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Tuesday, October 31, 2000
Lakers: Now everyone's gunning for them
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Team page/schedule | Stats: Preseason / 1999 | Roster
Last year: 67-15, first in Pacific, first in conference
Coach/GM: Phil Jackson/Mitch Kupchak
Arena, first game: Staples Center (18,997); Nov. 3, 1999
All-time franchise record/NBA titles: 2,507-1,566/12
Notable: Phil was 10th to win title in first year with new team
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THE TOP EIGHT
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Pos
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Player
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Key Stat
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Skinny
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PG
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Ron Harper
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7.0 ppg
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Good for triangle, plays mistake-free
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SG
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Kobe Bryant
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4.9 apg
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Um, he just turned 22, so watch out
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SF
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Isaiah Rider
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19.3 ppg
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Beloved everywhere, so watch out
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PF
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Horace Grant
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7.8 rpg
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Forget that Phil dumped him 6 years ago
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C
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Shaquille O'Neal
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29.7 ppg
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Best player in league when wants to be
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6th
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Rick Fox
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.414 FG
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Worst stat year, but he won a title
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7th
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Robert Horry
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4.8 rpg
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See Fox entry, but now he has three
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8th
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Brian Shaw
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4.1 ppg
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Smart, underrated; who needs Fisher?
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The Lakers need to replace the perimeter shooting they lose in Glen Rice. They have to have that to prevent teams from doubling down hard on Shaq. It remains to be seen whether Kobe or J.R. Rider can be consistent enough from the perimeter to fill that role. They also have to maintain that hunger now that they've won a ring. A lot of teams are going to be shooting at them in a way that they didn't from the start last year. Nobody saw them as the team to beat from the very beginning last year. They have a brand new locker room, a lot of new faces. They have to integrate those and find the chemistry they were able to develop by the end of last season. The Lakers will compete for the NBA title once again.
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By Frank Hughes
Special to ESPN.com
The Good
The NBA champions are back, albeit in a stunningly different
form. But who really cares? They still have Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant,
and the rest of the Lakers were merely moveable parts filling in the
triangular spots around those two. Kind of like a galaxy with multiple suns.
As long as The Big Fella continues to show he is worth a three-year, $88
million extension he recently signed, the Lakers will be one of the two best
teams in the NBA. Even better for Shaq, he finally got the power forward he
coveted when the Lakers shipped Glen Rice to a place that should be able to
outtalk his wife -- New York -- and got Horace Grant from the Sonics. In an
NBA twist of fate, Grant played for Phil Jackson in Chicago and already knows
the intricacies of the triangle offense. Grant should allow O'Neal to breathe
easier in terms of rebounding, and perhaps half of Grant's 10,000 career
points have come from his 18-foot, top-of-the-key jumper, so O'Neal can't be
as easily double- and triple-teamed without consequences. Interestingly, the
Lakers also signed Isaiah Rider, the mention of which probably should not be
under this heading. But even with Rider's well-documented problems, he
unquestionably has talent at both ends, he gives the Lakers size at the
shooting guard position and Jackson is notorious for handling, shall we say,
"personalities." Speaking of Jackson, this team should only be better under
his system, because his two main players already know it. We should mention the other fellas who play here and do nice work, such as Rick Fox, Robert Horry, Ron Harper and Brian Shaw. Greg Foster came in the Rice-Grant deal and backs Shaq up. Hey, he's no Travis Knight/John Salley.
The Bad
How can you not begin The Bad without the NBA's Baddest Boy? For a while, it looked as if Rider would be left out of the NBA
after getting kicked off the Atlanta Hawks last season for what amounted to
insubordination. But, then, it comes as no surprise that teams care more
whether a player can shoot a basketball than whether he will shoot a gun.
Rider says he will change his ways, but he says that everywhere he goes, and
he still ends up with more fines than a Milan catwalk. He already showed up
late for one practice, although Rider qualified that by saying he just didn't
have his shoes laced. Why worry about details when you're making a million,
eh? The fact that Jackson even agreed to try to rehabilitate Rider only
makes one wonder if the real reason Jackson signed him was to anger nemesis
Pat Riley, who also wanted Rider. He has proven to be a counterproductive
sideshow wherever he has gone, and the influences of O'Neal and Bryant
probably won't solve that. Rider notwithstanding, the Lakers have other issues. They once again have
no depth, and if O'Neal goes down they will be in trouble. His backup might
be rookie Mark Madsen. O'Neal said the biggest change last season is he was
healthy, and if that changes the Clippers might become Team L.A.
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THE BIG QUESTION |
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Will the Lakers once again be able to overcome the
tendencies of their individual superstars to want to control the game,
particularly now that the volatile Rider has been thrown into the equation?
On every team he has been on, Rider thinks things should run through him, or
he should at least get a minimum number of touches. Can he adjust to being,
in this case, third fiddle?
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Whose team is this?
Well, there's Shaq and Kobe, and they're pretty good players, wouldn't you say? But it's not their team. You could have said it was Jerry West's team for the last decade, but now he's out, and Mitch Kupchak, less a presence, takes over as GM. So, this team is clearly Phil's, and proof of that is how he made Shaq into even more dominant player than he ever was. What Phil says, goes. And that's the bottom line.
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| O'Neal |
How they'll play
As long as O'Neal is on the floor, the ball will
always go through him. Nobody can guard the 7-foot, 330-pounder by
themselves, or, as he proved in the first few games of the Finals, he will
average more than 40 points. The triangle is an offshoot of O'Neal's post
presence, and when he passes it out, that's when other players get open
shots.
Projection
As long as O'Neal stays healthy, the Lakers remain a
60-win team in the regular season, and should once again have a battle in the
conference finals with the Blazers. Who knows, they could even repeat.
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