Great pic of Jeanie and Jim together. With better days Shirley ahead let's hope it brings them closer again and not at odds running the team. Good job Jim and Mitch!!
Man, I was about 5 pages behind and reading everything posted today has been so refreshing. I think I teared up happy tears at one point, the tweet about Luke staying behind and getting Draymond's rebounds. A week ago I was dreading the return of BS for another year. I was ready to pack my Laker gear and shove it into the attic but now everything is so different. Happy tunes are playing in the background. We are in good hands folks. This is going to be a fun ride.
Rewatching Game 1 of the 2009 Finals watching Luke make some great entry passes in the post to Kobe. Also posted up some himself. Gave us some good minutes. Crazy to think he's our coach now. Crazy how time flies.
What the hell is this? A coach actually endorsing our young core? Newsflash Byron this is the correct approach not constantly attacking them in the media. Couldn't agree more with Luke. Nance was a steal. Can do all the little things. Set screens, help defense, can hit open mid range shots, freak athlete, ball mover, and just a high basketball IQ. Clarkson's defense needs a lot of work, but offensively he's improved a lot in two years. Great off the dribble. Three point shot is still erratic at times as is shot selection, but he's so athletic and can't get to the bucket pretty much anytime he wants. Randle as Luke said averaging a double double as a rookie is pretty unheard of. He's gonna really benefit from a motion offense. Needs to improve his screen setting and jump shot, but he can be an initator much like Draymond is in Oakland. D'Angelo I believe has the highest ceiling by hair over Julius. We saw what he did in March when he had about as good a stretch as a rookie can have. Defensively he improved over the course over the year. Really has been able to use his length effectively. The play making. The shooting. The pick and roll game. With his IQ, ability to hit shots, and passing he can be deadly in this offense.
I've seen it mentioned here in passing, but I think it bears more emphasis. It's very likely we got Luke because he loves this Lakers organization. It's very likely he loves this organization because of the way we treated him as a player. We treated him well financially, as well as not just dumping him when he started having back problems. The Lakers were loyal to him as a player, and it seems he has in turn decided to be loyal to the Lakers as a coach. This is the other side of what we did with Steve Nash. Treating Nash like a veteran that deserved respect and not dumping him because of back problems as soon as we could was a risk we lost on Nash, but seemed to have paid off with Luke. He wanted to be with this organization so much that he probably took a deal for less than he could have gotten if he negotiated elsewhere. But he wanted to be a Laker again. I'm expecting the same to pay off with Kobe down the line in some way.
When does the season start again? And the draft? And free agency? And summer league? And training camp? Amazing how getting rid of cancer can change your outlook on life. I went from not watching games or giving a rip to looking forward to next season. Nice job Mitch. You can stay one more year, but you're going to have to show me something now. :Mitchthumb:
There's something hush hush going on with big name FAs and/or trades and/or silver giving us the #1 pick that Luke's excited about, I'd bet my life on it.
I can't believe I just read OUR HC giving props to young guys for doing some incredible things. What a concept.