Howard to the Lakers said to be close.

Lakers would lose Pau and Bynum and gain Howard and Al Harrington ("gain" is a misnomer since Harrington is subtraction by addition).

Not sure this makes the Lakers much better plus Howard has injury concerns. Not a great deal for the Lakers.

8/9/2012 7:40:04 PM

can't lose pau

8/9/2012 8:18:55 PM

Terrible deal for the Lakers. Howard isn't worth Gasol and Bynum. They need to keep the nucleus intact.

8/9/2012 8:33:46 PM

Per ESPN the deal is done. And Gasol is still around. Now a terrible trade is muy excellente!

8/9/2012 10:13:12 PM

Quote :

"A source with direct knowledge of the talks told ESPN.com's Marc Stein the Lakers will receive Howard, the Denver Nuggets will acquire Andre Iguodala, the 76ers will receive Andrew Bynum and Jason Richardson, and the Magic will get Arron Afflalo, Al Harrington, Nikola Vucevic and one protected future first-round pick from each of the other three teams. In addition, the Magic will be getting other pieces, including 76ers No. 1 draft pick Moe Harkless, a source told Stein."

8/9/2012 10:25:16 PM

yeah if they dont give up gasol then the trade is a winner assuming he's healthy.

Good thing i put all that money on the lakers already

8/9/2012 10:47:29 PM

The team that actually improved the most in this trade is Denver. They land a stud player Iguodala and get rid of a cancer in Al Harrington. They are unreal athletic and will really try to run against veteran teams to wear them down.

Lawson/Miller
Iguodala/Hamilton
Gallinari/Brewer
Faried/Randolph
McGee/Koufos/Mozgov

Lawson isn't quite on the Paul/Rondo/Nash level but he's definitely right in that 2nd tier of PG's and Miller is a solid backup. Iguo is one of the best players in the league still. Gallinari is solid. Faried was already one of the best players in the league as a rookie so getting him more minutes with Harrington gone is going to be huge. Koufos is one of the most underrated players in the league. McGee is solid but has the potential to be really good if he ever gets things together.

The only crap players in the rotation are Randolph and Mozgov and both can get spot minutes in the playoffs. Hamilton isn't much either but Iguo is a 40 minute guy so that won't matter much.

That team is loaded and should be great to watch. Now they just need to get George Karl away from it.

8/9/2012 11:43:07 PM

we are now looking at possibly the first big4 assembled. I know rondo grew bigger than the big 3 but this is the first time 4 were assembled. How long until dallas assembles a big 4? How long until the nba starts getting big 5s and cuts down to a five team league?

8/10/2012 5:08:50 AM

^ The NBA will probably contract to 5 teams within the next month or so. They'll only be 25 players total in the league and Stern will retire, Dennis Rodman will become comissioner, and the draft lottery will still be fixed except now it will be fixed so that the Heat win the #1 pick every year.

8/10/2012 7:42:34 AM

^^^ Denver is the only team which hasn't been to Final yet.

8/10/2012 9:53:36 AM

I give it 2 months into the season before Kobe and Howard come to blows at practice, and less than 1 month into the season before Kobe rips Howard in an incredibly public fashion.

8/10/2012 10:13:25 AM

The Lakers have a Big 2.

Nash and Howard.


Can't label Gasol as part of the big three after the season he just had. He's pretty clearly on decline unless that was just a serious off year.

8/10/2012 11:38:44 AM

Lakers' Bass wants Kobe to gain more rings to surpass Jordan probably.
Howard should accept to stay if he wants to follow Shaq's path.

8/10/2012 11:44:38 AM

you make me yearn for the glory days of mambagirl

8/10/2012 12:04:43 PM

Its possible that Kobe becomes a productive player again now that Nash and Howard can get him wide open shots , but can't just assume it will happen until we see it first. He was just too far gone this year

8/10/2012 1:32:38 PM

Kobe and Gasol are still stars they jjust showed inconsistency without anyone to run a consistent offense. Lakers offense had no fluidity last year. Gasol and Bynum were not used to playing with Bynum and without Odom there was really no other point guard.

With Nash on the team Gasol will absolutely explode.

Kobe will still be Kobe and will take all of the team's tough shots when teams rotate well out of double teams late in the shotclock. He will have rough nights and also nights where he goes for 40. The only way I can see Kobe playing a style face approves of is if he plays with the bench and posts up but they will need to have him outside to spread the floor with howard in the game.

All of you people like face who only look at stats are about to see that the game is not played in a vacuum and the players around you actually affect your play. Nash made stars out of Jared Dudley and martan freaking gortat. Kobe and Gasol have never had a good pg to play with. they will be a-ok.

Also, Nash has never had a decent defensive team and now he is surrounded by the four best defenders he has ever played with. If nobody gets hurt this team will not lose. Just too much defense

[Edited on August 10, 2012 at 1:57 PM. Reason : People underestimate howard's dominance. ]

8/10/2012 1:53:09 PM

Gortat is a good player with or without Nash.

And at the nba level the games are in fact played pretty much in a vacuum. Stats are consistent from season to season.

To say they've never had a good pg is only partially true. Fisher had good seasons early, payton was good his year, and sessions was awesome until he flopped in the playoffs.

The lakers were going to be good before this trade. Howard is better than bynum but the gap isn't that large.

8/10/2012 2:30:36 PM

Can they beat Heat? I think they are pretty close.

8/10/2012 2:32:37 PM

As a diehard Heat/Laker/Thunder/Bobcats fan, this season will be heaven.

8/10/2012 4:31:20 PM

Quote :

"we are now looking at possibly the first big4 assembled."

