carver high

Much respect to the always excellent Henry Abbott and this post over on True Hoop.

In the midst of the Mavs-Warriors spectacle, True Hoop goes into a (suprisingly) long and intriguing examination of what the Lakers need to do to get back to winning the titles that seemed, just a few years back, to be their birthright. It is clear that changes are in order this off-season for the Lakers and any kind of championship "solution" will take more than Kupchak and the various Busses making the right call on re-signing Turiaf or Chris Mihm. The Lakers are not really one player away, unless that player is a time-traveling 29 year-old Shaq or Wilt.

The one piece the Lakers have that other teams seem to want is Bynum, and that is exactly the piece they need to keep. There, I said it. The Lakers HAVE to keep Andrew Bynum if they ever expect to win another NBA title while Kobe plays for them.

Keeping the 19-year old is certainly not a guarantee that they will win a title. The kid may never really develop into anything more than a decent player. If Bynum becomes Olowokandi 2.0 or Kwame with a Tracy Morgan mask on, then this plan goes nowhere. But all the other plans are already at nowhere, so why choose them?

Catching up in the West on Kobe's time table
Most of the discussions about what to do next revolve the miles on Kobe and his ever-closing window. That is certainly a concern, but look at it this way. Right now there are three REALLY tough teams ahead of the Lakers in the West - PHX, DAL and SA. How can the Lakers pass those teams while those squads are at the current high level? What player(s) take the Lakers to a level where they have a legitimate chance at going through all three (or at least two) of those teams in next year's playoffs? Predicting the time-table of how long Duncan or Nash will be dominant is obviously iffy, but no more so that predicting how long Kobe will be at his physical peak.

The Lakers need to get better, but a case can also be made that timing some play-off push for the next couple of seasons in the West is like leaving at 6pm to drive on the 405 freeway with the rest of the stand-still traffic. Why make crazy, "mortgage the future" moves that will make your team better RIGHT NOW, when "now" falls during rush hour?

Bynum for who?
Who is it that the Lakers can get for Bynaum that will make them "better" enough? Garnett? Kidd? Those players would certainly make the Lakers better than the seventh seed, but is that really the goal? The Lakers would win more games during the 07/08 season if they had KG rather than Bynum playing for them - but they still wouldn't be a title contender. Who or what else would the T-Wolves want for their franchise? No Bynum and no Odom would make KG and KB look pretty lonely.

The Lakers had the two best players in the NBA on the same team when they won those three titles. Kobe might still be atop that list but Jermaine ONeal, KG or Kidd is not. Plus, having two guys making huge money is a bad salary structure for a team. It barely worked with the NBA's two absolute best players, why would it work better with #1 and #17? #3 and #21?

Young & Cheap
Teams need to have some young players with spring in their step and cheap, rookie contracts. Dallas is as good as they are because of Josh Howard and Devin Harris as much as any of the veterans. Tony Parker is a bargain in San Antonio and the same goes for Diaw and Barbosa in Phoenix. That is how teams make that leap - they draft someone who turns into a stud. Free agents can help fill in gaps, but FAs are too expensive and too old/injury prone to be the core of a team. Shaq coming to the Lakers happened under the old collective bargaining agreement, the rules are different now.

The reason the Lakers were winning titles was because they drafted a high-school kid who BECAME Kobe. If that draft pick had become Richard Jefferson (a very good player) they Lakers would not have won those titles. The Lakers have drafted too many Devean Georges and Sasha Vujacic's lately. Not every draft pick can be a winner, but only one team wins the title and that is the team that gets something extra-special without having to spend a lot of resources (salary or trading away guys) to get them.

There will be a lot of pressure from the local fans to make a move - any move. Trade Kobe! Cut Kwame! Fire Phil! That is an appealing path, but it doesn't lead anywhere. as a fan, I want the Lakers to be a team that gets better, not one that acts like it is trying to shut up the dudes on talk radio.

Can Bynum be that special player? I don't know. No one does. But if the Lakers really want to win titles (and not just hope to make the Western Semis) they need to bet big AND win big. Drafting Bynum was the bet, now they need to see if it pays off.

The word has reached the mainstream hoops press that Shaquille O'Neal may not be the MDE anymore. Wow, they catch on quick, don't they.

I live in LA, so sports talk radio (when I can handle it) is all about the Lakers and Kobe with a healthy dose of "why don't we have Shaq"-ing. Still. Two years later.

On the all-powerful ESPN site today their estimable Adrian Wojnarowski writes about how the Miami heat may be up against some kind of ticking clock in regards to the health and abilities of Mr. O'Neal:

As he reaches his mid-30s, with the way he lags on conditioning, this is it for him. Dwayne Wade is stepping into his best years just as Shaq is bidding goodbye to his own.

I checked their archive and I could not find anything from the Woj about the Lakers trading Shaq back in 2004. Maybe he saw this slow demise coming, but no one else did. In fact, Woj is ahead of the curve. "Dominant Shaq" passed away two years ago but most columnists still have play-off stories already written in their laptop and they are still going to file them. Shaq had 21 points and six rebounds in game 2 against the Nets - which is fine, but is anyone scared anymore?

