint.
Of course there are two small problems with that thinking: One, you’re relying on Kwame Brown, who can get hurt just walking in from the car. And two, we’ve already seen the Lakers at full strength with Kwame, and they don’t really cut it then, either.
So without having some kind of “in” with Mitch, and even knowing he’s the Bill Stoneman of L.A. basketball, here’s guessing the Lakers are going to revisit the Odom trade dialogue between now and the deadline.
If they don’t, they should.
And if no trade happens, brace yourself, Laker fans, for deva vu, year three.
Because like I said, L.O., love ya, bro, but you got to go.

by Ted Green

SportsHubLA

Kobe or not, Lakers at least have Jackson

How much would it mean to Jerry Buss and the Lakers to win a championship without Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal?
In the wake of Phil Jackson's decision to sign a contract extension to coach the Lakers until at least 2010, that is suddenly a viable scenario. Instead of Kobe and Shaq, how about Jerry and Phil — with Jeanie Buss snuggled gleefully in between — hugging the Larry O'Brien Trophy together?
That's not to say the Lakers can't reconcile with Bryant now that Jackson, his best friend in the organization, is staying. But Bryant also has not withdrawn his trade request, and said last week his future is not tied to Jackson's future.
The Lakers are aware that a trade of Bryant might have to happen at some point — he can opt out of his contract in 2009, albeit at a considerable price — but Buss has enough faith in Jackson to believe the Lakers can stay on track for a title even if a Bryant trade has to go down.
Both Bryant and O'Neal have publicly lambasted the Lakers and Buss after they won three titles together in 2000-02. To his credit, Buss is a businessman who doesn't get nearly as emotional as his players about situations, but he is to some extent hurt that he hasn't been able to duplicate his relationship with another star player, Magic Johnson.
Buss and Jackson, meanwhile, have only gotten chummier despite the awkward situation of Buss' daughter Jeanie, the Lakers' executive vice president of business operations, dating Jackson since 1999. The owner and coach can have entire dinners together and never discuss basketball.

Buss also deserves credit for changing his mind on what a great coach is worth after not wanting to pay big bucks in the past for anyone who didn't actually wear purple and gold.
How much would it mean to Jackson to win a championship without Bryant and O'Neal? No doubt it would prove something to the masses about Jackson's coaching gifts if he won without big-name superstars. But Jackson, as cocky as he sounds sometimes in public, is in no way consumed with that notion.
Jackson would rather win with Bryant to bring their personal struggles full circle. Remember, Jackson totally lost touch with Bryant — writing about the "uncoachable" Bryant in great detail in Jackson's best-selling book about the 2003-04 season — but came back in 2006 in large part to prove he could coach Bryant and coach him well.
Jackson genuinely wishes Bryant well and wants to help him get that sans-Shaq championship.
With the promise shown by 20-year-olds Andrew Bynum and Jordan Farmar this season and considering how Bryant has been able to blend in again with his teammates after a tumultuous summer, it's still possible that these Lakers have what it takes to win.
It took only a few games into the season for Jackson to be sold that Bryant wouldn't be playing with a for-sale sign in one hand.
"We've overcome that in a very interesting way, a very unusual way that I've never seen before," Jackson said earlier this month. "The team has come back, and Kobe has gotten his game back and his voice back on this team. And he seems to be going straight ahead."
On Thursday night, Jackson said of Bryant and the Lakers' potential: "He sees it too, and I think he sees the challenge ahead."
Jackson also reiterated that the Lakers' "predominant" statement is that they don't want to trade Bryant and haven't tried to trade him at all in the last month.
Bryant used to have a pretty good relationship with Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak, too. In the past, Kupchak would be the one to huddle Bryant and Jackson with O'Neal when the two Lakers superstars went to separate corners in the wake of their spats.

Bryant might never again be high on Jerry Buss and son Jim, who has been taking more and more control, yet it is entirely possible that Bryant could settle in with Jackson and Kupchak for the future. Or it's possible that Jackson recommitting to these people at least gives Bryant reason to think that they can't be that bad.
So here the Lakers stand, actually doing quite well in their unofficial grand plan to recover from Bryant's loud summer. They needed Jackson to talk Bryant off the ledge, for the team to start off strong and show Bryant he could still win with the Lakers, and they needed to lock up Jackson to have a reasonable shot at holding on to Bryant.
Whichever way it goes with Bryant down the road, though, keeping Jackson means the Lakers at least stay on the map.

by Kevin Ding
Foxsports.Com

'We're soft as ice cream'

SALT LAKE CITY - Apparently the Lakers didn't learn their lesson.
They didn't learn the danger that awaits them when they dig a big hole for themselves, when they don't play enough defense, when they don't match their opponent's energy.
For the second straight night the Lakers fell into a gigantic hole, and this time they couldn't recover. They wound up on the wrong side of a blowout Friday night, 120-96 losers against a Utah Jazz team playing without its two All-Stars.

"We were really slow, ineffective," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "One of my coaches said 'We're soft as Dairy Queen ice cream tonight.' "
It was a season high in points allowed by the Lakers, and the 70 that their porous defense surrendered in the first half was a season high for a half. They trailed by 19 at the break, after Utah's Paul Millsap threw down a one-handed dunk over Lamar Odom just before the buzzer sounded.
As for Odom, he had another inconsistent game and once again showed a lack of composure when things didn't go his way.
He had seven points, took just five shots and turned the ball over four times in 28 minutes. He even had an exchange with Lakers coach Phil Jackson.
"He didn't approach the game mentally the way I wanted him to play," Jackson said. "I felt that was unfortunate because there were a number of situations that Lamar was in position to help us out. He just seemed not to be focused with what we were trying to do."
Kobe Bryant had 28 points and did his best to keep the Lakers in the game, at one point making back-to-back three-pointers and a 360-degree, hanging layup while being fouled.
Jordan Farmar added a career-high 21 of the Bench Mob's 45 points, but Bryant was very unhappy with his team's play, a snarl frequently on his face.
"It's frustrating because they outworked us," Bryant said.
The Lakers committed 20 turnovers. They were outrebounded 48-34. They made just 8 of 24 threes.
A night after sparking the Lakers by combining for 42 points off the bench, Luke Walton and Sasha Vujacic totaled 10 on 4-for-13 shooting
Deron Williams, meanwhile, had his way with the Lakers, scoring a career-high 35 points on 14-for-24 shooting. Andrei Kirilenko had a triple-double with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists and had six steals and four blocks. Millsap had 20 points and nine rebounds.
The Jazz had its way inside, scoring 70 points in the paint.
"They were just having a frolic in the lane," Jackson said, and added, "There were a lot of things wrong. Everybody played poorly."
And the Jazz did this without starting big men Carlos Boozer (sprained ankle) and Mehmet Okur (back spasms), who average a combined 37.3 points and 16.3 rebounds.

by Broderick Turner

PE.Com