Jeremy Lin - do NY match or not?

No way imo, $14mil in the 3rd year is a no go. Especially now you've got a pretty decent PG combo in Felton + Kidd.

And as for not matching Fields' offer, that was just stupid money. Bet Fields and his Agent were laughing all the way to the bank.

NY won't match the Rockets offer. Would be hit for $85 million in luxury tax in the 3rd year. No way.

Monster trade sets up the Lakers for a title run and gives Philly a great shot in the East this year.

It still put's Philly behind Boston, Miami and Chicago. It put's the Lakers favourites though. Nash, Kobe, Metta, Pau, D12 as the starters and Blake, Ebanks, Jamison, McRoberts, Hill as the bench. Frightening, I can still see us adding a shooting guard to the mix.

Chicago are buggered this year thanks to the Rose injury. Top 4 in the East will be Miami, Boston, Philly & Indy.

Rose will be back for the playoffs. Still a great defensive team without him as they proved last year. Losing Asik will affect them slightly. Shaq agrees anyhow. That's good enough for me.

McRoberts went to Orlando didn't he?

And Hill went to the Clippers?

Signing Jamison before the trade was huge for the Lakers, gives their second unit a huge boost which would have been their weakness behind that awesome starting unit.

Big question for the Lakers will be how unselfish is Kobe going to be?

Nash will make plays for everybody if he's given the keys, but if it becomes Kobe throwing random shots from everywhere on the court like he did for spells this season, they will really struggle to make it happen.

Do you think they'll try and get rid of Gasol?

Jordan Hill is a great second unit guy. McRoberts is gone, I didn't know he'd been added to trade. Jamison will play the four with the talented Ebanks playing the three. Still a very strong second unit. Oh, and we signed Jodie Meeks who is a great 3 point shooter and above average defensive player.

Howard
Gasol
Artest
Bryant
Nash

Hill
Jamison
Ebanks
Meeks
Blake

Sacre
Odom-Johnson
Morris

Gasol won't get traded either Roddy , watching Pau run the pick n roll with Nash will be awesome. I did think they would try though, he was part of one of the rumoured packages for Dwight as the Lakers were hoping to get rid of the 38.5 he's owed over the next two years,

Apologies fella, forgot about Jordan Hill. Has he re-signed yet? Thought he was heading to T'Wolves at one point. I don't rate Ebanks though, or Blake. I suppose the thing is you could still just effectively split your starting unit in half and play them with scrubs and you'd still win most games.


Do not understand why Orlando did this though, the Brooklyn trade that was offered got them better young players, as well as 4 1st round DP. Think they just did it to spite Dwight.

I'm going to give you something to look out for, I may be wrong but I will put it out there. There is no way that Dwight Howard will sign an extension with the lakers, I think you will already know why as he will be looking for the 5 year max deal which he can only sign as a free agent and resign with his current team, so expect him to hit free agency like D-Will did and return to LA. he will then be hitting his next free agency period at age 31 when he should be able to command another max deal(teams typically don't give max deals to players over this age). Andrew Bynum is a different story, he won't hit free agency and will only want a 4 year deal and not the max Dwight will be looking for. The reason why you ask? It's because if he were to sign the five year max deal it would take him past the 31 years old marker thus preventing him from getting a second max contract, so by signing the four year deal he would hit free agency before age 31 and before the CBA can be collectively bargained again, he would have also accumulated more service in the league giving him a better max deal. Now you're wondering why he hasn't signed an extension straight away? Right, the reason he hasn't yet signed one with the Sixers is because he has to be there for 6 months before signing the extension, the reason he didn't sign the extension with the Lakers is because had he done so then the Lakers would not have been able to trade him for six months. It work's the other way.

I hope that make's sense.