The #1 Source For Everything Lakers
Hey, guys!
The Lakers Nation has been able to work out a BIG promotion with AM570 to get our members an exclusive package.
ONE AVAILABLE. I’m bringing you guys this FIRST at this price because all of you deserve it with all your help to make this the best Lakers site on the web.
Price: $570 for 2 ($285 each person).
“Party at the Top” Package - 4 on-site grand prize giveaways.
Continue reading ‘TLN/AM570 Radio Las Vegas Package RAFFLE!’
L.A. Times: The game is the same, as is the goal: win it all and bring home a gold medal from the Beijing Summer Games. Kobe Bryant sat down with The Times on Sunday to talk about Team USA before departing for New York, where he and his U.S. teammates — including Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade — will be formally introduced during a promotional tour.
Question: On a team full of stars on their respective teams, how does each find his individual role?
Answer: It’s actually pretty easy. It’s not necessarily about roles or what have you. It’s just playing basketball. A lot of philosophies that we play with on the Lakers is the same thing we do here. Just hit the open man when you have the opportunity, make it quick. If not, you just move the ball and try to get an open shot.
Q: Is it up to each player to find his own role?
A: Everybody’s offensively talented, so whatever situation you find yourself in, you can make something out of it. So it’s just about, if you’re open and you have the opportunity, you take advantage of it. We all have well-rounded offensive games where we can take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.
Q: What did it mean to you when Coach Mike Krzyzewski at the start of Saturday’s practice played the video of Marvin Gaye performing the national anthem?
A: I had seen it many times before, being in L.A., because that’s where it took place. I had seen it time and time before, but to see it in that context, as far as us using it as our song, it put it in a little bit of a different light because you have more of an appreciation and it hit home a little bit more.
Will Sasha and Turiaf look for a better offer? Sound-off in the comments…
O.C. Register: Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak is expected to be on the phone shortly after 9 p.m. Monday when the NBA free agency period begins.
First he will call Sasha Vujacic’s agent. After getting some idea of which way the restricted free agent is leaning, Kupchak then will dial Ronny Turiaf’s agent.
Both players are restricted free agents, meaning the Lakers can match any offer sheet they sign with another team. Kupchak is hoping to avoid that scenario by re-signing the two.
“A lot of it’s going to depend on the progress we make with Sasha and Ronny” Kupchak said last week. “I think we feel if we can bring those two players back, and we get Trevor [Ariza]and Andrew [Bynum]back, we’d be happy going into training camp with that group. If we run into a roadblock … then we’ll have to look in other directions.
“But right now, based on the free-agent market that’s out there and our existing free agents, we think it’s in our best interest to sign back our free agents. It’s not a great group of players to choose from when you’re comparing them against Sasha or Ronny.”
The Lakers, who are well over the salary cap, will pay nearly $5 million in luxury taxes for last season and aren’t expected to look much into other options beyond Vujacic and Turiaf. The Lakers can only offer a free agent the mid-level exception between $5 million and $6 million.
Restricted free agents can talk with teams but cannot officially sign until July 9.
L.A. Times: Earvin “Magic” Johnson announced his arrival as a businessman 13 years ago, when he took part in an unusual meeting with gang leaders from the Bloods and the Crips.
At the time, Johnson was building a movie theater in Baldwin Hills. Would the gang members, Johnson asked, be kind enough not to shoot it up?
“I just laid it out to them that I’m building this theater for the community,” Johnson, the former Lakers basketball standout, recalled from his seventh-floor office in Beverly Hills. “You can’t have anything happen at this theater because we’re going to hire your cousins, your mothers, your sons and daughters. You come in here and shoot up the place, it might be your own relatives inside.”
The theater stands peacefully to this day, largely untouched by violence. And these days, Johnson meets with corporate CEOs, institutional investors and elected officials nationwide who want a piece of his growing collection of businesses and properties in 21 states.
The orchestrator of the Lakers’ highflying “Showtime” teams in the 1980s, which netted five NBA championships, has crafted a second career by investing his time and, in many cases, other people’s money in long-ignored urban neighborhoods through his Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund.
Contiune reading ‘For Magic Johnson, the NBA was only halftime ’
Press Enterprise: This week the Lakers and Clippers will enter the free-agent market, both teams shopping for players and looking to improve.
The problem is that this year’s free-agent class is not considered strong. The only All-Star-caliber talent available is Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison, both of the Washington Wizards, and they will be commanding the kind of money that the Lakers and Clippers aren’t expected to spend this summer.
The Lakers, who reached the NBA Finals for the first time since 2004, like their young team and aren’t expected to make big changes. Their top priority is to re-sign two of their key backups, guard Sasha Vujacic and forward Ronny Turiaf, and the Lakers’ course this summer largely “is going to depend on the progress we make with Sasha and Ronny,” said General Manager Mitch Kupchak, who will begin negotiations Monday at 9:01 p.m., the opening of the free-agent period. Teams can start signing players July 9.
Because both Vujacic and Turiaf are restricted free agents, the Lakers can retain them by matching any offers they get from other teams.
Vujacic, 24 and coming off a career year in which he averaged 8.8 points and was eighth in the league in three-point shooting (43.7 percent), might get offers from $4 million to $5 million per year. He might be seeking as much as $5.8 million.
Turiaf, who’s 25 and also had career highs in points (6.6) and rebounds (3.9), could command $3.5 million to $4 million.
To nobody’s surprise Kobe didn’t fuel the fire some more…
Canadian Press: Bryant had little to say about a rap video by former Los Angeles Lakers teammate Shaquille O’Neal, who rapped that “Kobe couldn’t do without me.”
Asked how he took the video, Bryant shook his head and said, “I didn’t take it any kind of way whatsoever.”
Fox Sports: Because teams, players, coaches and referees all reveal themselves in various ways, every play of every game is fraught with meaningful revelations. And the pressure inherent in a championship series certainly ups the ante.
So then, here are some nuggets of transcendent meaning that can be gleaned from the latest Lakers-Celtics set-to.
- While Doc Rivers did a superb job, he was way off-base in deriding Phil Jackson for “whining” about the refs after the lopsided 38-10 foul situation in Game 2. Since he’s been there before, Jackson knew that the public airing of his grievance would work to his team’s benefit — and it did. In fact, it always does. In other words, loudly complaining about being short-changed by the refs in a playoff series is as much a part of a coach’s job description as formulating a game plan. Besides which, Jackson’s protestations were entirely justified.
- With all due respect, the only plausible reason for Lamar Odom’s lack of on-court awareness is that he suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder.
In any case, Odom is imminently dispensable and must be dealt for someone like Ron Artest, Udonis Haslem or Shane Battier.
- Sometimes how a team plays is more significant than whether they’ve won or lost a specific game. Which was the case with the Lakers’ sloppy, error-filled victory in Game 5 that certainly pointed to the probability of their getting swamped in Game 6.
If you think Perkins doesn’t make a difference for the Celtics, just find out how many combined rebounds Gasol and Odom had… Yeah, 24! Oh, and Odom had only 4 blocks.
Boston Herald: … Perkins faced the real possibility that he had played in his last NBA Finals game.
“I would say that would probably be doubtful,” coach Doc Rivers said before the game of Perkins returning to the floor for Game 6 at the Garden. “But I don’t know.”
“It’s a good question,” Perkins said of whether he could play the rest of the series. “I couldn’t tell you. I can raise my arm, but there’s just a lot of pain right now. I don’t know if I can take a hard hit on it. When we get back to Boston I’m supposed to get an MRI on it, and then we’ll know more about it.”
Loading ...
Recent Comments