Thoughts on the Lakers

A couple thoughts I had after watching the Lakers-Hornets game tonight:

• Ron Artest apparently doesn't understand what generation he's in. Why are his shorts pulled up this high? It’s like I’m watching ESPN Classic or something …


• It’s interesting to watch Kobe’s style as games progress. It’s pretty clear that he’s paying a lot of attention to his longevity – protecting his body and his knees so he can be effective late into the season and the playoffs. If you watch him especially early in games, in a lot of situations where he’d normally drive hard to the basket he’s instead taking jumpers off the dribble and dishing to teammates instead of trying to force a finish and/or a foul in traffic. I think it’s likely that some of his work with Hakeem over this summer was also to find ways to finish in the low post without taking a beating and it’ll be interesting to see how this progresses throughout the season.
  


• Right now, the Lakers seem like they’re playing really well as a team with good chemistry; however, I’m curious to see how this will work out as the season continues. For one thing, I think having Gasol, Bynum, and Odom all healthy and extremely capable could lead to some tension down the road, especially with Odom coming off the bench (seeing as how he’d be starting on pretty much any other team in the league). Also, it seems like Phil Jackson has been running a tighter rotation – a lot of the bench guys have been playing way less minutes this year, Vujacic in particular. And of course we can’t forget Ron Artest who has the potential to do pretty much anything at this point. However, I think if anyone can pull off this balancing act and turn this into a team-first group of guys, it’s the Zen Master.
  


• I still think the Ron Artest trade was a mistake for LA. He just looks slow out there on both sides of the ball. He’s not moving without the ball on offense or staying with younger, faster guards on defense particularly effectively. Ariza on the other hand was a hard worker who I think is an up and coming player in this league – think about all the huge plays he had during the playoffs last year. I honestly think this trade was made to reduce the chance that Artest got into a fist fight with Kobe during the playoffs.
  


• To put it mildly, the NBA TV game coverage is awful. A major deal breaker for me was their insistence on showing the game side-by-side with their commentators when coming back from breaks. I don’t care about what you have to say enough as a commentator to need to see you while you’re talking. Also, the commentating team is pretty terrible. They don’t really know what they’re talking about but they’re not funny enough to pull off the Charles Barkley routine either.