Lakers Season Preview from ESPN

Lakers Dominate in Opening Preseason Game

The Los Angeles Lakers filled up the box score at the Honda Center Wednesday night against the Golden State Warriors in their preseason opener.

It was great to see Andrew Bynum playing at 100%. Bynum finished with 24 points, 5 boards and was 8-9 from the FT line. Kobe Bryant picked up right where he left off scoring 22 points, 9 rebounds in 26 minutes.

In his Lakers debut, Ron Artest put up some impressive numbers. He finished with 12 points, 9 boards and 7 assists in 23 minutes. The Lakers won easily 118-101.

The play of the night was this dunk by Shannon Brown. 

I cannot wait for the regular season!

Cuban Hating on Artest and the Lakers

Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, is known for being vocal and controversial. These are the attributes that make Cuban one of my favorite NBA owners. Cuban’s more recent opinion about Ron Artest joining the Lakers pumps me up for the Lakers v Mavericks game.

Cuban made an appearance at ESPN radio in Dallas on 10/2 and voiced his opinions about Ron Artest. “If you would have said, what one player…would you like to see on the Lakers? – Ron Artest,” Cuban said during the interview. Cuban was implying that Artest is going to destroy the dynamic of the Los Angeles Lakers. Follow this link to read the ESPN article and hear the podcast radio interview.

I’m not going to hate on Cuban for his opinion, I will let the Lakers play do the talking. Mark your calendars for Friday, 10/30 on ESPN when the Lakers trounce the Mavs!

Kobe – The Most Popular Player in the World?

The jerseys don’t lie my friends. The Los Angeles Lakers guard, Kobe Bryant, for the second year in a row has the number one selling jersey in Europe. In addition to Europe, Kobe dons the number one selling jersey in the USA and China as well!

NBA player’s top 5 jersey sales breakdown in Europe:
1) Kobe Bryant
2) Kevin Garnett
3) Pau Gasol
4) Lebron James
5) Dwyane Wade

Congrats to Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol – 1st and 3rd!

Referees Vote Down Latest NBA Proposal

The NBA is turning to its replacement referee’s after the latest attempt to mend the relationship with the National Basketball Referees Association (NBRA) failed. According to an ESPN article, 43-14 locked out NBA referees voted to decline the NBA’s latest proposal.

As a Lakers fan, I hate to see replacement referees for two reasons:
1) The flow of the game is key. No fan wants to have busch league refs making terrible calls creating frequent stoppage of play.
2) The Los Angeles Lakers are notorious for complaining on calls! I must say this is one of my pet peeves about the Lakers. They all complain! Especially Kobe Bryant and Sasha Vujacic. Kobe, As the leader of the team, you need to shut your mouth and play...Lead by example!

Expect to see the NBA cave before the start of the regular season and give the NBRA a worthwhile proposal.

Media Day

Media Day for the Los Angeles Lakers generally would mean, Kobe Time! However, with Odom’s shenanigans and the addition of Ron Artest, Kobe was the third wheel.

I was a little nervous with Artest loving the media attention on top of the Odom-Kardashian wedding, but then I saw this Kobe quote:

"We understand that we worked really hard to get to this point," Bryant said of beginning the title defense. "It took us a long time to get here, so it's not something we want to give up because of our own inability to move forward or to not take the season seriously or as focused as we did the year before. If somebody's going to take it from us, we want them to take it from us with us being 100 percent focused and locked in…There's not going to be any distractions. There weren't any distractions last year, the year before. Everything will be smooth.”

Kobe is the leader of this team and I know he will keep this squad in line for a repeat! Another plus, the NBA banned twitter during games which will at least eliminated one distraction.

Odom and Kardashian Tie the Knot

Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian were married, 9/27, in a private Beverly Hills location. Luke Walton, Sasha Vujacic, and Phil Jackson attended the ceremony.

This wedding is clearly a dumb move by Lamar. Why do I care? 1) I don’t want to see Khloe affect Odom’s on the court play. 2) Khloe is the ugliest of the three sisters! What are you thinking Lamar?

Anyway – Congratulations buddy!