It’s not devoid of all nutrition, but I think it’s as close to food shaped water as you can get. But anyway, interesting idea of LeBron almost being a Laker 2 years ago. I wonder if that would have been good or bad. Does that mean Ingram doesn’t get to play for last season? Who would he have tried to have us acquire? Do we still end up with Ball? I like things better the way they shook out with him not a Laker, losing in the Finals, us not trading for Cousins to accommodate him or something, Jim and Mitch still being in charge.
I agree completely. I don't think we were ready for LeBron and vice versa. Now we've got a solid foundation and while it was hell getting here, it'll be worth it if we can cash in this summer with some big FA landings.
sorry not sorry I know some of you want him here, but I absolutely don't. I'll continue to add content to the site as I have time, and probably add a submit content link, but it will have to do for now. BTW, in the bottom of every post are links to Lakersball. If you decide to browse the site, please take a second to click on a link or two to tell Google it's getting some traffic. There are no ads (Yet), but the backlinks are specifically for Lakersball SEO. Our rankings for key words has continued to improve this year, and we show up very well for many key search words/phrases. I put links on every post on Lakergifs as well, and I track progress on key words. Any clicks that come from associated basketball sites are a positive, so if you think about it, please click a link or two for the heck of it. Again, no revenue, just some basic traffic. If you type any of those key words, you'll see we show up next to much more established sites. Unfortunately there really isn't any credit for the old CL historical rankings, but overall being able to be found will help us grow the site over time. Thanks. and if you hate Lebron, double thanks!
As an example, I just did a search in Yahoo for the key phrase "Laker fans" as I just started dropping links online to Lakersball for that phrase. Since about a week ago, we went from 37th to 8th for that key word. Hopefully when we're done we'll show up on the first page of all search engines for key words or phrases we want to. Lebron is a gold mine for material, so it was very easy to put together the site over a couple of days lol. And why yes, I did tag Lebron.
I'm going to continue hoping LeBron signs here. I'd love to be relevant again instead of wallowing in the lottery hoping and praying that Paul George, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, LaMarcus Aldridge, DeMar Derozan, Kyle Lowry, Kevin Durant, etc sign here as FAs to play with 19 year olds while their rookie contracts expire and we are forced to overpay to keep them getting stuck in the same loop as teams like Orlando, Denver, Detroit, Charlotte, New Orleans, Phoenix, etc.
100%. I don't understand the Anti-LeBron crowd. "Yeah, we don't want the undisputed best player in the league, who makes every team he is on immediate Conference Final (if not NBA Final) caliber just by his presence, on our team! That's for the birds!" Just stupid. I'd like to see my team play past late April for the first time in, oh, about 6 years sometime soon. Don't get me wrong, I like Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram and all, but I'd trade them all for one person: Larry O'Brien
I get the hate crowd, I just can't be one of them anymore. I've been stripped of the "pride" of wanting our players doing it the right way and all that stuff. The Kobe/LeBron debate raged for 10+ years, I could see why some people would have a hard time letting that go. Hell, I still cringe watching the "highlight" videos of LeBron's flopping, but at this point I'm starving for competition and I'm willing to do what it takes to win. If someone like LeBron is willing to come here, I'm not for a second going to turn him away just because he and Kobe were "rivals" for so many years. I couldn't care less about all that. All I care about is competing again. I'm sick and tired of 20 win seasons.
Yeah, it's never really dawned on me (being not a local) that Laker fans would potentially see themselves as "right way/homegrown" types. I mean, I get that Magic and Kobe were lifers, but the teams history is littered with "hired guns": Kareem, Shaq, Pau...not going to list every role player that was acquired from outside the organization, but you get the gist. As someone who roots for actual "small market" teams in other sports, I wouldn't think other Laker fans would bat an eye at "quick fixing" the franchise by getting a guy like LeBron. That's who we are. We "buy" titles, like the Cowboys and the Yankees. I'm comfortable with that.
It's not just "stupid" like trading "them all" referring to the young crown jewells of our roster would be, though. For a small window chance at a Larry O'brien with no guarantees against GS for still a couple of years and then we are f***** in the future with no coming into their primes young stars / superstars. When LeBron's personality many of us cannot stand and the media circus that would be ALL about LeBron 24/7 at the age of 34-35 for huge dollars and as he becomes no longer worth it very likely ages 37-38. That said I have done a 180 with my thinking of locking PG first and then seeing who wants to play with him that the FO in their wisdom likes A LOT. Since PG's situation just became much more questionable as to becoming a Laker in 2018. So bird in hand has to kick in. If our young talent and this year's roster shows what it should show and LBJ is the first to want to come here (without stupid gutting of young talent for him) then so be it. Come on in.
The weird thing is I’m with you in that I do hope he signs here, because he will bring other players with him, and he will bring back credibility and the lack of respect right now for the Lakers. But at the same time, I also won’t care if he doesn’t sign here. I don’t not want him, but if we don’t get him, I still feel like in the long run we’ll be ok. We will be competitive again, we will be back on top again, even if it takes longer than we want. It took 12 years to win a title from ‘88 to 2000, we’re at 7 years now without one, I can remain patient. And yes, that was different because we were a playoff team for all but one year of that time and had stars, but that’s part of what I’m saying, regardless of peronnel this is going to take time and patience. In the end when we finally did win again it was that much sweeter because we had so many disappointments along the way and almost blew it again in game 7 of the 2000 WCF, but we finally broke through and it was incredible.
Okay, so first things first: I do apologise. Calling other "stupid" for having a differing opinion was baseless, unnecessary and flirting the line with "personal attack" that most message boards have rules against. It was a poor choice of verbage. You may be right, but I've learned that there is always some "budding, young superstar" that is untouchable. Ultimately, the likely scenario is that there is a <5% chance either kid becomes as good as even 33 year old LeBron. It's Peter Griffin picking the mystery box over the boat because, "Anything could be in there, EVEN A BOAT!" As opposed to the very miniscule coverage that the Ball family will be receiving this season in relation to the actual, on court Lakers? And how is LeBron's petty subtweeting any worse/different than "Mamba Mentality"? All evidence that is currently available says this is incorrect. LeBron has never had any major injury, even with the fullest of schedules (7 straight Finals appearances, USA Basketball, off court commitments). He has been the pinnacle of fitness and taking care of ones body since he has come into the league and has time and time again showed to possess one of the highest basketball IQs (which is always upgrading) we have ever seen, which, unless he develops VERY EARLY onset dementia, should still be there at 37-38.