the lakers have just pooped their big-boy pants: 2012-2013 NBA regular season thread (part 2)

lakers up 3 with the ball, kobe backs down austin rivers, double team is forced to come, kobe dishes to earl clark who swings to nash for a completely uncontested 3

pau out last few mins. seriously

Monty Williams must be working under the idea that austin needs such experience to develop his nba game and his future development is more important than trying to win games today. I am not sure whose idea this is, but he seems to be working under that idea. My prediction was that Austin would be sent down to d-league right about now, so he could develop his game in a more appropriate setting.

He'll never come back though.

Lakers were kinda fun to watch tonight.

lakers are kind of a stealth fun team to watch, both for the schadenfreude and they're actually near the top in the league in pace. nothing like the recent past

14-8-11 for kobe iguodala, lmao this fin guy

Stealth fun? Fun fun! <3 <3 <3 pg Kobebean. Would love to read a long-formish piece about the last few weeks in Lakerland that isn't some dumb speculative opinion piece. D'Antoni makes it sound like he finally had some revelation that his system wasn't fitting the team; but, I feel like there was some silent mutiny and all the vets just decided to do what they thought worked.

Also think Kobe leads all athletes in quoted expletives. "I'm like Neo out this m----- f-----."

And now that Greivis Vasquez is getting pt, Davis/Lopez/Gordon/Vasquez/Anderson will be a really fun team to watch next year. Shame they whiffed on Rivers.

http://rlv.zcache.com/fear_the_pelicans_tee_shirts-r06680fcc67c741bfab2249bc9d89fb74_804gs_216.jpg

Rivers missed like 15 layups last night.

Seemed like anyway.

he was actually 3-8, which raised his season average. I'm not joking. On the season he's shooting 33%.

haha

http://i.imgur.com/5tTpXSH.jpg

haha, tremendous.

guys, http://www.cbssports.com/nba/blog/eye-on-basketball/21622844/behind-the-screen-inside-the-defensive-mind-of-andre-iguodala

front page of espn all on lakers nutsack today... u beat the hornets f'christsake!

I don't know what to make of Klosterman on Royce White. Interesting, at least:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8890734/chuck-klosterman-royce-white

the Lakers are on a rollllll!!!

White's problems began at age 165, in a cabin outside of Minneapolis, on the first (and only) day he ever smoked marijuana. The episode may superficially seem like a standard case of weed-induced paranoia, but that's not how it felt to White. "I think it was in Forest Lake, Minnesota," he recalls. "I had an out-of-body experience. It felt like I was watching myself have the experience. It was so traumatic for me, and I had such a bad reaction, I started having panic attacks for the next two or three months, in rapid succession. Sometimes two or three a day."

The son of a cosmetologist and a social worker, White was prescribed Prozac at the age of 18 (he's still on it today).

trivia: royce white coach on college was fred hoiberg

done in by endless footnotes I see

heard royce talk on PTI, he's a very well spoken dude

...

lol obv didn't mean to code that racially, just meant he was able to explain very clearly what his problems have been, what he's looking for going forward, what he wants from the rockets and the NBA - he framed his struggle in terms of wanting a modern mental health system of care for everybody in the NBA, didn't center it at all around himself

cheers 2 u for keeping me on my toes, tho

; )

front page of espn all on lakers nutsack today... u beat the hornets f'christsake!

― am0n, Wednesday, January 30, 2013 5:01 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this also happened when they beat the bucks and the cavs. IN A ROW.

whatta feat

Rivers missed like 15 layups last night.

― queef ka queef (Spottie_Ottie_Dope), Wednesday, January 30, 2013 9:20 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seemed like anyway.

― queef ka queef (Spottie_Ottie_Dope), Wednesday, January 30, 2013 9:20 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2013/0129/grantland_kg_worst_googly_576.jpg

i feel like big baby takes 80% of his shots from that space

At 35%, Austin Rivers is shooting ABOVE his season average on shots at the rim.

He is so, so horrible.

Is he that bad a shooter? He shot 43.3/36.5 3pt in his last year at Duke, which isn't terrible. Is it just that he can't get separation? Or is he overwhelmed and flailing? Clearly he can shoot better than he's demonstrated so far.

I think he's overwhelmed. He was more athletic than most of his competition in college but isn't more athletic than most NBA guys. He can't get separation, can't jump over dudes, and hasn't made any adjustments to make it work.

43/36 are pretty bad numbers for a college player

he's not a good shooter, by any means. But his athleticism covered that up to some extent when he was at Duke.

Rivers' shooting form is a total trainwreck

Rivers left college after his freshman year, right? Here are another player's stats from freshman, sophomore, and junior year:

2010-11 43.8/34.5
2009-10 43.1/39.3
2008-09 43.4/37.4

If you guessed Damian Lillard you are correct.

not sure those are 1-to-1 comparisons considering team and role

http://cdn2.elitedaily.com/elite/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/elite-daily-austin-rivers-nba-draft2.jpg

not sure those are 1-to-1 comparisons considering team and role

They're both guards who pass and shoot. It's not like I compared him to a center or something. Plus, Rivers played in the ACC, so the competition was tougher.

That said, it seemed like all the scouts saw this coming, and a lot of those same scouts were very high on Lillard. It's interesting!

Lillard is 10x the athlete Rivers is, for one thing

also doesn't shoot like he's tossing a watermelon over a fence

And Lillard busted his ass to get better, hence the jump in shooting % from his first three years to his last, even as his role increased.

lol matt

hence the jump in shooting % from his first three years to his last, even as his role increased.

Why didn't it increase over that three year span?

Lillard is 10x the athlete Rivers is, for one thing

So Rivers was just getting by on his athleticism, but Lillard was working hard. But Lillard also was a better athlete?

Clearly Lillard was more of the focal point of his offense, whereas Rivers had Curry and etc.

Rivers was iso'ing and beating 2nd-rate defenders with elaborate crossovers and then finishing (sometimes). But he's not athletic or quick enough to do that in the NBA.

lillard basically was the offense + he contributed more to the game. i'm sure austin's shooting numbers will improve but even that wasn't exactly the point when he came out of college.