I'm guessing the Kobe/Shaq/Payton/Malone combo wasn't up to snuff since Payton and Malone were in the twilight of their careers?

8/10/2012 5:00:51 PM

That team still probably wins the title if Malone doesn't get hurt.

Pretending Kobe is still a star is laughable though, he's nothing more than a role player. You could switch him with literally 200 players around the league who would make the lakers as good or better.

It's simply staggering how overrated he is at this point.

Just look at the Olympic team. It's 8 stars, 1 rookie, Westbrook, carmelo, and Kobe.

Westbrook is a semi star, Melo isn't a star at all but his game translates better to international. And then you have Kobe playing the role of semi washed up veteran being a figure head and team captain who hogs the spotlight even though he increases the chance of someone upsetting us.

8/10/2012 11:35:45 PM

^ whoops forgot about deron Williams a former star who lost his talent somewhere and can't seem to find it

8/11/2012 12:09:42 AM

so Kobe isn't a top-200 player in the NBA?

8/11/2012 1:24:46 AM

couldn't even start on the bobcats

8/11/2012 1:25:23 AM

Face forgot to watch the last few games of the olympics (you know, the games that matter) before he made his assessment on Kobe and Carmelo. Kobe had extra pep in his step in the first quarter after the Howard trade.

8/11/2012 4:07:26 AM

I think people keep forgetting how Nash's 3-point shooting will effect the team as well. They focus on his passing and Howard's inside presence...but that guy is going to get a stupid amount of wide open looks next year. How many double teams did the rest of Phoenix's team receive last year?

8/11/2012 9:32:16 AM

Nash is surprisingly one of the most underrated shooters in the league. The guy is one of the best shooters of all time. His percentages at the PG position are out of this world. Not to mention that a great deal of shots are off the dribble or as the shot clock counts down because he seems to never want to shoot.

8/11/2012 12:55:30 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0wiLTsDqag

No fucking way

8/19/2012 12:30:31 PM

movie would've been cool if they didn't make the kid dunk

8/19/2012 2:46:23 PM

^^ super [old]

8/19/2012 2:50:53 PM

My thoughts on the KD flick

8/20/2012 12:11:09 PM

Herringbone-pattern court



[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 11:19 AM. Reason : asdf]

9/12/2012 11:17:43 AM

Houston also upgraded their arena.

[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 2:03 PM. Reason : ;]

9/12/2012 2:03:43 PM

Wow, Nets just got the steal of the offseason.

Josh Childress is still a top SG and they got him for the MINIMUM. That's a huge signing.

9/13/2012 9:50:16 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnXQsJ8ung8

Scalabrine retired

9/13/2012 10:14:12 PM

Player ranking is pretty interesting. This is the progress so far.
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/8372936/2012-nba-player-rankings-71-80

9/13/2012 10:16:43 PM

oh, he back

9/18/2012 3:58:05 PM

^^ Harden in at 26. Would love some face commentary on these rankings

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/8402506/2012-nba-player-rankings-26-30

9/20/2012 7:14:04 PM

Just wanted to point out that replacing Greg Stiemsma with Darko is the biggest dropoff of the offseason for any team.

The Celtics were in an enviable position this offseason with so much cap room but they completely crapped their pants adding three hobos in Jeff Green, Darko, and Fab Melo.

Sullinger should be good and Terry is okay, but they had a lot of cap room and somehow made themselves worse.


And serious LOL for the Knicks signing Rasheed Wallace. If he gets to play he's potentially the worst rotation player in the league not named Byron Mullens.

10/2/2012 12:12:49 AM

Why? Is he very bad already?

10/2/2012 11:45:40 AM

Yeah rasheed was TERRIBLE his last year in Boston. Can't rebound or defend anymore and shoots horribly. Can't imagine how out of shape he is now after a year off.


Can't stop laughing about dwight howards farts. Silent, loud , smelly. Howard can do it all apparently

10/2/2012 5:13:24 PM

Tmac is going to China too. Now the Houston Rockets becomes Chinese Rockets.

10/8/2012 8:33:39 PM

can anyone with ESPN Insider post John Hollinger's team forecast?

10/9/2012 3:18:09 AM

bttt

Possibly some big time stuff happening this offseason??

What do the back-to-back champs do? Can they get Allen back? Birdman? Do they even think about doing something with Wade and/or Bosh?

Does Ginobili retire?

Does Howard go anywhere?

Any big draft moves? Just saw where the Bulls were looking to move Deng to Washington for the #3 pick and Okafor.

6/25/2013 8:35:28 AM

this thread is hella funny now reading back over it.

6/25/2013 8:38:21 AM

Quote :

"Wow, Nets just got the steal of the offseason. Josh Childress is still a top SG and they got him for the MINIMUM. That's a huge signing."

Can't see them finishing better than 8th in the east without him

[Edited on June 25, 2013 at 9:45 AM. Reason : my typing was worse than that childress observation]

6/25/2013 9:44:48 AM

Quote :

"@ESPNChrisPalmer 47m Rockets can forget about Chris Paul but Harden/Howard/Parsons would be the NBA's best trio."

very face-like statement

6/26/2013 6:29:42 PM

Well it obviously be right there.

And the nets didnt play childress but they gave a ton of minutes to shitty guys like joe Johnson, stackhouse, brooks, and wallace. Not my fault

6/26/2013 7:23:05 PM

if players with low amount of minutes are able to be stars, then why are minutes the excuse when players play like crap?

6/26/2013 7:25:28 PM

That doesn't make sense. He didnt play.

Like birdman was always a star. Karl just didnt play him last few years because hes dumb. That doesn't make birdman not a good player.

6/26/2013 7:31:11 PM