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UPDATE: The Los Angeles Lakers have confirmed this to be a hoax. Great stuff though!
Press Enterprise: As most of you have probably guessed already, the Lakers confirmed it’s a hoax. The only way Amare Stoudemire suits up in purple and gold this year is if someone buys him a Kobe jersey for Christmas.
Here was the original “tweet” on Amare’s page…
Breaking News! Amar’e Stoudemire to the Lakers!! (via Twitter)
L.A. Times: There were injuries to Kobe Bryant and Sasha Vujacic.
There were contract squabbles (Andrew Bynum) and squabbling players in contract years (Lamar Odom).
Through it all, there was one quiet constant for the Lakers this month.
Pau Gasol glided through his first preseason with the Lakers without any eye-catching activity, other than his smooth shooting (64%) and efficient 10.5-point average in 18.8 minutes a game.
Gasol is one of the few Lakers who won’t face contract issues at the end of the season — he is tied up until July 2011 — and he hasn’t had much to deal with this month, other than ongoing construction while remodeling his Redondo Beach home.
If anything, he seems to have adapted flawlessly to a new position.
He was rushed into the mix as a center when the Lakers acquired him in February, but he is now learning the triangle offense as a power forward.
NBA.com: There is nothing quite as intriguing as the unknown.
You see, the unknown has endless potential, and that idea is like the strongest drug known to man because it means the promise of a brand new day, better than any day before it.
The unknown is a place where the grass is greener, the world is wiser and positive endings never cease.
The Los Angeles Lakers’ Andrew Bynum is a lot like the unknown.
When you search his name on YouTube, one of the first videos that pops up is a three-minute highlight montage with Lil’ Wayne’s “Sky’s The Limit” playing behind clip after clip of Bynum turning lob passes into rim-shaking dunks.
The hype is real and inescapable.
A short time before the start of Lakers’ training camp, NBA.com tagged along with Bynum, his trainer Sean Zarzana and his older brother Corey Thomas to see what it’s like to be just 20 years old and preparing to embark on your fourth NBA season.
Sound ridiculous? How is it possible that a four-year pro isn’t old enough to drink yet? The NBA isn’t like European ball, where a 14-year-old like Ricky Rubio can sign a contract in Spain.
Continue reading ‘Bynum works to tap into sky-high potential’
Inside The Lakers: Lamar Odom says he’s embraced his new role as the sixth man.
Here’s what he had to say before Friday’s exhibition finale, a win over Oklahoma City…
“Really comfortable. Whatever the team needs me to do, that’s what I’m going to do. To be successful and play for championships, that doesn’t come around too often, you know what I’m saying? Whatever it takes. You know, I’m a humble dude. I put my ego aside.”
“Playing quality minutes and helping a team, everybody knows the guys who help out and play a big part on the team. No matter whether I start or finish or fall in between, whatever I’ve got to do to help the team that’s what I’m doing.”
“The beautiful thing about my game is that I can fill any role. Not too many players can do that. Not too many players have the humility to come off the bench without a problem after they’ve started their whole careers.”
Odom had eight points, four assists, three rebounds and three steals in 21 minutes during the Lakers’ victory over Oklahoma City in Ontario.
Fox Sports: For the past decade, it didn’t take a lot of keen perspective while peering into the foggy crystal ball known as NBA preseason predictions to recognize the uniforms of the San Antonio Spurs. They did win four of nine titles from 1999 to 2007 and were favorites again last season when they came up short in the Western Conference finals to the Los Angeles Lakers.
And it certainly wouldn’t be a stretch to put the Spurs in the mix again to win the West. But this time around the Lakers are not coming out of nowhere. They are not just a bunch of upstarts around 2008 MVP Kobe Bryant … in fact, until their bench’s collapse in the Finals to the Celtics in June, many believed them to have the best depth in the NBA.
So as we take a look at the West this time around, it’s impossible not to have great expectations for the Lakers with Bryant, Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom and Co. playing for coach Phil Jackson, who just happens to have the best winning percentage of all time in both the regular season and postseason.
1. Los Angeles Lakers
OK, Lakers fans, you can start breathing again now that it is apparent Kobe Bryant’s knee hyperextension this week was a false alarm. The more interesting analysis will be whether or not Phil Jackson opts to bring Lamar Odom off the bench, how well Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum will fit together, and whether Jordan Farmar is ready to take over as the starting point guard.
Fox Sports: What we’re hoping to establish is reasonable doubt.
Our case is to be built against the Los Angeles Lakers, who certainly have provided sufficient evidence to be recommended as candidates to make a second NBA Finals visit in as many seasons.
They still employ Kobe Bryant, who no longer allows his status as the world’s greatest player to undermine a duty to abet the growth of Laker teammates. Please know there’s an abundance of talented co-workers whose on-court evolutions definitely won’t suffer from lessons learned during the 2008 playoffs.
The Lakers also can rely on the deep thinking of Coach Phil Jackson, who’s one of the greatest team-sport psychologists this nation has produced.
And the seemingly healthy return of center Andrew Bynum allows Phil to suit up two of the best 7-foot players on the planet.
That’s the unlikely place where we’ll begin our quest to achieve reasonable doubt.
OK, while it’s true that tall people often are wildly successful at basketball, having two skilled big men on the court at the same time just might inhibit the Lakers’ title ascension.
Continue reading ‘Do Lakers have a big problem this time around?’
L.A. Times: He used to challenge his coaches, even bark back at them when given instructions.
Now Jordan Farmar seemingly has matured and is willing to follow what Lakers Coach Phil Jackson dictates.
“He has a much better understanding of his strength and weaknesses now than two years ago,” Jackson said. “He’s able to take coaching now much better than he did before. That’s important for Jordan because he’s a really smart person, but sometimes he gets in his own way.”
Some of Jackson’s teachings of the triangle offense were foreign to Farmar, so he resisted them.
Farmar had been taught different fundamentals while playing for Woodland Hills Taft High and at UCLA, including to never jump in the air to make a pass, or dribble to the corner to start an offensive set, or to pick up the dribble before a pass or shot.
But all that is OK under Jackson.
“I would be like, ‘I was taught my whole life that this is wrong,’ ” Farmar said Wednesday after practice. “So it was kind of a battle of trying to listen to them and trying to figure out how to get it done on my own. It was a battle and a struggle. It was just learning how to be a professional and what works for you.”
Continue reading ‘Jordan Farmar doing it the coaches’ way now’
Inside The Lakers: Apparently, the repairman was able to fix things on the Lakers “Machine” a bit ahead of schedule. Sasha Vujacic (ankle) returned to practice Monday morning, a bit ahead of schedule and was able to complete almost the entire practice.
“I did take a little break, I don’t want to go too crazy,” Vujacic said. “But I didn’t feel any sharp pain, so that’s good. There was a little discomfort, which is normal. We’ll just have to see if it swells up. If it does, we have to slow it down. But it feels good now.”
Vujacic has been out most of training camp with a sprained ankle, which he suffered on the first day of camp. After the ankle was slow to heal, he was re-examined and an avulsion fracture –where a thin piece of bone is peeled away by a ligament or tendon –was discovered. At that point, he was projected to miss 10-14 days. That was just six days ago.
“My goal is to be ready for the first game (on October 28),” he said. “And it’s going to take me two or three days of practice to come back into shape.”
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