{"id":1735,"date":"2007-10-29T20:14:56","date_gmt":"2007-10-30T01:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/los-angeles-lakers\/"},"modified":"2007-10-29T20:14:56","modified_gmt":"2007-10-30T01:14:56","slug":"los-angeles-lakers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/los-angeles-lakers","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Predicted Record<\/strong>
\n44-38 (Tom), 40-42 (Gil)<\/p>\n

Last Year’s Record<\/strong>
\n42-40<\/p>\n

Tom’s Commentary<\/strong>
\nRecalling the hysterical flailing about of Kobe Bryant last spring about his current employer and the deathly serious manner in which sports reporters engaged the story reminds me that basketball season means more Stephen A. Smith, not less. I’m not sure I’m up to the effort of processing Smith as humor right away, and not doing so is madness, so it might be the All-Star break before I begin to pay attention to the sport again.<\/p>\n

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Kobe Bryant is really good and his teammates really aren’t, although Bynum, Odom and Walton will all have games where if you’re drunk when you see it you might swear differently. Bryant has neglected to have forceful sex with any mostly in-retrospect-unwilling partners recently, which in today’s professional sports landscape makes him a wise ambassador of the game.<\/p>\n

Rejoinder From Gil<\/strong>
\nNow that Etan Thomas has had surgery for the same heart condition that Ronny Turiaf suffered from, I think we need to ban bulky, dreadlocked power forwards from the NBA.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I’m finally ready to admit that Lamar Odom is overrated, that Luke Walton will never play any better, and that Andrew Bynum<\/a> really doesn’t bear much of a resemblance to Tracy Morgan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gratuitous Comics Connection<\/strong>
\nLos Angeles boasts some of the greatest comic book shops in the world, including Meltdown, Golden Apple and The Secret Headquarters.<\/p>\n

Gratuitous Pharma Connection<\/strong>
\nPfizer recently formed a “biotech incubator” in La Jolla, in hopes of developing some new drugs to replace the tens of billions of dollars in revenues that they’ll be losing in a few years when Lipitor goes generic. I think it’s at aintgonnahappen.com.<\/p>\n

The Bottom Line<\/strong>
\nYou’re in trouble when your journeyman center misses the entire season with ankle surgery, walks back out on the floor and immediately reclaims the starting spot. Supposedly, Kobe’s going to be traded around 45 minutes after I post this preview. I’m hoping he ends up on the Nets, traded for Vince Carter and spare parts. –GR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Predicted Record 44-38 (Tom), 40-42 (Gil) Last Year’s Record 42-40 Tom’s Commentary Recalling the hysterical flailing about of Kobe Bryant last spring about his current employer and the deathly serious manner in which sports reporters engaged the story reminds me that basketball season means more Stephen A. Smith, not less. I’m not sure I’m up … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Los Angeles Lakers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1713,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"nba0708index.php","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1735","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P4C7K-rZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1745,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/season-honors","url_meta":{"origin":1735,"position":0},"title":"Season Honors","author":"Gil","date":"October 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"TEAM HONORS NBA Championship Tom: Phoenix Over Miami Craig: Spurs over Dallas and then some eastern conference team, say the Pistons Gil: Spurs beat Phoenix, wallop the Bulls. Surprise Playoff Teams Tom: Charlotte, Portland Craig: NJ and Lakers Gil: Milwaukee, Lakers (post-Kobe trade) Surprise Non-Playoff Teams Tom: Golden State, Washington\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1739,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/chicago-bulls","url_meta":{"origin":1735,"position":1},"title":"Chicago Bulls","author":"Gil","date":"October 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Predicted Record 54-28 (Tom), 58-24 (Gil) Last Year's Record 49-33 Gil's Commentary Everybody thinks they're going to trade for Kobe Bryant and pair him up with Luol Deng to form a Jordan-Pippen combo. I like Deng's game, but he's no Scottie. If they don't go through with a trade, then\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1723,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/orlando-magic","url_meta":{"origin":1735,"position":2},"title":"Orlando Magic","author":"Gil","date":"October 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Predicted Record 44-38 (Tom), 50-32 (Gil) Last Year's Record 40-42 Gil's Commentary Orlando made the biggest free-agent splash in the off-season, if you consider wildly overpaying for a limited player to be a big splash. The Magic brought in Rashard Lewis, who will -- like Jason Richardson in Charlotte --\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1734,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/los-angeles-clippers","url_meta":{"origin":1735,"position":3},"title":"Los Angeles Clippers","author":"Gil","date":"October 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Predicted Record 42-40 (Tom), 27-55 (Gil) Last Year's Record 40-42 Tom's Commentary I'm going to guess they're better this year, as Chris Kaman took a year off to stuff dollar bills from his massive contract extension into his suit like a Red Skelton sketch and look at himself in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1725,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/denver-nuggets","url_meta":{"origin":1735,"position":4},"title":"Denver Nuggets","author":"Gil","date":"October 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Predicted Record 42-40 (Tom), 48-34 (Gil) Last Year's Record 45-37 Tom's Commentary The primary benefit of having George Karl as your coach is that he can accelerate the schedule for young players at a certain level of development 10-12 wins and two to three years ahead of the usual learning\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/denver-nuggets#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1733,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/golden-state-warriors","url_meta":{"origin":1735,"position":5},"title":"Golden State Warriors","author":"Gil","date":"October 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Predicted Record 45-37 (Tom), 34-48 (Gil) Last Year's Record 42-40 Tom's Commentary The way the playoff surprise teams usually work is to give their fans a better regular season than the previous one, followed by a playoff run that fails to match the previous season's magic on any level, including\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/golden-state-warriors#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1735\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}