Zygomatic process fracture, typical injury in car accidents, requires surgery, screws, plates. Tough loss for OKC and the NBA, he was a great watch. It will be interesting to see how tough he is, if he will come back in a month wearing a protective mask or pull a LeBron sitting it out because "he's not quite right".
^^^ heading for medical dictionary. Sounds like "yikes". Their 2 stars have been snake bitten with bad luck this season.
Well all is not lost if they blow this opportunity for keeping the top 5 pick. It will just delay the rebuild for a year giving them a similar team to watch next season with Randle and Kobe in the mix to add a few more wins. Then after next season's torturous viewing they will have their # 1 pick they would have given up to Philly because of keeping this years......probably somewhere in the 7-12 range. Time to start looking at the College talent that may come out for that draft. The biggest problem will be drawing the interest of FA's this next off season with a roster minus that top 5 pick.
^^^ Lots of big words but yeah didn't sound like something you'd hope for. I'm surprised Ron Ron didn't give Harden one with the force behind that elbow. Reminds me I miss these:
The problem is next year's draft is supposed to be abysmal, like the one of two years ago when Michael Carter Williams was the ROY. Scott is essentially coaching himself out of a job. If he has another year like this season, the FO will have to fire him, regardless of what the circumstances were. (no talent, injuries) No team can keep a coach who wins less than 25 games in back to back seasons. So what is Scott's one chance at starting a turnaround? Getting and nailing a pick in this draft to go with Randle and a FA or two. I hated the Scott hire in the beginning. It was a r******* hire that I thought couldn't be anything but a placeholder until we flip it around. But now Scott isn't even doing his job as "transition" coach.
Without doing any research I'll take your word on that, plus having watched all the top 5 projected picks this year, short of Muldaiy, they look like can't miss prospects. So all is not lost, but it could be the difference between an instant rebuild to years of struggling to get there.
The thing that sucks is the Lakers will have Randle to show for all these struggles (and let's be honest, we don't even KNOW if Randle will be any good). We are going to miss the playoffs next year as well...short of Dragic AND Love inexplicably signing here for 5 million a year each. So we will have missed the playoffs three years in a row. And have Randle to show for it. I don't count Clarkson because he could have been bought for the 1.8 million regardless of our record. We may get something decent out of that Houston pick at the bottom of the draft...probably not.
Actually, all is not lost at all; we'll be fine. We're still 3 games up on Orlando Philly's next 5 games: Ind, Tor, OKC, Utah, ATL Minnesota's next 5 games: Memphis, Clippers, Denver, Portland, Clippers Lakers next 5 games: OKC, Cha, Mia, Mem, Dallas Orlando's next 5 games: Cha, PHX, SAC, Bos, Ind We're on the road against CHA, Mia, and Memphis; Dallas is a superior team. I see us losing the next 5 games depending whether or not Russell plays in the OKC game. Orlando has 3 games they could win, and I wouldn't be surprised if we pull ahead by a game or so in the next week or so from them at the very least. Minnesota has the hardest schedule with the most talent, and they are going to be hard-pressed to win any of those games besides Denver. Although, they might surprise and win a game we don't expect; Philly, has Indian and Utah, and their schedule gets much easier as the season progresses...they have an easier schedule than us. Remember, we have 2 games against Minny, Philly, and 1 against NY. These other tank teams play against each other, too. I'll find that schedule.
Yeah', we're up 3 games, right. That's what I'm seeing...matter of fact, NY 2-8 in their last 10 Philly 3-7 in their last 10 Minnesota 5-5 in their last 10 Lakers 3-7 in their last 10 Orlando 4-10 in their last 10. So, at the very worst, we're keeping pace. The only downside is we haven't made up ground to the 3rd seed which I think would all make us feel more comfortable. There's still a ton of games, though, and a lot of factors
Knicks: 3/12 @@Lakers 3/19 T-wolves 3/20 @76ers 4/5 76ers 4/11 @@Magic 76ers: 3/20 Knicks 3/22 @@Lakers 3/30 Lakers 4/5 @Knicks T-wolves: 3/19 @Knicks 3/25 Lakers 4/3 Magic 4/10 @@Lakers Magic: 4/3 @T-wolves 4/11 Knicks Keep these dates in mind...posted this in another thread but it's relevant here as well.
I don't like leaving it up to fate and chance that Minny, Ny, Philly and Orlando will win games. The one thing we can control is our loses and hopefully we start piling them on.
No report yet on a fracture for Russell. Could be muscle displacement. Hopefully he's alright though.
The Lakers have about 6-7 winnable games left. Orlando/minny/philly have about 4-5 winnable games if you look at their schedule. These last 3 wins REALLY put the Lakers in a bad spot.
With this team, I don't even look at what's "winnable" since they have victories over Chicago, Golden State, San Antonio, Atlanta and Houston. I mean, if Jordan Hill gets a hair up his butt, we can beat anyone since other teams can and do look past us. These last 3 wins put us in a bad spot because we are liable to win 10 games just because Scoot plays Boozer and Lin 45 minutes.
^ He would've easily carved us up for 45/15/15. DAMN IT! Luckily they acquired a crap load of depth before the deadline. Need all of them to step up their game. Kanter, Waiters, and Ibaka should be enough to beat us though.
I can see us winning 1-2 games during this stretch. I'd probably be OK with winning 1, but no more than that, because Minnesota has some difficult games coming up.
