As The Lakers Turn

I was going to blog about the Lakers after their opening night loss to Houston. Don't be fooled by the final score. Except for a end of game flurry by Kobe, Houston was in control. I was going to write how this game was going to be emblematic of their season. Kobe doing everything, almost no help from the bench and disbelief that the team's management isn't willing to part with either of their centers Kwame Brown or Andrew Bynum in order to get some good players to help the team be competitive. There was one particular play where Yao Ming threw a pass right over Bynum, who didn't even have his fucking hands up.

Then, they turn around and kick the living shit out of Phoenix last night--in the Valley of the Sun, no less. I love when they have both Ronny Turiaf and Luke Walton on the floor. Both guys can pass, which makes any team hard to defend, and Walton can score some. But they still have a HUGE hole in he middle.

The Lakers are still in that NBA no man's land. They aren't good enough to compete for the title and not bad enough to finish with a high lottery pick. If they plan on keeping Kobe (and that's an open question), they gotta show some balls and make serious trade. Trading Kobe just isn't going to happen. Forget that you never get even close to comparable value when you trade a superstar (see the Shaq deal for Odom and some scrubs), but Kobe has a no-trade clause. So, any team that could give up anything close to his value isn't a team he would want to go to because they wouldn't be any good anymore. If the Lakers someone pull the trigger on the deal, they need to get a player they can build around. Like they should done in getting Dwyane Wade from Miami for Shaq.