The Lakers certainly didn't envision a break-even 14-14 mark on Christmas, but after their early-season struggles, they'll certainly take it. Pau Gasol's resounding dunk with just seconds to play iced L.A.'s win over the Knicks, and it may have signaled a sea change in the team's immediate plans. The team no longer has interest in opening a roster spot for free agents Derek Fisher, Kenyon Martin or anyone else, tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports.
Of course, that doesn't mean the team won't explore such moves in the future, and it doesn't rule out a trade of Gasol or another key figure. What it does mean is that the Lakers are likely no longer in the hunt for another guard, as they reportedly were as recently as a week ago. Steve Blake remains out after surgery to repair a torn abdominal muscle, but the team appears satisfied with a backcourt rotation featuring a healthy Steve Nash alongside Darius Morris in the starting lineup, with Kobe Bryant at small forward. Jodie Meeks and Chris Duhon have also seen significant minutes since Nash's return.
The Lakers have won five in a row, though Nash has only been back for the last two. The team has repeatedly pointed to the star point guard's impending return as reason not to panic. Mike D'Antoni admitted that when he signed to coach the team in November, he thought Nash would be back by the time D'Antoni made it to the bench for his first game, as Spears writes. D'Antoni, whose Lakers debut was delayed by a week because of knee replacement surgery, wound up guiding the team to a 7-9 record without Nash.
The Lakers have a full complement of 15 players, and would have probably targeted either Darius Johnson-Odom or Robert Sacre, both second-round picks this year, for a cut if they had brought another guard on board. Two weeks ago, Marc Stein of ESPN.com linked the Lakers to West, Mike James and Jonny Flynn, while noting that the team's top trade target was Jose Calderon.
This is a mistake. The assumptions are that Nash will not miss anymore games and that Gasol will stay as aggressive as he was in the game against the Knicks. Both are highly improbably IMHO.Getting rid of Matt Barnes instead of Steve Blake was a great mistake. I’ll go one step further and say that D’Antoni was the wrong choice to coach this team. I was optimistic at first, but no anymore. So, whoever is really steering the ship of Lakertown, needs to be fired. This season is lost to winning past the Clippers.
I’m a laker fan myself and I think some guys who watch matt barnes are a bit confused, the clippers have the personnel for him to play the role he was designed to play. the lakers did not have that when he was on the team nor do they have that now. So watching matt barnes play great basketball for the little brother team is painful, I know, but we can’t just think he was going to be that guy on this team because he simply wasn’t last year. He played average defense for us last year and was a high energy guy but he was also expected to be a primary scorer off of the bench last year which is not a role that best suites him. with the clippers, they have jamal, bledsoe, lamar and him. He is simply a 3rd option and a compliment so he’s open a lot more and he can actually lock down on defense because he isnt working so hard for shots on the other end. So I understand your concern but you should also take note of the depth the clippers have and how its made his job a lot easier.
Couldn’t agree with you anymore, but the thing is Matt Barnes was a free agent and he left on his choice, I would have loved to have seen him return to bring that energy off the bench and be MWP backup. Speaking of MWP I rather have Ariza than him but that’s another subject for another day. I personally think that we should have never gotten rid of Derek Fisher, instead we should have traded Blake and kept D-Fish. We would have had the same roster this year and Fisher would have been the backup to Nash with Morris being third string and the Lakers releasing Duhon. My God, choosing D’Antoni over the greatest coach in sports history, I still can’t wrap my head around it. Hopefully the Lakers fire him after this season but I doubt it’ll happen since Jim Buss is mad that Phil Jackson is banging his sister, Jim Buss shouldn’t be the head of basketball operations it should be Magic Johnson or Mitch Kupchak, Jim Buss doesn’t know basketball well enough to make decisions of that magnitude.
That sucks. i was hoping they would pick up Martin and West for cheap
the Lakers need another hard nose player like Martin and a quality back up to Nash. Morris is good but we need a vet.
A little good with the bad as it gets players consistency with each other
let Jamison play..they kept on playing small..
Lakers lack youth and athleticism to defend. Good offense, bad defense. But if they can be healthy come playoff time they can make a run….