Ineligible Man Downfield

I would like to thank a friend of mine, Marcus, who recently graduated from UC Irvine MBA for giving me the inspiration for this post.  Actually, he’s always utilized this moniker in place of his real name to represent his online presence in our fantasy basketball league, but I have finally some time to put a reasonable post together.

Indeed, the Lakers are Kobe’s Lakers.  He is the unquestioned leader and he believed that running “his” team would lead to the championship.  Today we find that it is true, though I’m not so sure a healthy Boston Celtics team would necessarily foster the same result.  The Lakers of 2009 are quite different from the Lakers 0f the early 200o’s.  Obviously, one major difference is the leader of that team was Shaq.  Kobe was only playing second fiddle at that time.  That is important because the Lakers of old were a team of Phil Jackson’s image, the triangle offense, with Shaq in the middle, Kobe playing the versatile guard and Derek Fisher running the point.
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Courtesy of mmksportbasketball from Webshots.com

Why did he take that shot?  Why the double screen?  Phil should’ve drawn up a different game plan for the last shot!

Oh hey!  Its me and I guess I’m back again.  If you don’t already know, both jadamusss and Iare diehard Lakers fans.  So you might think that this blog posting might be a tad bit “biased,” but whose really objective in their analysis of sports these days.  Most of analyst make their decisions based on their gut and then throw in stats that fit their agenda.  Like I said, Kobe should’ve taken a better shot!

Since we’re on the subject of shots, I thought we’d go over the West and do a subjective analysis.  It should be consensus that the Western Conference plays better basketball and with a style that is easy on the eyes.  The Eastern Conference is all about scrappy and sometimes ugly play marked by stout defense.  The West plays for great shots, aka finesse plays and generating these shots through fastbreak generating defense.  Let’s see which games are must see and who is predicted to win by yours truly (again, in order of worse to best; see The Beastly East):
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I’m sure you’ve noticed as certainly I have.  The Celtics seem to be losing games left and right just as fast as Chris Paul dishing dimes.  They’ve lost 7 of their last 9 games with the latest being to the formidable Cleveland Cavaliers.  Though they are a worthy opponent, some of Boston’s losses have come against lowly teams such as the Warriors, Bobcats and Knicks.  It is as if they are content with the championship title they have. Continue reading