Bill Simmons is currently linking to his archived piece from two summers ago about how the Lakers would regret giving up on the Big Self-Namer when they traded him for Lamar, an And1 gunner and a loveable but hobbling Rasta cartoon character. Billy Boston loves him some hoops but I wonder if he is paying attention. 2006Shaq ranks nowhere on the vengeance scale.

Don’t get me wrong. The Lakers would have been better these last two years if they still had Shaq. Shaq is still the best center in the league, period. But placing ahead of Scaredy-Yao, One-Legged Amare and Chris Kaman is not exactly ensconcing oneself in any kind of Pantheon.

These last two seasons were not the reason Shaq left LA. The problem was the future.

I repeat, this is not about Shaq sucking. He doesn’t. He just costs too much. That’s it. It’s all about money. Shaq was demanding big money for many years from the Lakers. In my mind, the first two year would have been worth the money to the Lakers. The next one (this would be next season) miiightbe worth the money. Check out what Shaq will be making in the 09/10 season on Hoops Hype. The two or three additional years Shaq wanted would have been salary cap killing albatrosses sure to drag down Kobe’s prime years. Instead, they will be dragging down Wade’s prime years. Enjoy it Miami.

In 2004, Simmons wrote:

We've been here before. In 1992, Philly made the EXACT SAME MISTAKE with a disgruntled Sir Charles, swapping him for 40 cents on the dollar (Jeff Hornacek, Andrew Lang and Tim Perry). In 1982, Houston traded Moses to Philly for Caldwell Jones and a piddling No. 1. In 1975, Milwaukee traded Kareem for Brian Winters, Junior Bridgeman, Laverne and Shirley.

The Lakers did not do much better than the Rockets or Sixers while trading their All-Star big. I have lots of problems with what Kupchak got for Shaq – but the deal had to get done. In cases like that, teams never get full value for the mega-star, and if the Lakers had held out, maybe no deal would have been made.

Still, the Lakers absolutely did the right thing in trading Shaq. He has been less effective in the two years the Heat have had him than he was in his last season in LA. He will no doubt be even less of a factor next season. The pattern is clear. For the money Shaq makes he not only has to be the best center in the Association, he has to be the best player. Otherwise, his salary is a crusher.

Other teams that traded classic big men (Kareem, Wilt, etc.) were different than the current Lakers in one respect. The old squads had no salary cap. That makes a big difference. Philly should have kept Wilt, because paying him big bucks had no competitive disadvantage. That’s why the Yankees can gamble on Kevin Brown and Randy Johnson, because if they are wrong, it is only money. Bad signings hurt Steinbrenner’s pocketbook, but not the team. If an NBA team is wrong about a $25mil per year signing – they are wiping out any chance to be competitive (unless Isaiah will take the bad contract off their hands).

It hurts Laker fans now to see Kobe without help, but remember how the once proud Celtics held on to their Bird/Chief/McHale nucleus a few seasons too long and never recovered. The Lakers dealt Shaq and ended up with Kobe and a chance. Rebuilding is a bitch, but horrible long-term contracts are worse.

If Shaq was still on the Lakers, would they be winning the NBA title this year? What about last year? The final season the Lakers with both Shaq and Kobe – the team-oriented Pistons beat them to a pulp in the Finals. Wouldn’t the same thing have happened these last two years? What does losing to the Spurs in the Conference Finals or the Pistons in the Finals do for the Lakers?

The Shaq-Kobe Lakers tested the “two max contract guys” technique and found it successful at times (3 titles) but lacking when facing quality, balanced opponents. Shaq plays with an 8/10th scale copy of Kobe now – and nobody thinks they are gonna beat the Pistons (assuming the use their home-court advantage to get by the Nets). How does Miami get better as Shaq gets worse and his money stays the same?

Four Mays from now, will the Heat be happy they are still paying Shaq? Will he still be obseqious calling Riley "Coach?" Or will the egotistical, angry Shaq emerge and rip the Heat for not playing him more when everyone in the arena (except Shaq) sees that it makes sense to give burn to someone younger?

It was certainly a mistake for the Bucks to unload Kareem back in the 1970s, but I don’t think the Lakers made an error trading Shaq. Shaq might have been a guarantee of success five years ago, but the oft-injured, heavier-by-the-week Sheriff Shaq of today is just not worth the risk to your salary cap future.

Signing the Shaq of today to a five year deal is like taking your kid’s college fund and playing blackjack with it. It might pay off, but the downside is terrible with the possible negative effects long outlasting the positive ones.

Shaq initially wowed them in South Beach with his funny one-liners and showing up at the MTV Awards looking like a Virginia tight-end flexing at the NFL combine – but how long did that last? Shaq was never completely in shape as a young athlete, and now when he really needs to be, his fitness is even worse. I don’t read the Miami papers that often, but watch for lots of grumbling as Shaq misses big portions of next regular season with his typical mysterious leg and foot injuries.

The Shaq era is over, even though he has not retired. Just like Jordan in DC, he plays on, but matters not. Shaq may play for six more seasons, but his time as a colossus astride the league has passed. Maybe soon the majority of the press will notice.

Simmons piece from 2004

Adrian Wojnarowski from May 10