Down 27 at home on opening night. This team sucks.

The rockets freight train paid a visit

Damn, first round draft pick Julius Randle stretchered off with his leg in an air cast in game one of the season. Brutal for the Lakers.

This isn't a big mystery. Look at their roster. They have:
Boozer: 4 years and counting from playing star-level bball.
Bryant: 36 years old. Coming off of a major injury that can be a career-ender among young guys.
Lin: he's a pretty good off-the-bench, insta-offense guy, but he shouldn't be starting and he definitely shouldn't be the third best guy on the team (and he might be better than Boozer at this point)
Randle: rookie who could grow into a stud, but he's a few years from that

Then it's a bunch of trash. Wesley Johnson, Jordan Hill, Xavier Henry, Jordan Clarkson, Ronnie Price...

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The rockets freight train paid a visit

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A lot of teams are going to do this. The Lakers are utter s**t this year.

They have Sw**** P on their team so they are automatically in my top 5 favorite teams.

They are going to win less than 30 games, but it's going to be hilarious!

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The rockets freight train paid a visit

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A lot of teams are going to do this. The Lakers are utter s**t this year.

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And I'm gonna enjoy every minute of it

I just read that Randle broke his leg. That is the life in Kobe World.

The Lakers medical staff told Rachel Nichols that Randle broke his leg. So you can cross him off the list. Now we're down to a 36 year old coming off of major surgery and who's barely played in the last 18 months, a half washed-up has-been, a 6th man, and a bunch of trash.


The Lakers are going to be absolutely horrific this year.

No one will enjoy this garbage ass Lakers team more than I will

Dwight dodged a bullet by getting the hell out of there

It's amazing how much the "will to win" ability that great players are credited with disappear when those great players aren't surrounded by other great players.

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Hi SimpleBay. We know you are reading this thread. Might as well say hello.

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I'm almost positive simple is a Clippers fan now.

The Lakers have 20 nationally televised games.

Might actually be a good thing for the Lakers that Randle went down. They AT BEST (and that's stretching it) would have been an eight seed even with him out there. They likely just moved up five spots in the 2015 lottery, at a minimum. Nash is off the book in 2015, Kobe comes off the books in 2016, then they can open up the checkbook while their two high draft picks are still on the rookie salary scale.

Thanks to Kobe's selfishness in accepting that contract, he will never play for a winner again and the Lakers will suck for the next two years. But it may just be two years that the Lakers are down. Thanks to Randle's injury, the timetable for the Lakers being relevant again post-Kobe may have been sped up significantly if they choose wisely next June.

It's so obnoxious to me to have these awful teams getting so much national tv time. Just this week we get the Knicks and Lakers. They are so terrible. Ruined both games with their excuse of a team. I mean, it doesn't hurt my feelings at all to watch the Lakers suck or to watch Derek Fisher have to suffer with the Knicks. But it sure would be nice to get to see Anthony Davis play, catch the super quick Suns or watch the Hornets.

I know it's all about money for these national games. But come on, 20 games for the Lakers? **** off.

The Lakers 2014-15 season should win an Emmy for best comedy!

.....is that really necessary Kobe?

Kobe To Dwight Howard: "Soft Mother....

The asshurt

Honestly this gif will be one of the most used of the season.

Especially at the end when Houston gets bounced earlier than it should again.

I don't like the Lakers and will enjoy their lack of success this year.

I also have not been a big fan of Kobe, but over the last couple of years, I've come to really respect the guy. He's a bad ass. He's not MJ, but he's still a bad ass and I think he's more man than Lebron.

I used to like Kobe (we're talking 8-10 years ago), but the last few years have really soured me on him. His desire to win comes in second place to his desire for personal glory. Personally, I'm a competitor first and an egomaniac second. I don't care if you think I was the reason we won as long as we did win. Kobe would rather look good while losing than blend in while winning. That makes it hard for me to like him even if he weren't a jerk.

