I love you guy's, you keep asking really good question!!!! After 1972-1973 Lakers the Lakers had 3 championship runs. Let's analyze how did they get there. In analyzing how they got there in the past, let's see is there any hope for the future. To be continued. (I do work for a living) lol The old owner Jack Kent Cook knew you need to build a Championship team around a Dominate Center. So he traded practically his whole team for Lew Al Cinder. (AKA you should know who that is) But Kareem couldn't win it all by himself. Back in those day's a smart team could pick the pocket of a dumb team. They traded an over the hill Gail Goodridge for 2 number 1 draft picks. Guess who they got with those 2 number one picks. Magic Johnson and James worthy the core of ShowTime. The next championship run they got was Shaq and Kobe. That was all the two Jerry's who pulled that one off. The last run was Kobe & Gasol and company, they bought that team by paying the Luxury tax and didn't care. Now with the new Luxury tax rules you can't do that anymore. So what hope do the Lakers have now with Jim Buss calling the shots????? Little or none!!!! So going back to my original statement, "if the Lakers get back to the level of the Clippers." I think all points considered they would be doing pretty good!!!!!
Last edited by etucker1959; 05-20-2015 at 03:03 PM.
I'm not convinced that the Lakers recipe for success 30+ years ago is really relevant to what it takes to build a championship team today. Whether you rebuild through the draft or rebuild through free agency, there a lot of intangibles and things that need to go right during the season and the playoffs.
If the Lakers get back to the level of the Clippers, which I assume you mean getting booted out of the playoffs in the 2nd round, they will not be "doing pretty good", they will be just like the Clippers.....mediocre
Interesting you use the word mediocre to describe going to the seventh game of the 2nd round. I thought mediocre was a 500 team just missing the playoffs. Or a team that barely makes the playoffs and is eliminated in the first round without winning a game. You guy's only seem to have 3 category's of judgment for teams. Elite teams with only 4 making that cut. Mediocre with less then half the teams make it that far and all the rest are just terrible!!!
Last edited by etucker1959; 05-20-2015 at 11:00 PM.
There are only 30 teams in the NBA and 8 of them make it to the 2nd round of the playoffs so I really don't think it's anything special (that's like the 75th percentile). I didn't say the Clippers were a bad team, just that they were nothing special and DEFINITELY not a team to try and be like.
I think "elite" should actually be reserved for the 2 best teams in the NBA, which we all hope is the 2 teams playing in the Finals but that has not always been the case in the past.
The more I thought about it, you guy's are being a little too hard on the Clippers. Their only a player or two away from competing for the whole enchilada!!!! Yet most of you are calling them mediocre or worse!!!! Competing for a ring is not just a two team deal. It's usually a four or five (Elite) team deal, based on who stay's the healthiest or who peaks at just the right time or get's that lucky bounce. I love metaphoric comparisons, so let's do one. There are 30 NBA teams, about the same size of a typical elementary school class room. In giving out grades it has been suggested only 2 teams should be given the elite category classification in the NBA. (I take it the 2 teams that are in the finals) Now let's go back to our classroom comparison and give out the A's. Well if you use the same grading system, that means 2 students out of 30 would get an A. The Clippers got to the seventh game of the second round and are called Mediocre by most people who commented on this thread. Mediocre by our modern definition means below average. Which in a classroom grading system is a D. So if the Clippers had won the second round series and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, I guess they would have gotten a B grade. So in our classroom comparison that means 2 students out of 30 would have gotten a B grade. So that means approximately 10 teams would be getting a D grade and 16 teams would get an F grade. Now let's go back to our classroom comparison. Final grades for our 30 students. There would be 2 A's given, 2 B's given, 10 D's given and 16 F's given. "THANK GOD YOU PEOPLE ARE NOT SCHOOL TEACHERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!" lol lol lol lol lol lol
Last edited by etucker1959; 05-22-2015 at 02:04 PM.
I'm a Laker fan all the way and watched as much of the Lakers as I could without having to swallow the puke that kept coming up, but mark my words Clipper fans.
The Lakers will win another Championship before you get your first conference title.
Brent