I think if it were about personal glory, he'd play until he breaks Kareem's record. He does however have a massive god complex and is a control freak. It will be interesting to watch his demeanor this season when he realizes he can't do it all, just like he couldn't pre-Gasol, and they just keep on losing and losing. With a nod to Jim Buss for some horrible contracts the last three years, Kobe has no one to blame but himself for his fate after signing that contract.

What happened is they can't defend and people will realize Dantoni actually overachieved with last years team.

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I used to like Kobe (we're talking 8-10 years ago), but the last few years have really soured me on him. His desire to win comes in second place to his desire for personal glory. Personally, I'm a competitor first and an egomaniac second. I don't care if you think I was the reason we won as long as we did win. Kobe would rather look good while losing than blend in while winning. That makes it hard for me to like him even if he weren't a jerk.

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This makes zero sense. Why would he try to "blend in" when everyone around him sucks. He sure as hell wasn't blending in when they were winning rings. He was mashing in people's faces and talking **** since high school.

And just because I know it will be brought up, LeBron and the Cavs getting to the finals during his first tenure wasn't a case of him blending in with his crappy teammates. It was a case of his crappy teammates not being enough.

LeBron "taking" the Cavs to the finals is basically what Allen Iverson did in 2001, yet Iverson is still considered a "look good while losing" guy while LeBron is idolized for the same level of (relative) success prior to fleeing to Miami.

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This makes zero sense. Why would he try to "blend in" when everyone around him sucks. He sure as hell wasn't blending in when they were winning rings. He was mashing in people's faces and talking **** since high school.

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I think you missed the point. I'm talking about the Kobe who will push teammates out if they overshadow him, insist on taking bad shots to the team's detriment in clutch situations, refuse to play just to prove how important he is, refuse coaching, refuse to play within an offensive philosophy, take outsized, overvalued contracts that hamper his team's ability to build a roster, and do all the myriad things to make everything about him instead of about winning.

Obviously he shouldn't play down to the level of bad teammates. I don't know why you tried to read that into my post. Be a teammate though? That's not such a hard thing, or at least it isn't for most of the great players that I like.

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And just because I know it will be brought up, LeBron and the Cavs getting to the finals during his first tenure wasn't a case of him blending in with his crappy teammates. It was a case of his crappy teammates not being enough.

LeBron "taking" the Cavs to the finals is basically what Allen Iverson did in 2001, yet Iverson is still considered a "look good while losing" guy while LeBron is idolized for the same level of (relative) success prior to fleeing to Miami.

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This doesn't make sense, so I'm not really sure how to respond to it. Yes, Lebron is the best basketball player on the planet, renowned for his uber-efficient, unselfish style of play, and surpassed both Iverson and Kobe on most all-time lists a couple years ago. Next question.

Of course it makes sense. Without fail, whenever someone says Kobe has/had terrible support, people bring up LeBron and the Cavs.

"Well, LeBron took the Cavs to the Finals all by himself..."

And lost. Got swept actually. Yet, people point out LeBron's "unselfishness" as the driver behind that team's success. They got to the Finals the same way Allen Iverson's team got to the Finals - behind the otherworldly play of an all-time great. Yet, Iverson never gets the credit that LeBron gets. People still lump Iverson into the "me-first" only category despite performing better than LeBron did in the Finals. But only LeBron gets the pass.

Kobe has terrible teammates again this year. But somehow he gets all the blame. Last night, he led the team in scoring and rebounds. AS A 36-YEARS OLD RECOVERING FROM A SHATTERED KNEECAP. This while the rest of the Laker guards went 2 for 17 from the field.

I don't get the Kobe hate. Sorry.

0-4

-17 Point Differential

As long as his shooting percentage is reasonable (around 45%; it's at 42 right now), I don't think he can be blamed too much as far on-court results. Now if you want to blame him for not having good teammates because of that contract, then that's different. They are down four players already and aren't good enough to be down any.